1937-11-06 — Page 26

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1937,

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JOHNSON-STEVENSON: At SL Columbus' Church, Bombay, on Thursday, 4 November, 1937, William Daniel Johnson to Frances Mabel Stevenson. cable).

The

(By

Hongkong Telegraph.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1937.

It hadn't occurred to me that Selfishness is a Disease

66 NOTHING

saps

health like selfishness." This

is what Tennyson calls "a jewel five words long that

on the stretched forefinger

by

JAMES DOUGLAS

There is no doubt that ungel- of all time sparkles for when I preyed upon my unselfish

father and my unselfish mother. fish people are happier than sel- ever."

It is useless for me to pretend fish people, for selfishness is that all children are selfish, for I barren search for happiness know that some children are un- which is invariably frustrated. selfish, just as some adults are unselfish.

I find it in a letter from Mr. A. II. Bacon, a medical student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

It stimulates me to write an essay on selfishness as a disease.

I am ashamed when I recall I AM doodling as I stare my selfish childhood, my selfish

at the blank sheet of boyhood, and paper. I have been doodling for hood.

my selfish man-

half an hour because I cannot I can recall many of my selfish answer the question which is acts, but I find it hard to recall bothering my brain.

my unselfish acts.

Its effect upon the health of the selfish person is gradual, but It leads to all kinds of discontent and disenchantment and disillu- sion. The victim of this disease may possess everything that seems to be necessary for the enjoyment of life, but the joy of life eludes bim.

ON the other hand, 'un- selfishness does not

mechanical aids to the enjoy slepend upon the material and men of life. It produces health I have never known a selfish and happiness evert in poverty person who was happy. On the and privation. other hand, I have never known

Some of the happiest and

appear to have no reason to bo an unselfish person who was un- healthiest people in the world happy.

happy and healthy. They may Those who try to make others lack everything else, but they others and of finding self-reali- happy are themselves happy, possess the joy of being kind to They gain more than they lose by sation in helping others. their unselfishness. The sceret

Selfishness. is not kind. It is of a happy life is escape from the self-torment of self-love, and actively as well as passively un- "Am I selfish?" I hesitate to

SELFISHNESS is the the less we think of ourselves kind. It denies to others the confess to myself that I am sel-

habit of thinking of the more complete is our escape. grace of pity and comprehension. It expects others to serve it with- fisli, but if I follow the example self first and foremost, and not

The pursuit of selfish pieu- out giving any service itself. of candour set by Mr. Trevor of others. It is a state of mind.

sures as a method of escape from

Unselfishness leaves the wignali I am bound to own that

I start thinking of myself as introspection is practised by sel-

it found it, my health has always been sap- soon as I open my eyes, and fish people, but it produces world better than

often before I open them. I satiety, and in the end all selfish but selfishness leaves it worac.. ped by selfishness.

think of myself as I get into my pleasures cease to provide an It is well that those who take bath and as I shave, and as I eat escape. The hedonist becomes a more than they give should suf- self all day long in all my re-self-pleasing develops into a dull greed. my breakfast. I think of my slave of his hedonisms. His fer in mind and in both our thur fish as 1 am at this moment of lations with others. I think of routine. There is no sadder or enlightenment and illumination. myself as I lie in bed trying to more sorrowful

In other words, I am a self- As I examine my past, which is go to sleep. inseparable from my present the

and my future, I. come to the centred being whose thoughts re- volve round his own petty per- conclusion that I have always..sonality,

NO MORE EXCUSES

Prince Peler Kropotkin, fam- Ous Russian revolutionary, studied wild animal life as well as the habits of the human species. It was his conviction that mutual aid, rather than struggle,

I wonder if every selfish per

“RICORDI” “CARL FISCHER" sale, is the rule of the wild son is as conscious of being sel-

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selfish

make their appearance in the best regulated fields and forests, it would seem that mankind is the most quarrelsome of denizens of the earth. For the ordinary animal will only kill if]

In the jargon of psychology, I he is hungry or in the protection heen selfish, that I am of its own life or the lives of now, and that I shall be selfish as am an introvert whose mind per

petually turns inwards upon it- its young. Even a rattle snake long as I live.

self instead of outwards upon gives warning before it strikes. There is no use doodling any other people There is one rule which is pretty longer, for I cannot escape from well universal in the animal the conviction that my selfish kingdom-for it would be sense-ness is an incurable disease. less to argue that animals of I wish I could comfort myself different species do not kill one with the belief that other people another they do not kill their are as selfish as I have always kind. That is certainly been, am now, and shall be al true of the higher animals, or ways, but I am

own

the sensualist.

creature than

-

NOBODY can restore the

I doubt whether the misery of selfishness is adequately es- timated, for the selfish appear The reason why unselfishness to be happier than they are in gives more happiness than sel- reality. They convey the im tishness is that it is based upon pression of well-being, whereas the sense of duty to others in their secret thoughts they are which is nourished by sympathy, unimaginably melancholy.

