TE AWAMUTU GOSSIP.

Waikato Times, Volume 2188, Issue XXVII, 17 July 1886, Page 3

TE AWAMUTU GOSSIP.

Acquaintance, wedded to familiarity, is world-renowned for its innumerable offspring of contempt. Although so renowned it disgraces the earth that gives it birth, and i* but a parasite of the antedeluvian, cuise pronounced upon it for the progeny ot such a mumi must fuitherdiv honour it, and the parents of contempt hecomein tune contemptible in the scofHug eyes of their children. Let familiarity— that is, kindness to goodness and charitable reproof to evilness— extend its arms of goodfellowship, and none will be found to sneer at its barrenness if it never again produced an imp of contempt. in writing a "rhythm ot go«sip" a fellow must suppose that he's addressing some practically recipiocating fnends, who, if they cannot enjoy the rambling verbosity of the composition are too leniently inclined to sneer at it The fn -nds I addiv v> are e'enposed of my readers, and, embiacing— no not embracing— for some of them could never think of such a cuddle, but bracketing them collectively, 1 pray each of them to read thi& ha>ty scribble, and the very hastmes* of its composition, for, whoever hoard one take gossip as if it were a studied sonnon, _ ought to be the sign manual of its go-siping in- j terest— as if I addressed thorn personally. The theme I write of is love. Love, oh! bo old, yet, oh !so new. Yet neither the wisdom of its age nor the innoc< ncy of its blushing youth prevents its almost divine beauty of blossom from becoming rumpled by rude un^ympathising hands, which pluck and fondle it in all the strangling roughness of supreme selfishness, until the sacred flower jies, gasping with protesting fragrance, in the button-hole of the fustian it adorns. Love, as I undei stand it, mean* all-absorbing self-abnegation, which reflects back its blissful rays upon the glow that caused them, thereby making a circle happy which, pregnant with the joy it contains, extends its radiations, as the increasing ripples do, caused by a stone thrown upon the bosom of a placid lake, until all, although directly uucognisant of it must, as love is all powerful, feel, in some degree, the happiness it, in its rapture of possession, is bursting to extend. Love possesses plea-ant bitterness. Its pleasantness memory cherishes, and fattens on the cherish. Its bitterness] is also cherished, but the cherisher becomes lean in the process, and wails out his misery in the words <-f the poet, who anguishingly requested the raven To take his beak from out his heart, And his shadow from his dour, But, quoth the raven, nevermore ! Study the words, weigh the desolation they contain, and respect your neighbours, although some of them may seem to you to be misanthropical. Skeletons abound everywhere; all possess them, but sume have the happy knack of hiding them better than others. Love is the divine attribute of man, and woman, too, of course, and all lost for love is fully refunded by the all-engross-ing affection that prompted the saciifice, although the inspirer of it laughs at the immolation. In concluding this theme I mildly \enture to assert that the love that flourishes bent here is the love so beautifully sung of by Shakspere, through the conceited throat of Narcissus. The citizens, I place them first, for they elect the Town Board, and the hoard are at loggerheads. The question of dispute is a nasty one, for it comes under the term nuisances. This place is full of nuisances, which I may term a hot-bed of nuisances of every shade and character under the luminary of day. No sooner is one nuisance abated, th^n another crops up. Even when death itself, forgetting the mightiness of its majority of votes, kindly pleas.es the people by removing a nuisance, tlvy are .so uncharitable and democratic as to instantly conjure up another. Some people think we are a portion of the lost tribes of Israel. For my part I hope I am not included in the list, for my knowledge of those who claim such pretentions leads me to fully believe there would not be much joy in the House of Israel upon its recovery of its lost lambs, but rather a hasty following of Mark Twain's advice to "count the spoons," and having found them correct to immediately "plant " them too. Billy.