Along the Road

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20284, 28 August 1937, Page 15 (Supplement)

Along the Road

(By the DURING THE LAST few weeks the memory of the beloved Captain has been much in my mind, and, I have no doubt, never absent from the mind of the little lady up at the house. It is now some years since he left us, but he was spared to see the spring, and through his windows watched the fruit trees come into bloom, and then he fared forth on the “journey of the soul from this world to some other, as the old Greek put it. I have the few little personal possessions he left me, but I do not need them to remind me of one who was a fine man, a true friend. And after all there may be no finer thing to bequeath than such a memory. One to These Benefactors, seeing them again with the inward eye, and in some strange way seeming to hear their voices. Usually any little mannerism is clearly depicted and we recall them generally as we preferred to see and know them. Some time ago I attended a school jubilee. I was not an old scholar, but had undertaken to cart some things along and I guessed that there would be plenty to occupy my time, boiling the water for the afternoon tea, and assisting at the hall nearby with the final arrangements of the decorations and so on for the concert and dance in the evening. I saw old friends meet; men and women whose hair had turned white, and it was good to notice what joy the meeting gave them. They talked and laughed, and altogether lived in the memory of past days. I suppose each and every one had some special friend about which inquiry was made. There was some boy or girl who had lived in their remembrance down the years. Now I could not prove it but it seems certain to me that all those recollections were pleasant. They recalled the childhood friends who had added to the pleasure of those days. They recalled the teachers about whose strictness probably they had often grumbled, but who now, seen through the experience of years, they recognised had done their work well, and were anxious to serve in their day and generation. It is one of my ideas that people, the memory of whom we recall with joy. have really been successful people. Probably most of us have met men and women whom we do not wish to remember. The conscious mind seems to exclude them. They, to my way of thinking, are among the failures of life. These standards do not depend at all on, shall we say financial standing. Some of those who, in one’s memory, can still inflict pain may have become wealthy, but All the Wealth of the Indies could not purchase escape from those unhappy memories. Have you ever noticed how quickly, like a flash, the mind will turn from the memory of them, and find something else to engage its attention? One can only be sorry for those whom we would willingly forget. As some poet put it: “ Better by far you should forget and smile, than that you should remember and be sad.” There are people, and they puzzle me completely, who seem to derive a strange sort of negative pleasure out of memories of unhappy experiences. They are, as the lad here remarked about one of the share-

AN OCCASIONAL COLUMN

Swagger.) milkers down the Valley, “always harping” on some miserable incident, or alleged injustice or loss. I once heard a young woman class them as among those who can “enjoy bad health.” It must be a poor existence. Think of carrying round in one’s memory wretched, depressing facts or fancies, when all around are the signs of spring, and the restored beauty of the world. We would never go to much trouble to tend carefully a weed in the front garden, but some of us seem quite willing to tend, in the garden of the mind, some mental weed, and to think more about it than of the flowers that could be cultivated. Once I did break out, after being subjected for some weeks to the constant complaints of a work-mate about the way he had been treated by somebody. My Patience Was Exhausted. “ Look,” I said, “there are some things you can control and some you cannot. The point is: Did you give that man a fair deal? If you did then you couldn’t do any more. The fact that he didn’t treat you right is outside your control. You can’t make all men just, but you can act justly yourself. Now, if you’ve done that, then you cannot do any more. If he has done you a bad turn then he knows it, and can’t forget it. But you can, for you have not acted unfairly, so be satisfied with that.” That, I remember, was the line I took. And I should probably take it again if the occasion arose. We cannot control the acts and intentions of others. We cannot guarantee that we shall always get a fair deal. But we can control our own acts and intentions and give a square deal. Years ago I sat by the side of the road and talked with a man who had crashed badly. But there was no bitterness there. The man he had trusted had proved to be a waster, and as we chatted, for I knew something of the circumstances, the man took his pipe out of his mouth and, as as though thinking aloud-, said: “Yes, he put it across me. Poor beggar.” He pitied the man who could do a thing like that. And so should we all. But this is not the line that I had intended to take. It is amazing how easily I get off the track. I had purposed writing mostly about those glad souls, those fine people, whom we remember with a feeling of really warm pleasure. Faces light up whenever their names are mentioned, and there is quite a rush of anecdote and story about them. What does it matter what they possessed, in the way of wordly goods? The thing that mattered was not their possessions but themselves. What they were was infinitely more important than what they ever had. They Added a Touch of Richness to others' lives, made others happy, and even the memory of them is a pleasure. Well, it is within the power of all of us to make that contribution to the joy of life. It is not a matter of giving but of being. I know a young New Zealander who says that his father was not able to leave him a pennypiece but did leave him a host of good friends. Well, that was not a bad inheritance. Add to the pleasant memories, as you pass through life. Make some hearts happier because you happened along this way. Let some spot on earth be brighter because you lived there, and for the rest—-well, to live in the hearts of those we love is not to die.