DOES PRIDE MATTER MOST?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20710, 7 May 1929, Page 18

DOES PRIDE MATTER MOST?

“ I can't go and make'it up.l won!t risk a rebuff!” How many times Lave .we beard them, those pitiful, silly, ungenerous words? A great in an once wrote: “ Even if your enemy is wrong, it is much nobler to meet him half-way than to fight to the end.” But . the Jacks and Jills, the husbands and wives, don’t think so. ■ They cherish a belief that it- shows. strength of character to hold-out against the loved one, that it is grand and noble to brood bitterly over an injustice. Jack is afraid that Jill will, lose her respect for him if he gives, way first, and Jill thinks unhappily that, anyway, it is a man’s place to make the. first advance towards peace—and so it goes on, ‘ And probably the affair is ruined altogether, and a husband and wife paH for want of a little sweetness of spirit. It isn’t very noble to barter and chaffer with those you love. It shows a frightful want of real, unselfish affection.. And, really, it isn’t so very terrible to give way gracefully over a trifle. It shows real moral strength to stand aside and, let the loved one have his, or her, head for once. . We all get those reckless periods when we are so frightfully fed-up that we turn and rend those we love best. And aren’t Wc- ashamed 'when they go on as if nothing had happened? We feel, it more than all the sulks and rages, and we realise our own meanness of spirit more keenly than if they had told us so. If Jack has upset Jill, And is sulking in a corner when he should really be apologising, it won’t help in the least for Jill to. pay him back in his own coin. That- never .answers with the “difficult” people, ' ! But if,she only has the generosity to go ,on as if nothing'had happened, Jack will be passionately grateful. He will be ready to, kick himself at the sight of her, if she just looks quietly grieved-and has the sense to refrain from stinging remarks. ‘ ’ After all, caririg for people doesn’t go with exacting the utmost penalty from them if they happen to upset us. Such a demand is petty and trivial, and love doesil’t thrive on bartering and bickering, as if it were something that could be bought over a counter. And it can .be so tragically foolish to try love too far-—lycekly Scotsman, j