SOCIAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1934, 19 March 1891, Page 34

SOCIAL TOPICS.

By Cigarette. SYMPATHY. There are few people who know how to sympathise properly; for there are few gifted with sufficient imagination to put themselves in another person's place. It is easy to say, " If I were you," but it is almost impossible to fancy oneself someone else and yet to sympathise thoroughly you must for the time try and feel your friends' sorrow is your own, and suffer with as well as for them. This ia why people who have had troubles themselves know best how to sympathise with others' sorrows, for we are all so innately selfish that nothing that we have not felt ourselves can really touch us. Insults offered to others never seem so marked as those we receive ourselves. When other # people take offence we tell them they are* "touchy," but the same slight offered to ourselves seems a downright insult. Thns to understand sympathy and to sympathise truly we must have needed it ourselves ; and to be sincere we must adopt the joy or sorrow of our friend, and rejoice or weep with him as the case may be. Strange to say, it seems easier to some to weep over the misfortunes of their friends than to rejoice in their joys. Swift acknowledges this in those cynical lines : I In all distresses of our friends Wo first consult our private ends, Then Nature, kindly bent to eaae us, Points out some clrcmnataneo to pleaie us. What insight into human nature he must have had 1 There are some people who even seem to find satisfaction in the misfortunes of others just because it enables them to say, J' I told you so," These disagreeable people are not sympathetic, and are utterly unable jto rejoice with those that do rejoice. They may, perhaps, with a great effort squeeze out I a crocodile tear foi an unfortunate friend, but it is too much to expect them to be glad over the good forfcuue of others. This is I where sympathetic people excel, and when ' their sympathy is truly acceptable. We I like company in our joys aa well as our sorrows, but "few seem to think so. How often do we hear such remarks as these: " Jones has come into a fortune I " " Has he ? Much good will it do him J " Or, "Miss A. is engaged to that rich Mr B." "Is she ? Well, I suppose his money was the attraction." It is the unsympathetic people who grudge any good to their fellow creatures,

[People who are lacking in sympathy for others are generally selfish and narrow[minded. They judge everyone by their own I standard, and are unable to understand , why other folks should act unwisely or j wickedly, being unable to realise the temptations which assail others. " Put yourself in his place "is a capital maxim to remember when you feel inclined to judge your neighbour. Sympathetic people are always wellmannered. Their fellow-feeling shows them the right thing to say or io in the right place ; it saves them from hurting the feelings of others, and enables them to adapt themselves |to any society. An actor to succeed must have sympathy — he must be able to feel the character he acts. It is then, and then only, that his acting is lifelike. Selfishness is the characteristic of unsympathetic souls, it is the people who are so wrapt up in themselves that do not know how to feel for others. Have you not met people who begin to look bored as soon as you talk about anything outside their own family or calling? .These lack the ability to sympathise. Woman's sympathy is very sweet and refreshing, but it is to men to whom we look | for practical sympathy. No one can call j Dunedinites unsympathetic. We have only to look at the Kakanui relief fund as it diily grows larger to see what sympathetic souls are here. But money cannot do everything. There are some sorrows where only sympathy is needed ; therefore let us cultivate this virtue, and try by forgetting ourselves to lighten the sorrows and brighten the joys of our neighbours. Let each pursuit we follow help to brighten someone else's path beside our own, 'then shall such talents as we have increase and multiply, and our own sorrows shall be forgotten in sharing those of others, .