ABOUT GRATITUDE

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15185, 10 March 1923, Page 13 (Supplement)

ABOUT GRATITUDE

(Richard King.) | People who go forth Into the world I looking for.gratitude are simply asking for disappointment. Personally, I am not quite sure that they ought to expect to come across it. To feel grateful is usually another way of saying that you feel inferior. And people hate to feel inferior. Thus, acts which on the surface look extremely like gratitude are really and truly the method by which one person recovers his equality with another- Someone does you a favour, and, oh, you are pleased! Hut you arc not half so pleased as when you are able lo return that favour, and so have no further necessity to feel grateful. If you can return that favour with inter, est you are more pleased still. By just so much as your favour exceeds the favour you received do you then feel superior. Moreover, and this also must be taken into consideration, the generous person always feels himself secretly elated by his generosity. It may be a very glorious elation, but he does feel (hat, by his act of charity, he has gone up one step in his own estimation, and God is sure to be very pleased. And, perhaps, that emotion should be his only reward —the only reward he is entitled to expect. In the same way, ihe man who has benefited by that act of kindness feels at a discount with himself uiU.l he has wiped it off by an act placed to the credit side of his drawing-account on virtue. Very true indeed is the saying: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." It is! By such blessings we seem to rise superior to the common herd and feel, as it were, that now at least we can wipe off some of our minor sins and still leave a little virtue in hand for a day when the Devil pops in lo tea. "I am in lebted to you for' so many things!"- says th-3 Unfortunate Man, the while he mentally contrives lo pay off thai debt as quickly as he can.' "Don't mention it." we reply, being extremely annoyed if lie doesn't. Thus the adage to do good by stealth is asking for an act of pure, heroism which few people can achieve. After all, as mosl people sum it up, if I am expectert to f'.'! -'-''"alel'u!. there was no real altruism behind the genoivsily I have received. II was jus! a "Inn," with gratitude demanded as a percentage until that loan is wiped off. And alas! experience and observation force me to Ihe conclusion that mosl people do regard their generosity as a loan. If they cannot hope for an act of generosity in return, the only thing which will eventually wipe off the debt —and nothing but Death does really wipe it off—is a loud and life, long gratitude. So it all evolves itself at last into a kind of Virtuous Exchange- I raise my hat lo a lady and she bows acknowledgement. I have got my reward. If, however, she only nods, I feel that she still owes me something; and, if she slares at nie unblinkingly and passes on, I feel towards her something of the feeling which a man has in his heart for the thief who has picked his pocket. She has stolen the goods without paying for them. And, as with this minute form of give and get hack, so with the more important ones. Thus it is that I am convinced that the man who deliberately and with a joyful heart sets forth lo be generous has no more reason lo demand gratitude in rj'urn Ihan the man who lends money in all d'rections and expects to gel it back again, with or without interest. Thus, when 1 lend money (which is rare, since Experience has educated me to the knowledge that I ought never to have done it at ail), I always immediately place ttie loan among the rest of my bad debts. I may get it back, in which case it will seem almost like a present from On Hig.i. But 1 don't expert tc, consequently I am not liable t~> disappointment. But what I do realise, and the realisation gives my soul a certain amount of comfort, is that I have placed at least one act to the credit side of that ledger which the Recording Angel, otherwise my own conscience, is supposed to keep for future reference. And that reword is the only one I have any right tc, or should look to receive. In fact, I sometimes think that we ought to feel extremely grateful to ungrateful people. They provide us with a balance of virtue on the credit side. When • they return our generosity by an act of generosity to us, they wipe off the debt and thus diminish that balance considerably. So we are left alons with the memory of our own shortlived satisfaction, a state of bcatilude which, pondered over to excess, will sooner or later turn us into sancti. monious prigs. After all, the generous man who expects gratitude is not far removed from the money-ijndcr who demands a high percentage- If he gets it he is satisfied; if he doesn't hell is let loose in the land. But none of us have a very high opinion of the pure altruism of money-lenders, we?

USEFUL HINTS. Wash your enamel bedstead in hnl water to which a tilth’ turpentine has boon added. Dry and polish with any good furniture polish. Oil of geranium is a pleasant preventive for insert bites. Moisten a pad of rollon- wool with it. and pass il tightly user the fare, neck, arms, and ankles. for shoes that slip “up and down," lake a piece of garter clastic, about (tin in length, and sew it at the bark of the shoe inside, gradually tapering off towards the instep at each end. j When milk is slighlly scorched you ! rail remove the bum I t; i s I«• by putting i He pan inlo cold water and adding a I pinch of sail l■ • the milk. I Add a leas] of castor sugar to 1 ip,, boiling water when you an- rooking peas. It will impart the delirious sweet flavour whirl) freshly gathered garden peas possess. Wlien ; ."i make frmt pies and puddiuirs. .old - oe quarter of a feaspoon- | fid nf bicarbonate of soda to each pound of fruit. It will save a third l of the sugar usually required.