SMALL DUTIES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3059, 16 April 1881, Page 4

SMALL DUTIES.

By Henry Lapham,

When a person undertakes to admonish his fellow-creatures as to their duties — whether ho does it by means of a sermon, or lecture, or in print—there is always the danger of being considered dogmatic and assuming. The audience, or congregation, or solitary reader, may ask —" Are you, oh preacher, so perfect yourself, havo you so few failings, that you stand in no need of reform, rather than instructing and advising those who, at any rate, are no more imperfect than yourself ? " But it does not follow —and, happily, is not at all necessary— that offerers of advice should be themselves Eerfect. It is said that men are always most arsh and unforgiving towards the sins in others which do most easily beset themselves, and, however, this may ' be, it is easier to offer advice about those points in which we own ourselves as weak and erring as other men.

Perhaps, if it be not impertinent or unfair to take oneself as a criterion, there is nothing so difficult to perform faithfully as the small duties of every-clay life. Just because such duties are insignificant, because no great credit is attached to tbem if performed, no great blame if left undone, .we are apt to think nothing whatever about them. There is the duty of being good-tempered. Is not that important enough, and is it not too often negleoted ? When a man is worrier! by business cares, or things going wrong ■which he could not avoid, is he not tempted ~-e home angry and irritable, to snap i. „„ '" Punish the children, and make at his wife, to r -happy? Or if-as he the whole house u„. ' alor > d ? es he no J ought to be—he is a bacu.. "" moros f e ? remain all the evening gloomy an_, " eel His dinner is tasteless, his evening irao. in vain anger or regrets, his sleep disturbed, ancl very often to-morrow is made as unhappy and cheerless as to-day. But if a man could only make an effort to lay aside his business cares with his office coat, to determinately shake off his vexations, and be goodtempered in spite of himself, it would be a great gain. The evening breeze 3as he -walk* home will help to blow away the dust of annoyance ; the dull cares will brighten a? yonder cottage window burns and glows where the level sunbeams strike; the evening perfumes from his neighbor's gnrden will soothe his aching head ; and he will be in temper to have his heart gladdened, his spirits purified, when at his own house-door he sees his wife and children watching gladly, eagerly, t.end?rly for father's coming home. But if be bad gloomed and snarled, or, worse still, been sullen and uncommunicative, the children would have slipped away trembling and disappointed, the mother would have had her evening destroyed, her simple plea sure ruined. That indeed, one would think must be a very heavy, bitter burden which a wife's tender kiss cannot lighten, nor a little child's hand for a time push aside. Good temper, after all, is a habit —at least, it must be made so by most persons after a while; and if we can snatch any fleeting pleasure, any comfort, any relief, from worry and perplexity, it is surely a paramount duty to do so,

" The world goes up and the world goes down, And sunshine follows rain; And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown Can never come over again." Is it not a woman's duty quite as much as a man's to keep and force herself to be goodtempered ? When a husband gets home tired and bothered, he will not listen patiently to ids wife's quarulous complaints of what the day's household trials have been. "He wants his house to be comfortable, his children to be smiling, neat, and clean, his wife contented, and he wants— let. me whisper it confidentially, mes scaurs —bnt he really does want his supper ! All men have some weak point, and that vulnerable quarter, I l'ogret to say, is not the heart, or even the head, but it is such a place (I dare not to be more explicit) as may he readily taken by a warm, clean, wholesome meal. The fair Angelina may smile as she thinks that Edwin never would descend to any such prosaic considerations as these ; but I have heard, ma belle amie, that even lovp and ivatercresses prove indigestible after a while, and your tenderest words will fail to charm the husband if he misses the good cooking he has been used to. When watery vegetables and burnt black meat lie too heavily on his epigastrium not even the thrilling glances of your " beaux yeux " will conciliate him. It is the nature of the beast, and beyond remedy. While youth remains, and we are healthy, hopeful and joyful, it is easy to be continually good-tempered ; but when middle-age comes, bringing with it frequent sickness, disappointments, and care, then is the difficult time for cheerfulness to become a habit. But it is possible to preserve the kind genial, charitable heart of youth even to extreme old age.

