FOUR HAPPY PEOPLE

Taranaki Daily News, 8 September 1934, Page 21 (Supplement)

FOUR HAPPY PEOPLE

HOW TO FIND LIFE GOOD. STORY OF TRANSYLVANIA. We have been hearing from our Hungarian correspondent, . says the Children’s Newspaper, of a pair of brothers and a pah' of sisters who unlike in most other, things, are alike in the bond which unites the members of each pair. The brothers, bachelors both, are 71 and 73, and live in a rambling old house in a rambling old garden in an out-of-, the-way corner of that most out-of-the-way country called Transylvania. Far from the madding crowd they are happy and contented in a world which few find to their liking, and the secret of their content, apart from their satisfaction in each .other’s company, is that they have centred their interest on lasting values. They -never open a newspaper, but they read and love the classics and any good new scientific work they can gqt hold of, in English, German, French, or Russian.

In the leisure hours between sunrise and sunset they have had time to teach themselves'these and a few other languages, including Esperanto. They have as many hobbies between them as there are flowers in their garden. Astronomy, botany, bee-keeping, fruitgrowing, ; electricity, And all the latest technical inventions claim their passionate interest. In bee-keeping and fruit-growing they are experts and pioneers whose advice-is sought all over the land.

But they are also eleven with- their hands in the making of ingenious;-things, from exquisitely-wrought chains carved out of a single piece of bone or wood to trays and platters set together of many hundred pieces. They do not sell their work, though it has brought them much praise at exhibitions, preferring to give it away to friends. They can afford this proud sacrifice, for, though their resources are little, they are rich because their wants are few and simple. The two sisters are in their early twenties, and they, too, are 'finding the world a pleasant place to live in. They were born in the same hour and have never been apart since, so they have never known real loneliness; and the gift of good looks and lovely voices was laid into the cradle of both.

Descendants, on their mother’s side, of our famous English Purcell (though they, too, are Transylvanians) they are musical in every fibre, and were already called the Singing Twins when they sat as tiny tots on their father’s knee. Hard work and the best of teaching

have developed their voices so that they have a name in the musical world. One of them obtained, not long ago, an engagement at the Royal Opera House in Budapest, while the other has good hopes of a similar post before long. Meanwhile they work and play together and help each other, as good ' twins should, over the stiles of doubt and discouragement which all artists must encounter.

We record their stories in these depressing days because they tell us that the recipe for being happy seems still the old one: hard work, a mind open to all beauty, and a companion to care for.