DON’T MAKE RASH VOWS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17836, 3 May 1926, Page 11

DON’T MAKE RASH VOWS.

—for Fate, who ever seems to take a malicious pleasure in upsetting our best-laid plans, may be listening! It is surely evident that it is wiser not to make emphatic announcement as to the acts we will never commit and the things we will never do! It seems that we tempt the gods by so doing, and they retaliate by bringing those very things to pass, making us eat our words —laughing at us, in fact! For example, seven or eight women, varying in age from twenty-five to sixty, sat round a fire. Each in turn had something to say upon the subject : One very tall woman said that when a girl she vowed -that never would she marry a doctor, or a man shorter than herself. The gathering laughed. Her husband is a successful specialist and an exceedingly short man of about five feet two inches! Another woman told how she had sworn never to wed a solicitor or a Welshman. “And, as you know, he is both.” she added.

Still another, who had during the war determined nothing would induce her to marry a man in the Air Force, because she would never know a moment’s peace, did that very thing shortly after the Armistice, and has somehow managed to survive it!

It is odd. isn’t it? And it seems to be the same with all sorts of things, big and little. If we look back on the things we were and were not going to do in life, most of us will find that we have done just the opposite to what we so emphatically decided. Those of us who vowed we wished and intended to marry, have remained single; whilst those who swore never to walk up to the altar, have—and more than once in some cases! “I am master of my fate” is only a fine-sounding phrase. Circumstances are too strong for the great majority. In my extreme youth, I swore a mighty swear that never would I live in a town or work in an office. But somehow, here I am doing both — and possibly for always. No more shall I swear! Fate has too keen a sense of humour!