Selfishness is boredom. If you insight and understanding.

The selfish do not see others study selfish beings you will find as others see them because they that they are tired of life. They do not see others--as they see have lost-interest in everything: For some reason or other sel- themselves. They deliberately but their own gratification, and fish people are always surround- cut themselves off from fellow- they pay the extreme penalty of banishment from all the ed by unselfish people who help ship and comradeship.

sources of delight. There is think of all the unselfish people them to be selfish. I shudder to

THERE is no loneliness nothing more pitiable than the

as so absolute who have conspired together to

the joylessness of a selfish old man make me selfish. I take their loneliness of the entirely selfish or a selfish old woman, sacrifice of self for granted. I beings. Their hearts grow cold and hard and they cease to be fatten and batten on it.

joy of life to the sel- capable of joy in human society. The juices of life dry up in their fish mind. It has inflicted upon

itself wounds which can nover- NOTHING is

scrupulous as selfish. nature.

be healed. I doubt whether It takes everything that There is no laughter in the there is any cure for the disease The selfish people prey on the is given to it without a lot or selfah person, for laughter is of selfishness in its final stages. Speaking of the cause unselfish people. I have been a tittle of gratitude. It uses up a shared delight, and selfishness

It is painted remorselessly in man's truculence, the Christian preyer ever since I was a child, the lives of others and then dis- shures nothing. It is a with Science Monitor observes:

drawal from the geniality and Landor's epitaph on himself- covers fresh victims. appears lo lle... in conditions

The supply of unselfishness is follity of existence. It is an exile from the common stock of rather than in character. Con- ing into a rage and becoming greater than the demand. The good nature and good humour. ditions are deemed to be not as violent. The power of thought selfish create vast reservoirs of

unselfishness in others. They Selfishness is a form of sui- good as they might be, and and deduction has enabled man.

get what they want by taking cide. It is a slow starvation of therefore an effort, violent into progress to a far height from everything from everybody and the soul. The process of soul. Intention if not always in action, where he started in the dawn giving nothing whatever in re- starvation may be slow, but it in is made to obtain better condi- of history. Nor has the bright- turn.

of man's most useful tions at the expense of others. ness This is true in the social domain weapon become dulled, its edge as well as in the International dinted. His works are a proof of the surviving capacity of his sphere."

brain.

sure that the at least until one comes to the world is divided into two classes, highest animal of all, proud | the selfish and the unselfish.

man.

of

"It

Class disabilities, writes a con-

So revolutions are bred: 80 are wars created. Some power | feels that is position is inferior temporary, can be taken to con-

or less favoured than another's.ference.

National differences

ness.

$0 Uni-

sure.

BULLS AND INNERS

ם

From the Office Butts

The instinct seems

to be to can be considered in good-will. A pessimist is a man who is snatch at the possessions of the Resort to force is inexcusable already fearing the morning

Warfare, after St. Andrews Bull. more favoured. That is a pro-among civilised men, pensity of children and puppies, potential or actual, is an acknow- and presumably it is never en-ledgment that humanity can tirely outgrown.

sink below the level of the It cannot be denied that there beasts. is frequently cause for diseon- The only possible excuse is tent among children, young and self-defence. But that, too, is old. communities, classes and often abused. The only war countries. But neither can it which thinking people will join, argument on the Kowloon fer-

It is said that bagpipes have been played since 800 B.C. Much too long.

* 0 There's hardly room for

be overlooked that each of these, as a crusade, is the "war to endries these days. blessed with the faculty

of wara." And that, if memory

reason, has a better means of does not play strange tricks, securing happiness than by fly-was fought some time ago.

ជ

口

Haggis has now been sent by air. We always inclined to the belief that it was never taken away too quickly.

ជ

Now they are making gowns out of papier mache. gives us pulpitation.

口

I strove with none, far none was

worth my strife.

Nature loved and, after

nature, art.

I warmed both hands before the

fire of life.

It sinks and I am ready in

depart.

This epitaph has been over- praised by literary critics. It la a cold and callous portrait of selfishness by a selfish old man.

It is a false portrait, for Lan- dor strove with everybody. It. is an insult to humanity to say that "none was worth his strife." It is the gospel of a cynic. The reason why Landor's works are dend is that he had a dead heart.

S

..

SELFISHNESS is death.

This is true for life woll ag literature. Dean Swift was selfish. Byron was selfish. That is why their writ-

ladiesings are dead.. Pope was selfish, That is why his poetry is dead This beyond all hope of resurrection.

An American scribe Bayo "there is something about the British Army Officer in the Far

He must be rich! He still East that is delightfully refresh- lives in one of the leading hotels. Ing." Enos!

The world to-dny is a dend world because it is £ Bellah world. The remedy for its illa is unselfishness. The solfish nationa aro all dying, although they think they are alive.

Their death may be delayed,. but it is inevitable.