WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 43, 22 October 1892, Page 1042

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

It is more disgraceful to suspect our triends than to be deceived by them. ‘He grieves more than is necessary ’ says Seneca, ‘who grieves before it is necessary.’ Ix Trance matchmaking is a Government monopoly—we refer to the match of commerce.

The world said Rousseau is the book of women, they profit more from observation than from reading. Calamities that seem insupportable when looked at from a distance lose half their power if met and resisted with fortitude.

Ix China they punish the adulteration of food with death. In this country the adulterator goes free and the consumer dies.

‘ Love,’ wrote a famous Frenchman, ‘ often makes a fool of the cleverest men, and as often gives cleverness to the most foolish.’

Says the proverb : ‘ Tell the truth and shame the devil. Lots of people can shame the devil easy enough, but the other thing bothers them. Ix the time of Seneca the world was as now on the way to the dogs ; in that Latinian said, ‘ Such is the general depravity that what once were vices are now the manners of the day.’ ‘ Ma,’ said a little girl, who had just commenced lessons in geography, ‘ whereabouts shall 1 find the state of Matrimony ?’ ‘ Oh,’ replied the mother, ‘ you will find that to be one of the United States.’

Merit is often an obstacle to success, and the reason is that it ever produces two bad effects, envy and fear. Envy from those who cannot reach the same place, and fear from those whom it may possibly supplant.

Education gives fecundity of thought, copiousness of illustration, quickness, vigour, fancy, words, images, and illustrations ; it decorates every common thing, and gives the power of trilling without being undignified and absurd.

Peevishness is resentment, excited by trifles. Envy is resentment excited by superiority—not by all superiority, but by that to which you think you are fairly entitled ; for a ploughman does not envy a king, but he envies another ploughman who has a shilling a week more than he has.

‘Na, na, I’ll hae nae mair Irishmen,’ said a Lothian farmer to a Hibernian applicant for work ; • the last twa that I had dee’t on my han’, and I had to bury them at my ain expense.’—‘ Och, sur ! there’s no fears o’me ; shore I can get a surtiflikit from the houle of me masters that I didn’t die wid none o’ them.’

What a mystery is Love ! All the necessities and habits of our life sink before it. Food and sleep, that seem to divide our being as day and night divide Time, lose all their influence over the lover. He is a spiritualised being, fit only to live upon ambrosia, and slumber in an imaginary Paradise. The cares of the world do not touch him ; its most stirring events are to him but the dusty incidents of bygone annals. All the fortune of the world without his mistress is misery ; and with her all its mischances a transient dream. Revolutions, earthquakes, the change of governments, the fall of empires, are to him but childish games, distasteful to a manly spirit. Men love in the plague and forget the pest, though it rages about them. They bear a charmed life, and think not of destruction until it touches their idol, and then they die without a pang, like zealots for their persecuted creed. A man in love wanders in the world as a somnambulist, with eyes that seem open to those that watch him, yet in fact view nothing but their own inward fancies.

Why Japanese Women Look Pleasant.—Perhaps the secret of the sweet expression and habitual serenity of the Japanese women can be found in their freedom from small worries. The fashion of dress never varying saves the wear of mind over that subject, and the bareness of the houses and simplicity of diet make housekeeping a mere bagatelle. Everything is exquisitely clean and easily kept so. There is no paint, no drapery, no crowd of little ornaments, no coming into the houses in the footwear worn in the dusty streets. And then the feeling of Jiving in rooms that can be turned into balconies and verandahs at a moment's notice, of having walls that slide away as freely as do the scenes on the stage, and let in all out of-doors, or change the suites of rooms to the shape and size that the whim of the day or the hour requires. The Japanese are learning much from ue, some things not much to their improvement. We might begin, with profit to ourselves, to learn of them.

A Polite Suggestion.—Wagner at the height of his popularity, visited Vienna, and his Prussian friends at once arranged for an immense ovation. The astute Count von Beust, the Chancellor, was warned that this would assume the form indirectly of a protest against the too close union of Austria and Hungary ; but his advisers saw no means of inducing the composer to depart. Von Beust, however, thought otherwise. He at once invited Wagner to dine with him, and the latter, flattered by the attention, gladly accepted. During the evening the Chancellor remarked • Herr Wagner, are you interested in autographs? I have some curioiu ones to show you,’ and he opened a portfolio where were letters of Palmerston, Bismarck, Napoleon 111., Heine, and others. Suddenly, turning to a paper dated 1848, he said, ‘ Ah, look at this ; it is so very curious. What would your friend the King of Bavaria say, if this paper, which would be significant in connection with the political serenade which the Germans are going to give you, should be published to-morrow in the Vienna paper ?’ The composer examined the paper and recognised with surprise an old proclamation of one Richard Wagner, who, an ardent revolutionist in 1848, had proposed to the youth of that time to set lire to the palace of the King of Saxony. He saw his autograph, ami that it might he a means of getting him into serious trouble. • Very curious, is it not, Herr Wagner?’ said the minister. ‘Very curious, your excellency,’ replied his guest. The next morning Richaid Wagner left Vienna, recalled to Bayreuth by urgent business, and the German anti-Hungariau demonstration was indefinitely postponed.