Their amusements are indoor
games, and they come to despise or secretly to envy, the more
fortunate men who live outdoors.
Some of the outdoors men, on the other hand, become almost as one-
sided. Knowing nothing of the good fun that is in books they deny
themselves much pleasure, and take refuge in calling "high-brows"
the men who have simply more common sense and capacity for
enjoyment than themselves.
Mr. Roosevelt, more than most men of his time, certainly more than
any other public man, could enjoy to the utmost the best things
the world has in it. He knew the joy of the hard and active life
in the open, and he knew the keen pleasure of books. So when he
returned to America after his marriage in 1886, he built a house
on Sagamore Hill at Oyster Bay on Long Island. Here he could ride,
shoot, row, look after his farm, and here in the next year or two
he wrote two books. One was the life of Gouverneur Morris,
American minister to France in the early years of our nation; the
other a life of Senator Thomas H. Benton of Missouri.
But he was not long to stay out of political office. In 1888
President Cleveland had been defeated for reelection by the
Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison. The new President
appointed Mr. Roosevelt as one of the Civil Service Commissioners,
with his office in Washington.
Most politicians are charged, certainly Mr.
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