DEFENCE OF THE HUMDRUM.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 22, Issue 29, 14 April 1911, Page 5

DEFENCE OF THE HUMDRUM.

I have wondered many times why such an uncomfortable quality in others as love of adventure is so duly exalted, while stay-at-home folk occupy so poor a place in public esteem. Yet on the latter, the quiet workers who toil for the comfort of the hive, depends much of human happiness. "Better to be an eagle than a stalled ox,” cry the heroes, but who (without considering the feelings of either creature) would not rather have a single ox in his stall or anywhere else than a dozen eagles ? If everybody yielded to his or her love of adventure and despised the humdrum routine of life, the earth would be a miserable place. I once had a cook, who, after a few weeks of exemplary conduct, failed one morning to send in breakfast at the usual time. I went out to see what had' happened, and discovered her returning from an early swim in the river. ‘‘‘l felt I must die if I didn’t do something else instead of frying bacon,” she explained. "I was that sick of it.” I sympathised with her. but realised I should shortly have to part with her, coffee and bacon at a certain hour in the morning being recognised necessities in a well-order-ed household. Then, would we enjoy ourselves if ■ postmen, in their yearnings / for a wider sphere, failed to deliver the letters ; if char-women became too high-minded to sweep and clean ?

I asked a little child to define a hero. “A man who goes out to see the world, then cornea home for a feast,” was his answer. But what If we were all born heroes, and refused to cook the feasts for one another ? Both heroes and drudges may he wanted in a perfect state of society, but the heroes need not so persistently despise the drudges. They ought to be grateful to them merely for the contrast they afford to themselves, for if there were uo plains how could we recognise the mountains ? Rosaline, in Buck and White.”