RELATIVES V. FRIENDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19040, 10 June 1925, Page 14

RELATIVES V. FRIENDS.

For our. kinspeople to love our friends is one of the rarest of life's boons, says a writer in an English paper. Sometimes wo arc conscious that they arc trying to love themj and the effort, though it has its comic side, is more painful to us than frank indifference. Those who are linked most closely to us by the ties of blood do not as a rule loqk kindly upon tlio ties that we form for ourselves. The beginning of this vague churlishness is seen in the attitude oE some mothers toward their children s school friends. They do not sec why letters need be exchanged during holidays; they ridicule the plans and belittle the jokes which the young people share. It is all dona nicely, but it is done, <ind the children, with their extraordinarily quick spiritual ears, know that it is done. They mav not stato the fact to themselves, but it enters their very being. So as life goes on confidences become fewer. Enthusiasms are not revealed. Warm affection between' the older and younger members of the* family continues. They have the power to make each other happy, and also the power to wound each other to the quick. But. they have net the power 'to share life; their emotions, as they arc related to each other, move in a restricted space. : , The older ones , grow more and more jealous of the lively interests that belong to the other part of the young ones lives, and the young ones grow less and less able to speak of these. Just how far the child, on growing up, allows the influence of the family to mould his or her life depends, of course, upon the character ot the child. -