CASUAL ACQUAINTANCES

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 40014, 24 October 1929, Page 1

CASUAL ACQUAINTANCES

“All of us are continually coming into contact with ordinary men whom we never see again. We meet, perhaps converse, and separate. to meet again no more,” says a contributor to the Birmingham Post. “There is, if we consider the matter, something 'almost solemn in this brushing against a fellowcreature for a few moments in the lifetime of both. Two men, each with his own personality and his own life-story, toueh each, other for a moment in the; long course of history and then are lost to each otihcfr for the rest of their lives. The contact, however momentary, of two personalities is changed with possibilities beyond all power of calculation. There must be few people who cannot tell of the difference .made in their lives joy a brief talk with someone whom they never see again, of truths they have learnt, of seed-thoughts that have borne fruit, of new outlooks that have been gained. Fotnnal logic may forbid us to argue from the effect of a few .experiences to the prevalence of a,- universal law, but imagination is here top truer guide than logic, and suggests that everything we hear and say maikes a difference 'beyond the power of anyone -to estimate. /Considerations such as these must make all seri-ous-minded people ifeel that they are under an obligation to he at their best wherever they go, and to remember that every stranger is a neighbour.”