TO HAVE LIVED

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 165, 14 July 1928, Page 8

TO HAVE LIVED

How strange it is to witness the varied lives, even in one little town. To see the people in almost identical circumstances; some living, some vegetating. You have watched, I am sure, a whole family sailing down life's years in a stout, safe little boat which lield them all nicely, with not room for just one more; nor have they felt any need for an extra seat. Somehow there is always fair windsomehow the tide is never against them. Should there be rough waves they are quickly steered into the slack water near the river bank. !Nor do they look anxiously back to see how other craft are faring. Serenely on they go; always it is summer, always the skies are blue. They have had neither sickness nor sorrow, and trouble has passed them-only on its way to other doors. Tlie sorrows of the world leave them unmoved. They have taken all and given nothing towards the brotherhood of men. They have warmed themselves at the fire of good will without contributing even' a handful of sticks. In short, they are parasites, basking in pleasantnesses made by other people. Talking"the other day to a middle-aged woman about people of the above type, she said simply: "They have never lived." Then, as memory suddenly deepened the lines in her face -and the earnest expression in her eyes, she said: "I have lived. In glorious girlhood I have loved and been loved," she went Through the pains of hell I have borne my children. In the bitter shame of others I have anguished and walked with them in the paths of disgrace. I have known the fear of want and the wolf hound, debt. I have left part of me at gravesides, and I have buried beautiful illusions in tears. I have watched money and position disappear; yes, and more bitter - still, friends with them. I have rejoiced with the glad and mourned with the sorrowful; and given to the needy, and, thank God, all those things have people done to me. And the greatest giving—the gifts I prize most—have been those from the people who gave of their poverty." "Yes," she said, "you mav use that for an article if you like. No one* will know—it is such an ordinary story of 'those women who live'." —G. EDITH BURTOX.