DAUNTLESS SPIRIT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 June 1941, Page 6

DAUNTLESS SPIRIT

THRILL OF HARD WORK. SWEAT AND TOIL. Like many other moderately successful men. middle-age found me vaguely dissatisfied, confesses a correspondent in an English trade journal. I had done most of the things I had set out to do. Starting with nothing but a modest complement of brains, but a strong will to succeed. I had, by hard work, self-denial and application, built up a good paying business. Then came this vague uneasiness, difficult to describe. possibly a legacy from some unknown Puritan ancestor. Not being an adherent of any established church I could not avail myself of the consolations that many find in formal religion. Could I throw everything away and start the struggle afresh? Then from out the night sky it came-—destruction by enemy action, out of the blue of an : autumn night, a handful of fireworks dropped-by al drugged youth from a thing of wood, canvas and metal. The act of an agent of the devil, or a buffet Ifrcm the finger of God? Now was I stripped as bare as the heart could desire. Into my business I had put brain and heart and entire personal fortune —now it was gone. What I should never have had the courage to do was done. 1 found myself in possession of a glorious gift: a hard and rough road lo travel. And this has to be done without the stimulus of the jcarelcss rapture of youth—but with the full knowledge of the hardships to be endured. Hitler destroyed my material prosperity, but gave me Hie greatest thrill I have ever had. the thrill of starting life anew, the thrill of adventure, of hard work and sweat and toil.