WISDOM FOR EVERY DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 31, 5 February 1910, Page 16

WISDOM FOR EVERY DAY.

WHY IT IS WISE TO BKBAK.FAST AXONE. THE REV. B. J. HARDY'S NEW BOOK OF ANECDOTAL ADVICE. .Happiness, It has been said, depends more on the little than the big things In life, and for these little things everyone is so very dependent upon the little everyday doings and sayings of evaryone else. There Is so much In the way a remark Is phrased. It Is related that a wise men, being summoned to forecast the future of an Eastern King, said, "Sire, every relation that you have Is to die before you." The prospect of Bucli a number of deaths seemed so dls- | mal that the eelf-willed ruler ordered the seer to be put to death. Another seer called to the perilous task of prophecy, eald, "Sire, you -will live longer than all your relations." The king gave the seer a great reward. BEGINNING A DINNER CONVERSATION. With a fund of amusing anecdote, the Rev. B. J. Hardy, in Ills new book, "How to be Happy Though Civil" delivers some very practical wisdom on the eondnct of dolly relations with friends or strangers. " 'When In doubt give a dinner . Is a good maxim," he writes, "but nothing Is gained by doing so If you ask the wrong people, or treat them In a tactless way. Be as different as possible from a lady of whom It -was said that people went to her entertainments to see her insult her guests. "How dreadful it is when you bring a lady In to dinner who cannot or will not say a word! In this predicament I have remarked, 'I do not mind being ugly, do you? , and this brought the painfully silent one to her speech if not to her (senses. "Klnglake, the historian, liked dash and vigour in a talker; he declared that his heart stopped If he was bored. A lady friend of his suggested that his pulse should be felt at dinner, after the second entree, and, If not satisfactory, that he should be allowed to change places. "It is difficult to be agreeable at breakfast, and therefore each person should take this meal alone. Ideas do not come early in the day, and there is little use in saying how we slept or in remarking that there was rain in the night. "Ask your enemies to breakfast, yonr acquaintances to lunch, and your friends to dinner, or, better still, to tea, for tea and good talk so often together. He who bores us at dinner robs us of a pleasure and* Injures our health, a fact which an alderman realised when he exclaimed to a stupid interrogator, 'With your confounded questions, sir, you have made mc swallow a piece of green fat without tasting It.' " Mr Hardy gives some amusing instances of great men's metheds of administering a kindly rebuke. "When Lord Coleridge was travelling in America, an interviewer ended an enumeration of the big things of that continent by saying that the conflagration they had in Chicago made the fire of London look very small. To this Lord Coleridge blaudly rethe great lire of London was quite as great as the people at that time desired." "Polite and yet truthful was Lord Beaconsfield's formula for acknowledging an author's presentation of a book to him— 'Lord Beacousfield presents his compliments to llr X., and will lose no time la perusing , his interesting work.' " In connection with the Inconsiderate manners of the younger generation, Mr Hardy relates that "three boys from Eton,

Harrow, and Winchester were in a room, when a lady appeared. The Eton, boy asked languidly If some fellow ought not to give a chair to the lady; the Harrow boy slowly brought one, and the Winchester boy deliberately eat down on it. "In China parents are held responsible for the manners of their children; accordingly, for the credit of their parents, people try to be polite. If you are mobbed in a Chinese town you should look straight at one or two of the people, and say "Tour parents did not pay much attention to your manners; they did not teach you the rules of propriety. , A remark like this will make the crowd slink away, one by one, ashamed of themselves. "Few people .will deny that the manners of Chinese to their parents and to old people generally are better than ouns, though we may think some of the examples of filial piety that are held up In Chinese books for emulation go to an absurd length. One example is that of a certain Lac. This worthy, when seventy years of age, fearIng that his years might distress his parents by reminding them of their greater age, used to dress as an infant and play about the room." DEFINITION OF A BORE. The following are some of Mr Hardy's witty sayings:— "Speaking of a missionary, a savage remarked: 'He was always giving us advice, so we killed him.' "The disappearance of the Heavy Father from the English stage is true to life, for to-day the Heavy Son and the Heavy Daughter are more common than the heavy parents. "A bore may be denned as 'a man who will talk about himself when you want to talk about yourself.' "A Chinaman never argues with a woman. This diffidence arises from no chivalrous feeling, but from the conviction that he will be worsted. In the end. "Women ought not to lower themselves to logic; it is their privilege to impress and to influence. "An Englishman wishes either to heave half a brick at a stranger or ask htm to dinner, according to the state of Ills liver, of the weather, and of everything else that affects manners."