JUST LITTLE THINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2805, 18 December 1907, Page 72

JUST LITTLE THINGS.

The : full -treasury of the years is made up by coin of days,- and the days each represent the snfall change of the hours ; "so tnat after all it is out of the small change that the treasury of life is rendered opulent or bankrupt. There was a curious, little incident in^ the Treasury at New* York' lately. It read something like this : " For hours the .clerks in the. Sub-Treasury in William street were unable to make their figures tally with the amount of bullion, which was carefully weighed over and over again. It was not before the officials had become to be worried and alarmed fhat someone discovered a fat ' little mouse had been weighed in with a 6ack of bullion." So that here was a Treasury actually upset by a mouse ! Things not half so important as a. mouse often upset the current coin of a whole day's "takings" in our domestic treasury. It is so truly the small change on which the balance sheet depends. W© doin't^ get out of our reckoning in the big things of life .any more than the treasury does with the fat hundreds and thousands of great affairs. If we come to grief at all, in nine cases out of ten it as over the little things — the mouse in the bag of bullion! And because we. get so tired of the old platitudes about* little things, I think you will' like the flotsam and jetsam of verse which I have gathered for you to clothe afresh what every woman knows to be so gr»at a truth. For instance, these lines are beautiful, I think : I Thy daily task is done, And, though a lowly one, Thou gavestit of thy best, And art content to rest In patience till its slow reward is won. Not far thou lookest, but thy sight is clear; Not much thou knowest, but thy faith is dear ; For life is love, and love is always near. — Heary van Dyke. ! We are so fond of telling children of the immense importance of little things, and so much inclined to overlook the same thing for ourselves. Yet it is, after all, as true for women of all sorts and) conditions (the emancipated, the up to date, the woman with 'a career, as well as the dear homely wife and mother) as Tor the tiny children the little things that count. I Little things are everything to most women — and more than great thingr to everyone. There is something at once pathetic and i j brimming over with humour about the way a man uses the word "little." It is a caress, it is a suggestion of protective power on his part, and of clinging dependence on the part of the recipient : it is tolerant, encouraging, affectionate, as the case may be. Sometimes it is patronising, depreciating, and an embodied snub. Each and any of these sentiments does a man rely upon his use of the word j "little" to convey for him. The crowning • absurdity is that no one uses it more boldly or with conscious dignity and patronage than the little man! He marries — if he can — a six-foot wife, and refers to her as "a dear little woman." He buys bun a thousand) acre farm or builds ,

him a twenty-roomed house, and airily refers to either as "that little place of mine." Peace be to him, long may ho continue on hi 3 cheerful , way ! Were not Nelson and Napoleon among- the great' little men ; and are not "Boba" and Kipling among the duodecimo editions? ' It was not, however, to 1 talk of little men we set out to-day, but of littlethings; quite a different matter. That smile which may after all only, shine hi the eyes of the mistress as she looks at her willing paid, and need not even curve the lips to .make itself felt and understood as a sign of appreciation for ungrudging service^-that is one of the little things. The minute snatched to pick a fresh rose br half doaen strawberries to put on the invalid's tray, or to "go as far as the eate" with mother, or to put the > flowers she loves best in her room, to ring up congratulations to a friend, or run in with magazines to a neighbour — these and such as these are the little things-. Little «s they are, who shall deny thati they are the 'pure gold of life? Not you or I, who have done them Jo our own - soul' 6 peace or received them to our own heart's delight full many a time: Because our way of life is small, A little is the sum of all. I But you must have all these lines, they ' are so true. Listen : ! DESERVING. This is the height of our deserts: A little pity for life's hurts; A" little rain, a little sun, A little sleep when work .is done. A little righteous punishment. Less for our deeds than their intent; A little pardon now and then, Because we are but struggling men. A liule light to show the way, A little guidance when we stray; A little love before we pass To rest beneath the kirkyard grass. A little faith in days of change. When life is stark and bare and strange; A solace when our eyes are wet With tears of longing and regret. 1 True it is that we cannot claim Unmeasured recompense or blame, i Because "our way of life is small: A little is the sum of all. *A little — 'how dear>it is because it is • little ! Much would have more ; but w© who just have a little, and long for a little, how happy a little can make us I That is why it seems so hard sometimes that we cannot have it. A little light to show the way, ( A little guidance when we stray. But most of all we need A little faith in days of change, When life is stark ana bate and strange. And yet these' are the "little" things that are so infinitely harder to accomplish than the" superb sacrifices, the supreme selfdenials. . . "There is nothing really insignificant in this worldl," says Goethe j " what makes a thing seem so is our way of looking at it." That is a sentence that I should like every girl and woman who undervalues herself because Bhe us not " clever " to learn by heart for her own comfort and uplifting. The people who can "be " and "do" the little things of life, they axe the real salt of the earth, for they give themselves the highest gift of all. I remember being so muolk abrade witK ikis sentence concerning; a jrirl whose happy lot it was to learn the delicate pleasures of simple yet refined housekeeping from one who was a jjracious erpert therein. " She had opened the way to the Fortunate Isles, where one's daily work is one's daily happineßS, and nothing is* so poor as to be without its own appealing beauty." But the fascination of little things does ,not lie in duties or pleasures alone, nor end with words or smiles or deeds-^-jfc s creeps into animate and inaminate life. Are not many of our dearest flowers also the little flowers? VioJets and primroses, pansics and mignonette — flowers thafc stupid people call "common flowere," as though any flower could be " common " hi the cense of worthless. Are not all flowers "common" somewhere? Of the exquisite azaleas— quite as lovely as those we cherish under glass — which, clothe the hills jear ~Nin<rrjo, a recent woman vrriter says: " They were quite as lovely as vi English gardens; the bushes were covered with flowers. But somehow I am not sure that when wild they give quite the enme satisfaction as do the fields waving yellow with rape flower, and scenting all the air with theil sweetness." Why should the commonness of anything rob it of its value if only we thought for a moment. Little things and common things are the real current coin of life on which we draw from day to day. Great truths are dearly bought. The common truth, ' , M , Suoh as men give and take from day to day, Comes in the oommon walk of~«a«y life, Blown by the careless winds across our way. Great truths are greatly won, not found by, chance, , Nor wafted on the breath of summer dream ; But grasped in the great struggle of the tout Hard buffeting with adverse wind and stream.