A DAILY MESSAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 June 1929, Page 1

A DAILY MESSAGE

DON’T BE A NEUTER! I How many there are in this world who follow the road of least resistance! have no convictions about anything, except that lor a king’s ransom they inusn’t disagree with anybody—and about that they are firmly convinced. 1 hoy are not positively bad, and they are not positively good; they are just pleasant, at all hazards and at every sacrifice of principle. It is rather incongruous to mention sacrifice ol principle in connexion with those “ too pleasant ” persons, for you cannot sacrifice what you don’t possess. They are merely human neuters. There are male and female neuters—old and young. The young, female neuters are especially interesting and especially pitiful. You meet them often at parties. They are so anxious to please! 1 1! their hostess smokes, they smoke. “ Certainly! Adore it.” If she doesn’t, they don’t. either. If ' the hostess drinks—only the social coctuil, you know!—they join her. If she doesn’t, they have no taste for cocktails. .Iff she scoffingly suggests that some good action has a selfish motive, they agree. If she condemns an absent “friend,” either they join m the condemnation, or make no demur. So unpleasant, such had form, you know! to make a hiss over such a trifle. And at the end of the trail, these pitiful little neuters find that they have lost, everything on the road of least resistance, It is a harder road, in the end, than the road that is paved with principle, bound together by conviction, made safe by steadfastness. 'The road of least resistance turns out to be teeming with quagmires, quicksands, and morasses into which - those who walk that way sink, and are lost. I Don t be a neuter!

—M. PRESTON STANLEY