SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1924. HOBBIES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 12 January 1924, Page 6

SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1924. HOBBIES.

One has heard it said by older people that there is no greater unhappiness in old age than to be without some hobby. During the greater part of life one has one's regular daily work, which occupies one's attention almost completely if one is determined to make a success of life, but in many cases the days come when the power to work hard grows weaker, the arms and legs lose their erstwhile activtiy and the human frame becomes incapable of strenuous and continuous action, and the man or woman who formerly was able to take a lively pa?t in the world's work finds ,-thap the day has arrived to. retire from business. One has often read with a : feeling of sadness 'of -'the retirement of & prominent citizen—sadness because one knows 'that the severance means that the citizen has entered upon the last period of earthly life. One can hardly imagine how completely lost must acitizen be who has to retire from bis work and has no hobby in which he can take an interest. The great majority of people on reaching the age of retiring from their life's work have hobbies to which they turn, but upon how they have cultivated .their hobbies in their leisure hours of past years depends the power of the hobbies to occupy their interest and attention during their remaining days. It seems to us that it is a mistake for a person to dabble in several hobbies and to go through life without developing a keen liking for one or two. It,may be good for one to take up each for a time in order-to select which is or ar© the most fancied, but, having made a selection, one should concentrate and cultivate the hobby as thoroughly as leisure time and opportunity will permit. During one's best working years a hobby is of great advantage. A busy man or woman who-has a love for, say, music, as a hobby, will find that progress in the art demands concentration of thought and certain discipline, and the limited time available for pursuing the stu<iy of it may be regretted, but the time devoted to it will prove a splendid recreation, and a rest from the routine of the'offic© or the workshop. So-it will be found with any other hobby—gardening, painting, reading, carving, copper and pewter work, bowls, chess, caoquet, and so on, may all become irfost valuable recreations, developing the mind and giving those who take them up a new interest in. life. One may go so far as to say that the person who has no other objective than money-making is generally miserable and miserly, and misses the grandeur of life. There may be a danger of some people permitting their hobbies to become their masters, but such cases are, we think, 'comparatively few and may be regarded" as eruptions. Hobbies properly cultivated and used as they slfould be will prove uplifting influences, and can hardly fail to do great good. During the working years hobbies enable people to keep a proper prospective of life, they rejuvenate and restore the body and refresh the mind; but, most important, they are often one's greatest friends during" the years when the body tires quickly and old age takes the unwilling traveller with tottering etepa along that road over which we all nrust ■pass into the peaceful shadows and rwlm ■ oblivion at the end of life's iourney.