1936-12-09 — Page 25

CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT

DO YOU MAKE NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS?

THERE

two

are commonly ways of looking at New Year resolutions. Some people kiven up say that they have

making resolutions, having found by experience that such resolu- Others tions are soon broken.

re-

see in the New Year a chance of concentrating on a helpful ides. Miss Lilian Baylis, the Man- ager of the Old Vic and Sadlers Wells theatre suggested. a solution for the public yeneral- ly. "I should like," she said. "more people to form a Ner Year resolution to get the thea- tre habit. which is far more common on the Continent than in England, and to make a rule to visit a good play as often as their means afford.

am

Our

By this means," she added. “I

sure that as a nation sympathy and understanding at home and abroad would be widen- ed, and art. which makes its most popular and accessible appeal through the theatre. would lead us to a very real League of Na- tions"

one

**The

best resolution I have ever made," said Mr. Mark Ham- bourg, "was to become a pianist. But as for making any other re- solutions, what is the use nowa- days? Conditions of life.are be- coming" so puzzling that would have to alter any resolu- tions as soon as one made them.” "Perhaps it is simplest to say. as Mr. Eden Phillpotts did: "I never made a New Year's resolu- tion in my life," but how many people could truthfully say that?

Made Them Early

Mr. R. J. Minney. co-author of "Clive of India." is more in **I touch with the majority. once applied to my resolutions,” he confessed "the wholesome rule about Christmas shopping:

In order to made mine early. Test their worth I gave them a

I

By R. L. MERGROZ

HAPPY

1967

vigorous canter during the week between Christmas and New Year.

"As a result, the season that is so full of festivity and merri- ment for others proved for me the most agonising week in my life, and by New Year's Day I abandoned in disgust all my fine. theories, clinging instead to the resolve not to have any resolu- tions at all"

Mr. J. R., Clynes, Member of Parliament for Platting. says that the best resolution he ever made was 'never to regard any period of time as unimportant. To do anything merely to 'pass the time away' is a "fatal habit of mind and in a spell of years

corresponds to a serious loss of life values."

Something to think over there: and also in the confession of the novelist and sports writer. M Thomas Moult, whose resolution was: "To endeavour, in my mo-.

and ments of fret, annoyance. what seems to be real and catas- "trophic trouble, to imagine my- self a year older; and so, look- ing back from my conning-tower of detachment, to see those dis- cordant moments in their proper. perspective."

Mr. J. D. Beresford, well storyTM known as a novelist and writer, has a philosophic mind. Ris view of New Year Resolu- tions is enlightening and makes

a good background to all these confessions:

"My last New Year resolution was to make none, and none has been so well kept.

"I remember, however, that in my own days of good intending. I once met a Cambridge mathe- matician a young man at that time-whe told me that he never had much hope of those of his students who were given to mak- The men he ing resolutions. liked were those who didn't have to do that.

"The truth is that the mere fact of having to do this thing the indicates an opposition to personality. There is a fight on between the wish and the will, and although the will may win for a time, a few days or weeks. the wish will presently have its turn. This is why all those good intentions to keep a diary seldom last until the end of January.

"It is not until the wish and the will work together--a hap achieved py partnership never

by the opposition implied in the making of resolutions-that the great results are obtained.”

When I consulted Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, the Professor of at Camb- English Literature ridge, Sir Arthur composed a poem for me:

As the Zodiac circle retolved

Bringing Capricorn round to

Aquarius,

My faults year by year I resolted To reform (they were frequent

and various).

But this life is a catholic ground, And a trespass so like usus

frustuum.

That a way with my faults I

have found- -Re-christened

'em "habits." and stuck to 'em. How can I leave the reader with a lighter-hearted New Year message?

SCRUMPTIOUS!!!

A CUT OFF THE BREAST STUFFING

A LEG

A WING

THE

THE SAUSAGES

THE PUDDING!!

THE MINCE PIES

AND

-ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY'RE COOKED BY

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