THE ENTHUSIASTIC MAN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2533, 23 January 1923, Page 4

THE ENTHUSIASTIC MAN.

GREAT ASSET TO THE TOWN.

BRIGHTENS UP LIFE.

Cultivate enthusiasm. As a rule it is the gift of the gods, but you can do something towards improving what little of it may have fallen to your share. The enthusiasts are the salt of the earth. Without them the world would be dull and uninteresting. Probably without them life would not be so strenuous, but any man that has tried both ways would rather he hustled along with the enthusiastic souls than doze away his days with the phlegmatic. Climate is against enthusiasm in this part of the world, and that must be our excuse for the few enthusiasts that we can muster. We often read of an “enthusiastic gathering,” “the matter was taken up with enthusiasm,” “the enthusiastic secretary,” and so on. But most of these phrases are conventional — euphemisms of the polite reporter. Enthusiasm is the one thing we lack Proof? Tot up on your fingers the number of men that you have met that you would describe as “leaders” in the true sense of the word. How many outstanding people are there in the city! Without enthusiasm you never get a leader. Mr Asquith was a more learned man than Mr Lloyd George but had to give way to the little Welshman, whose enthusiasm was one of the greatest assets we had during the war.

Enthusiasm is very catching and given an enthusiastic loader, you will soon get an enthusiastic crowd. We are all so used to, so deadly sick of, the hum-drum person —the person that gets up in the morning,' goes to work, conies home again, and next day does exactly the same thing. An enthusiastic man has an irresistible and immediate attraction for one; it is like spotting a thoroughbred in a field of draughts.

It does not matter what you are enthusiastic about so long as you are enthusiastic about something. As a rule a man that is enthusiastic about one thing will be enthusiastic about others. How ofter have you 'heard it said, “Olq but he is so many sided!” He isn’t many sided at all; he is merely enthusiastic, and enthusiasm is a fountain of virtue. Of course people will tell you that a man can be enthusiastic about the wrong things. That is not the sort of thing we mean. A man of generous enthusiasms is a very different being from a man “addicted” to anything. What this town lacks is enthusiasm. It has plenty of people with ability and determination but its people with the heavenly gift of enthusiasm can be easily numbered. An enthusiastic man is a wonderful asset. Just think in your own little circle how such and such a person “makes the party go.” there aie some people around whom everything seems to centre. Some men have the faculty of holding quite adverse factions together. You may have been one of a gathering in which everything went with a swing. Suddenly after the departure of one person everything falls flat. People that formerly conversed with something like brilliancy suddenly become awkward, and the component parts of the gathering seem to have suffered some sudden loss of cohesion that was previously unsuspected. The man that has just left seems to have taken with him the flux that made the different natures of the gathering flow together. That is what happens when the enthusiastic man drops out. Somehow or other he has the faculty of

welding people of very dissimilar naturesI—and 1 —and that is what makes a leader. For instance, Jones may think (and with a bit of justification), that Brown is a bit of a bounder; Brown may have equally a« much right in regarding Jones as rather insufferable. As a duet these two are an utter failure, and loathe being left together. Enter Robinson the man of enthusiasm, and Jones and Brown are not only civil to one another, but for the time being are almost cordial. During the war, when nerves were not always up to concert pitch, this magical effect of the man of enthusiasm round whom opposing natures could gather, was often experienced. Another name for a man of enthusiasm is a man of magnetism. Some people have the gift in more abundance than others, but the man blessed with a very small portion need not despair; he can cultivate his gift. Time, he can never hope to become the force that one sees in the man endowed with a double portion, as it were, but it is surprising how he can improve his outlook on life and his usefulness to his fellowmen by cultivating his talent.