POSSESSION OF GREAT PRICE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 2 March 1935, Page 12

POSSESSION OF GREAT PRICE

Story of Philosopher and the Millionaire

F the feeling for beauty, if we have it, we possess a pearl of great price, says a writer. I say of great price, but it is something which costs us nothing because it is all a part of the joy which is in the world 1 for everybody who cares for it. It is the “joy in widest commonalty spread”; it is a rich possession for us if we care for it, but in possessing it we deprive nobobdy else. The enjoyment of it, the possession of it, excite neither greed nor envy, and it is something which is always there for ns and which may take us out of the small worries of life . . There is a quaint but apposite quotation from an old writer which runs as follows: “I sleep, I drink and eat, I read and meditate, I walk in my neighbour’s pleasant garden and see all the varie-

ties of natural beauty . . . and he who hath so many forms of joy must needs be very much in love with sorrows and peevishness, who loseth all these pleasures and chooseth to sit upon his little handful of thorns.” There is a story of a man whom others called poor, and who had just enough fortune to support himself in going about the country in the simplest way and studying and enjoying the life and beauty of it. He was once in the company of a great millionaire who was engaged in business, working at it daily and getting richer every year, and the poor man said to the millionaire,, “I am richer than you are.” “How do you make that out?” said the millionaire. ‘ Ahy,” he replied, “I have got as much money as I want, and you haven’t.”