WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 47, 19 November 1892, Page 1142

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

Friendship is a shield that blunts the darts of adversity. There is nothing so bad that it will not admit of something to be said in its defence. We could all be great men if we could be measured by the great things we intend to do to-morrow. At times, when human prudence ends and sees nothing clearly, then the light of Divine wisdom begins to dawn. Marriage is the metempyschosis of women ; it turns them into different creatures from what they were before. There is nothing more calculated to take the conceit out of a fellow than seeing a crayon portrait of himself by an amateur artist. Man’s gain, whether of worldly goods or mental and moral acquirements, is represented only by that part of his accumulations that is wisely used. How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbour says, or does, or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure. A man who habitually indulges in violent rage is laying up for himself a store of ills against an advancing age, the least of which may be general palsy—the greatest, a sudden and fatal fit of apoplexy. An old soldier, in describing his first impressions of a battle, said that be didn’t exactly run away, but if he had been going for a doctor those who saw him would have thought somebody was awfully ill. Even in evil, that dark cloud which hangs over the creation, we discern rays of light and hope, and gradually come to see in suffering and temptation proofs and instruments of the sublimest purposes of wisdom and love.— Channing. In every age there if a secret band of kindred spirits. Ye who are of this fellowship, see that ye weld the circle firmly, so that the truth of art may shine ever more and more clearly, shedding joy and blessing far and near.— Schumann. A curious custom prevails in Sweden. On her weddingday the bride has her pockets filled with bread. On her way to church she distributes the pieces among the poor, believing that each gift will avert some future misfortune from the household. Health, like success in life, is to be gained by paying attention to details. It is better to try to keep from catching cold than to be always trying to avoid infection. More can be done to check cholera by keeping houses clean than by using tons of disinfectants. Nature intended all to have fresh air, sufficient plain food, uncontaminated water, and exercise. Let us accept Nature’s bequest, if we prefer health to disease. A minister who is not always so careful as he ought to be in making his preaching and his practice consistent was lately telling some friends a story of adventure. It was a long story, and the minister’s little ten-year old girl was listening to it very intently. When he finished, she fixed her wide-open eyes upon her father’s face, and said very gravely : * Is that true, or are you preaching now, papa ?’ A kiss is said to be like a sermon, because it requires at least two heads and an application. Among the parts of speech it is defined as a conjunction.’ ‘Stolen kisses,’ says the proverb, ‘ are sweetest;’ and some humorist confirms this by saying they are sweetest ‘ when syruptitiously obtained.’ Of course ‘kissing goes by favour.’ Some one calls ‘ kisses ’ interrogation points in the literature of love. ‘Screws.’—Some men have the money getting, others the money-saving faculty ; very few have both. Those endowed with the former in its plenitude and who exercise it to the utmost often become rich while indulging in all the expensive luxuries which sumptuous tastes can suggest; but the colossal figures of finance, the giants of the ‘ banknote world,’ by whose side the half million and million fellows are merely respectable dwarfs, are generally rigid economists in their personal expenditures, and some people are discourteous enough to call them ‘ screws.’ Why Women Manage Men.—With all his philosophy man is a weak, plastic being, and we do not blame the women for handling him as they would the potter’s clay, simply for the reason that, where the moulding is so easy, it must be difficult to resist the temptation to fashion it to suit the changing moods. Perhaps it is well that it is so, for otherwise woman would lead a miserable existence. She would be unoccupied more than half the time, and in her desperation she might join the reformers, and denounce chivalry as humbug. And then man would have to draw on the skies for an angelic vision, since with the end of chivalry woman would cease to be an angel in petticoats.

A new movement has just been initiated for the perpetuation of the Highland tongue. Hitherto the Highland gatherings have been held for the promotion chiefly of athletic games, while the Welsh gatherings or Eisteddfods have had as their aim the promotion of Welsh poetry and music. The first of what is meant to be an annual series of featherings for the encouragement and cultivation of Gaelic iterature and music, the development of Highland home industries, and the extension of Gaelic teaching in schools, was held recently at Oban, under the very fit presidency of Lord Archibald Campbell. To him Highland literature is deeply indebted for his initiation and direction of the series of volumes published by Mr Nutt under the general title of • Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition.' Among the titles of Gaelic poems for the composition, singing, or recitation of which prizes were awarded, I may note the following, giving English translations :— ‘ The dispossession of the Gael’ and ‘Shall Gaelic die?’ In this connection I may mention that the tenth annual conference of the Highland Land League will be held at Portree next week. It would appear that the tide of the Crofter movement, which for the last few years has been at an ebb, is likely to rise again with renewed force.