A DAILY MESSAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 7 May 1929, Page 1

A DAILY MESSAGE

MAKE THE BEST OF IT! I was going into town this morning and mot Mr Gloomy, who has a modest fortune, a charming wife, bonnie children, a beautiful home, a Rolls Royce —and everything .jnoney can huv—but he looked so glum that 1 ventured to ask: ‘‘What’s wrong?” He confided to me that he had had a bad day at golf on Monday and a fall of threepence on a small parcel of shares on Tuesday. I crossed the road and met Mrs Grouchy, who is just as well placed as Mr Gloomy. She has a good husband, fine sons, a luxurious home, a beautiful garden, . an extensive library, her own car, plenty of leisure, treasure, and pleasure, an overworked liver, bad temper, frayed nerves.

She looked even more glum than Mr Gloomy. Again,- 1 asked: “ Wliath wrong?” “Ob, I’m without a chauffeur; my telephone is out of order, and I’ve had to come all the way into town to book our seats for the theatre.”

'Pen paces further on I saw a pathetic figure waiting—waiting for someone to lead him across the street—be was totally blind. “l)o you wish to cross the street? ” l asked.. Cheerily came the answer, “Yes, please! 1-want to go to Wally Weekes’ corner. .1 can easily find my way from there to Macquarie Street, where I shall be selling all day.” And he added, “ Isn’t it a beautiful warm morning? I love this weather. Thank von very much,” lie said, in the cheeriest and mosf hopeful voice I’d heard that morning, and the hand-clasp which he gave me was so warm, happy, hearty, friendly, that it kept.me singing all the day. And as 1 watched him—his stick cautiously tapping the wall as though it bad eyes to see and hands to feel— I wondered whether this blind old man selling matches in Macquarie Street, had not more to teach us than Mr Gloomy and Mrs Grouchy, who have everything that life has to offer, except the capacity to make the best of it.