*• O youth ! for years so many and sweet 'Tis known that thou and I were one; I'll think it but a fond conceitIt cannot be that thou art gene ! Thy vesper btll that not yet tolled, And thou wert aye a masker bold. What strange disguise ha?t now put on, To make believe tb-t thou art gone on ? I see these locks in pilvery Flips, This droopine: gait, this altered size, But springtide olosaoma on thy lips. And tears take sunshine from thine eyes. Life is but thought! so think I well That youth and I are housemates still." It would be well if we could all adopt ancl act on the philosophy of Mr Mark Tapley, and "be jolly" under all circumstances. Old Williuin Dunbar, who lived and sang three hundred years ago, well understood and valued the worth of a happy spirit. He says : — " Be merry man. and tak' not Hair in mind The wavering of this wretchtid world of sorrow; To God be humble, to thy friend be kind. And with thy neighbors gladly lend and borrow— His chance to-night, it may be thine to-morrow. Be blythe in hearte for any aventare; For oft with wise men it has been said aforow Without gleaners ava'lesno treasure. There is another very simple duty very closely connected and in some degree dependent upon good temper, and that is the duty of politeness—not merely politeness to our superiors, but to everyone about no matter how humble how mean or poor. A goodtempered person is always to a certain degree a polite person—tbat is to say, he or she will be ready with a kind word spoken in a hearty, pleasant, if sometimes rough manner. But there is a studied, formal, obligatory politeness which is even worse than actual rudeness —a politeness that shows plainly the speaker fancies himself infinitely superior to the person he is addressing. This is the politeness too often displayed by persons in good circumstances to those they deem their inforiors. It leaves nothing to be found fault with ; they are polite, civil in word and action, but cool, calculating, afraid of compromising their dignity by giving a man more than bis due of civility! They do their duty "in largo measure, well pressed out, but measured always." Ifow very different is this from the ready, hearty, generous politeness of the man "who loves his fellow-men," and is polite to everyone he meets, because he is wise enough to remember that every man or woman may be his superior in heart, or brain, or aptitude for labor, and is his equal in the sight of the Great Arbitrator. It is a matter for congratulation that our teachers are endeavoring to train their scholars to he pplite ancl civil. Tho ordinary demeanour of a young Colonial of the middle class is often a mixture of impertinence and diffidence.

Then, again, there is the duty—something more than a simple duty—of the politeness due from employed towards employers. Many a man is an excellent, thorough •worker, but he does everything in a sullen, unpleasant manner, as if he were continually beiDg imposed upon. The terms of respect due to a master are also very little used among Colonial servants —and yet there is, or should be, nothing servile in calling the man by whom we make our living such a good old-fashioned name as "sir." A master always thinks more of a servant who is upright, cheerful, ready in his work, respectful in his address and behaviour, and invariably polite. Far from there being any

loss of self-respect, there is the certainty of gaining the good-will and kindness of those for whom wo labour. Unfortunately, however, all piasters" are not roful as" they flight he in the matter of politeness to their ?,x;T?_rdimates. A man who allows himself always to use a harsh, domineering manner towards his servants who is always on tho look-out for faults, is sometimes too familiar, too ready to sbare in their low gossip, too apt to show himself their inferior by thc ; use of vicious language and tho indulgence irr bad habits, cannot expect that his servants will do less than despise and scorn him. They will work for him because of the wages he payes, but many_ of them are and know themselves to be infinitely better, and more useful, and more respectable men. Nor is it uncommon in theso Colonies to find men of excellent education, of good breeding, of refined tastes, filling (through no fault of theirs) subordinate situations ; and such men, at any rate, will value and respect the master who habitually treats them with politeness. But for such politeness to be part of a man's every-day behaviour he needs to practise it from his childhood, for one who has by greed or cunning amassed his wealth will always be vulgar overbearing, suspicious, and familiar with his subordinates ; and though he possesses coffers heaped and overflowing with

" The e-oM that gilds the straitened forehead of the fool," nothing will ever make him a gentleman. There is one other very common, very simple, but very much-neglected duty, and that is answering letters. We all of us like to receive letters—that is to say, letters that are readable; for, as Charles Lamb says, " there are some books which are not books, so there are some letters which are not letters—as, for instance, circulars, postcards, and particularly duns !" There are

-"on, I fancy—and are there any few 1... % o do not like to receive letters, women?—w.... " that those who are It is pleasant to • y e an j n t eresfc j n separated from us still t*.~. ~, corner in our welfare, still have ft W3Ti~. ' '-; n( ji_ their memory for us. To get 0 >»- ..'_ written, impulsive epistle is like receiving suddenly the warm responsive grasp ot a friendly hand, and yet bow offcefl are we <milt.y of leaving such letters unanswered . And who can tell the misery such a selnah neglect may cause, the tender hearts anxiously looking, and every day disappointed—the gray-haired mother, whose weary heart yearns for her son, so far away ; the anxious wife, wondering for her husband's well-being ; the sorrowful lonely ■lister, for some token of a brother's love. Only, only when those fingers can never trace the gentle, tender words—only when those fond ones have passed to that far country whence never a whisper or message can reach us left behind, though we seek them with prayers and bitter tears—only then do we fully appreciate the folly, the selfishness, nay, the sin, of leaving unanswered letters.