PARADOXES OF LIFE

Evening Star, Issue 19276, 15 June 1926, Page 1

PARADOXES OF LIFE

LORD DEWAR’S HUMOROUS OUTLOOK

If you are lavish people say you arc a spendthrift. If you practise economy you are Scotch. If wo show irritation it is temperament.

If others show irritation it is bad temper. What we call confidence in ourselves we call deceit in others.

The epigrammatic speeches of Lord Dewar that have boon appearing in the Press during tho last few weeks induced a representative of tho ‘ Sunday Times ’ to ask him at the conclusion of a recent dinner how ho first began to speak in public on the humorous outlook on life. Lord Dewar said:

“ Life is a paradox from the cradle to the crematorium. Through humor you can see comic things happening around you all tho time, and discover that 90* per cent, of the troubles of life are imaginary. “ For example, you can nee flic honest-to-goodness people who adopt a halo, and with one finger outstretched say ‘ I am holier than thou.’ You can hear the rabid reformers in Hyde Park proclaim: 1 Yon must do as yon like, otherwise you will he made to.’ and that all men are equal. Providence never meant men to be equal, except when they are asleep' “Others pay the amusements tax. but are not amused. You can find humor in those who are socially ambitious struggling to brush elbows with the soriallv elect.

“There is humor in those who look down with an air of superiority and condescension on those who intellectually are their superiors. Some women still step off an omnibus backwards, although they have the vote to-day. “Some say a man has his heart in the right place, and others think that if that is all to he said for him something must be wrong with his head. “Then there is the man who comes up to yon and savs: ‘ Yon don’t remember me? ’ Tmniediafelv sav: ‘ Yes, 1 do. How is your complaint? ’ He will then give a long account of the suffering he has had at some period of his life You may he pretty certain all men have complaints and a great many grievances.

“Yon can see a lot of humor in the pessimist. He is always grumbling ho. cause the™ is not enough bloom to go round. Life for him is a medley of hope and despair, and of crimes and of misfortunes. Sympathise with him. hut don't listen too long nr you may begin to bo engrossed in his tronH n s, which reallv do not exist. If there were not so many hens in bonnets (here would not he so many pro- and antisocieties.' 1