ONLY ODDS AND ENDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2603, 3 February 1904, Page 61

ONLY ODDS AND ENDS.

There is nothing more alluring, yet at the same time more suggestive of sad thoughts, than the odd articles of bric-a-brac and solitary ornaments which one comes across in salerooms and secondhand shops. They speak of failure, separation, and defeat — these forlorn odds and ends. We know there are orderly souls so constituted that the loveliest articles of vertu, the most unique and fascinating bijouterie, lose half their charm unless they are in pairs — one for this side of the mantelpiece or bric-a-brac shelf, the other for that. It is not the thought of the arti&t, the delicate Dresden china shepherd to forever silently serenade his smiling rose-garlanded shepherdess ; the little terra-cotta beggar maid to weep for ever silently at the broken Punchinello her boy playmate has stolen from her — it cannot be. For here is the •kepherd Jfigio^ loslqvul^ at tiie extreme

sad of the crowded mantelpiece, while the poor shepherdess smiles inanely down at a midget photo, at the other end — they are f.eps'ssfesd by a world of "ornaments" — laminated by a spectral clock of gild and alf'foas&Sj imprisoned in its glass dome. The po-or little beggar maid weeps beside a solemn old ebony elephant at this side of the grept clock, her grief as meaningless as the mischievous iriumph of her boy playmate, who thrusts the broken Punchinello into the face of an elderly lady's photo, at the other side. But the mantelpiece is well furnished, and the things "balance" nicely. What more do you want? It is only when death or disaster scatter the good housewife's household gods that they become "odds and ends."

How often Fate plays towards individuals the remorseless part of the methodical dullwitted housekeeper to her bric-a-brac. Here is the man who by every law of the. beauty of fitness should have chosen for his wife this woman. But Fate blinded them, or Circumstance divided them, and the duet that might have been so perfect is but a couple of meagre, indifferent soli ; the potential story has been drowned in the silence ; the full possibilities, the richest and the best of these two lives, remain undeveloped. They are odd lives. In the vast design of hitman life they are but fragments of the diapered groundwork : the splendid curves, the rich and generous sweep of the Great Design, are not for them.

Shrugging our complacent shoulders, we ppeak of them as "such odd creatures," "a perfect old dear, don't-cher-know, bitt so odd," or "a dear old chap, but quite an oddity." Is there anything so smugly self-

complacent as the average middle-class person? Could we believe, you and I, tihat more lovely thoughts, more wonderful possibilities, deeps that we shall never sound, starry heights that we shall never climb, lie hidden m the thwarted lives of these odds and ends of humanity ? Life is full of odd things — many of them so precious and so undiscerned that they rank with tihe proverbial "pearls cast before swine." So may be the

— Odds and Ends of Time — that we scorn because they are scattered among the busy hours of commonplace duties. Yet if we used them as rest, or as the pleasant change of occupation which is akin to rest, how happy and how surprising the result ! Ten minutes here, and five minutes there, and by rare good chance quarter of an hour later on ! A little workbasket that holds holiday work, dear delight of snowy stitchery, soft hues of gleaming silks ! The threaded needle, with its alert suggestion of a continuous plan of pleasant work and thought, is like a silent understanding friend. What long (and lovel;-) pieces of work I have done thus, and never felt I was doing them. Or the book that gives us some great writer's best thoughts. That little cover of linen that slips so easily from one book to another, and enables one to take even the daintiest book friend to the kitchen with us, comes in so well. For here one may fill in the intervals of shelling peas and stoning fruit, waiting for the last batch of cakes, and the heating or cooling of irons, and read those few lines which will serve to fill our thoughts while the hands are busy. There are &o many authors who do not suffer by being taken in email doses. Nay, the higher the theme the more likely is it to need quiet spaces of thought in which to master Its. truest meaning. I do not by this suggestion mean to advocate in the very leasl

— Odd 1 - r.d Knds oi Reading — r £ha,t is Quite a difteieut mattei ; as> idle

and resnitlcss as any othu << > and capricious habit. There aie p^.,,> p iowadays .vho find the greatest diliicuity in rending steadily through a book, simply because they jre demoralised by the "magazine habit " or the "newspaper habit" — just a,% there are people who, after years of social chattering or household znd family prosing, find themselves utterly unable to quietly converse on any abstract topic. Take away from them the life belfe afforded by what "he said," "she said," and "I said," and j-ou cast them helpless and forlorn upon a sea of silence. Odds and ends of reading pursued indiscriminately i^SS^ ia a mere fragmentaiy jumble vhich neitfesr eeables the reader to be of help to others nor to enrich himself from their greater store.

—The Odd Man Outis not &o familiar a feature among us as the odd girl, the unst.rfi.sli "gooseberry," the lonely third. Men are at once too selfhh and too egotistic to voluntaiily play the part of odd man out. lit is gills aa ho do it, cheerfully, m> selfishly, spending whole sunny days or wintry evenings merely to propitiate Mra Giundy, and burn incense on the altar of a friend's happiness. How often we hay« seen them at St. Clair, at Ocean Beach, Portobello, Broad Bay, and Normanby. Up town on a Saturday night, hurrying for the trams on a half-holiday, setting out, all smiles, muslir.f, ribbons, and lunch baskets on a holiday morning ; dra-ggling home, damp and tired, but happy to the last, on a holiday evening! Perhaps this is sometimes the odd girl's only experience of courting days ; 3)f'lping someone else's courtship — just gooseberry for a day, or a month, or a year, and then for a lifetime the ionely third. But it's better to be lonely alone than lonely together.

— Odds and Ends of Fashion — catch on our wandering fancy and wear themselves out, a tide which, receding, leaves upon the household shores flotsam and jetsam whose charm departs with its vogue. Harlequin tea-sets — who has one now? Not even a little rose-coloured or primrose-tinted cup and saucer remains to put among the odd tea-sets which are already ceasing to interest. Odd teaspoons are more interesting if we collect them as "souvenir spoons" — and how do you know that we might not revive the fashion of odd stockings that once gave distinction to the fop of his period? And — whifipei — ■ which one among you knows the romance of an odd glove?