Vacations were once the prerogative of the privileged few,even as late as the 19th century.Now they are considered the right of all,except for such unfortunate masses as,for example,the bulk of China'and India's population,for whom life,saves for sleep and brief periods of rest,is uninterrupted toil.
They are more necessary now than once because the average life is less well-rounded and has become increasingly departmentalized.I suppose the idea of vacations,as we conceive it,must be incomprehensible to primitive peoples.Rest of some kind has of course always been a part of the rhythm of human life,but earlier ages did not find it necessary to organize it in the way that modern man has done.Holidays,feast days were sufficient.
With modern man's increasing tensions,with the stultifying quality of so much of his work,this break in the year's routine became steadily more necessary.Vacations became mandatory for the purpose of renewal and repair.And so it came about that in the United States,the most self-indulgent of nations,the tensest,and the most depart-mentalized,vacations have come to take a predominant place in domestic conversation.