I do not really like vacations. I much prefer an occasional day off when I do not feel like working. When I am confronted with a whole week in which I have nothing to do but enjoy myself I do not know where to begin. To me, enjoyment comes fleetingly and unheralded; I cannot determinedly enjoy myself for a whole week at a time.

Davies contrasts the culturally sanctioned “vacation” with a more organic, temperament-driven need for rest. A scheduled week of compulsory pleasure becomes, for him, a kind of labor: it demands planning, performance, and a sustained mood that cannot be willed into being. The preference for “an occasional day off” suggests a life structured by vocation and habit, where genuine refreshment arrives as a byproduct of freedom rather than as an assigned task. The final sentence frames enjoyment as spontaneous—“fleetingly and unheralded”—implying that the attempt to manufacture happiness on command can undermine it. The quote also hints at a Protestant-work-ethic sensibility: idleness is uncomfortable unless it has a clear purpose.