GREASING THE WHEELS.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXIII, Issue 1180, 12 February 1897, Page 3

GREASING THE WHEELS.

(By Mrs Lynn Linton.) Life is a lovely thing, let the sourvisaged pessimists say what they will j and none of us want to get rid of it, save under such exceptional conditions of sorrow or ill health as have destroyed all its sweetness and taken the glory out of the sunshine. While Nature has her beauty, and Art is divine suggestiveness — while love can conquer self, and strength can rejoice in work — life is emphatically worth living. When it is not — when the silver chord of hope is loosened and the golden bowl of joy is broken at the fountain, then the charm has gone — then we take the law into our own hands and voluntarily throw up the "whole thing. But while wt consent to live — • while the gods conceal from us how sweet it would be to "die ' — by this fact alone we acknowledge that we have still something worth living for. True as this is, and lovely as life is in the main, we yet have thorny bits of the road to traverse, and uncommonly hard rows to hoe. With che best found of us all life is not beer and skittles, though we have more of both . than falls to the lot of most : while the ill-provided among us have a very Benjamin's mess of troubles and disagreeables. The wheels of the great Oar of our Destiny creak and groan as they lumber along the highway, and their joltings try our nerves and dislocate our joints ; but the application of a little grease — you may call it soft sawder if you will — helps to soften the roughness and lessen the joltings. And of this grease we have all been given our portion to expend at our pleasure. For one thing we can all bo polite and courteous ; in which simple virtues many of the sons and daughters of the day are woefully deficient — acting as if rudeness were an assertion of superiority, and to be discourteous were equivalent to the old formula of • God defend the right,' and « Fellow ! keep thy distance !' Yet nothing .greases the wheels of casual, difficult, or unequal intercourse so much as these small courtesies which cost nothing to give, and bring back so much when given, A gesture moaning 'Your pardon,' or * do your will* a smile of acknowledgment for a small attention — • Thank you ' said in words, or by a friendly glance of the eye, or by a mere nod of the head — and the wheels are greased, when without those little courtesies they would jolt and jumble as before. But not all, even of the sincerely good, remember those simple virtues. Not even the most conscientious Christian, who wpuld not rob his

neighbonr of a permy — not the most painstaking humanitarian, who would not hurt a fly, and who would get out of her carriage to pick up a worm on the highway — not even those think it incumbent on them to to pay back in acknowledgment what they receive in courtesy, or to give that courtesy of their own unfettered motion when it is due. In this prevailing lack of courtesy i the women of the day are for the most part, unfortunately the worst sinners. Some time ago the St James' Gazette published a suggestive correspondence on the manners of ladies, chiefly connected with their uncalled-for irruption into the smoking carriages of the railway. Never in one solitary instance was there an acknowledgment on the part of the women that they were in the wrong — that they apologised for their intrusion— -that they greased the wheels by their courtesy — their amiability — their sweet and pleasant confession of intrusion — that confession by which a fault is more than half pardoned. All their letters were spiky and aggressive — some of ! the men's were caddish to correspond — and those which were simply narrations shpwed the high watet mark of feminine discourtesy by which the wheels, which courtesy would have greased creaked and jolted worse than before. The unco' quid see sin in every pleasure or emotion of life. The ultrahonest call every gracious little word • of praise flattery, and mark it with tLe tar brush of insincerity. But what a sweet greasing of the wheels are these pleasant words of praise and admiration of which the stiff backed and dry lipped are so chary ! Yet why should we not say and hear nice things of our friends and ourselves ! We hear unpleasant things soon enough ; and always with a generous bordering of exaggeration. Why should we not have the satisfaction of knowing that others admire us for this physical beauty, or that moral characteristic? — and why refrain from saying the like to others 1 It greasea the wheels. Often when we are depressed and downhearted — ' When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state ' — a word of. hearty praise will tear the thick veil from our hearts and bring back the sunshine that had been shut out. Why refuse it 1 Why withhold it ? Why run with •all speed to spread unfavourable news, and lag with a snail's pace to give the pleasure of fair words and gracious comments? It is not flattery, but human kindness; and though that quaint phrase tells how ' the angels whip each other with rod.s, while devils

stick peacocks' feathers into t.heir tails^' still, to grease the wheels of Ijfe by pleasant words of praise is more to the purpose of well doing, not to speak of happiness, than the sour zeal to criticise unfavourably which animates so many worthy souls. in our intercourse with servants and onr social inferiors generally, the virtue of consideration and the grace of sympathy go a long way towards bridging over , difficulties and setting things square. Those employers get the best work out of their employees, who add this virtue and this grace to the sterner conditions of authority demanding obedience and enforcing diligence. Tho wheels turn all the same, but with less friction when they are suitably greased ; and where the high and haughty receive but their bare due, and that given grudgingly, the genial and considerate have the percentage which comes from good-will over and above the stipulated tale. In some houses you nevet hear a word of acknowledgment whatever the servants may do ; in others the thank you of the master and mistress greases the wheels so that they run smoothly and a little faster. Some mistresses ignore the mealtimes of. their servants, and act as though sleep were a vain delusion and an unnecessary luxury for those who wear plush or streamers. They will ring up the man at all hours and on the most trifling pretexts, and going to bed in the small hours does not obviate the necessity for getting up in the early ones. To such as these the wheels of the domestic car are always heavy, but to those* who go on the opposite tack they turn easily enough. So in all our dealings with our social inferiors. In hotels, in shops, in travel — wherever we may find ourselves, courtesy and consideration grease the wheels where the want of these graces leaves them stiff- and difficult. And that vexed question of tips ! Here comes in a very torrent of pros and cons — some liberal souls going for the application of a little silver salve as the grand easnr of difficulties and healer of abrasions — others standing out stifly against what they consider a reprehensible act of weakness, or of bribery, or, worst of all a spoiling of the market for others. But why one man, whose pleasure it is to give and whose morality bids him reward, should be debarred the exercise of these two functions because another does not share either in the pleasure or the morality is a question to which it is difficult to find an answer. Atall events, whether others approve of it or not, we must all do according as we think best in this special matter of greasing the wheels ; and by courtesy, consideration, and liberality, we shall probably co<ne to our end, and find therein our reward. — St. James Budget. i '- — ■■—.■- ■■■— in ■