THROWING AWAY.
TO keep, or to throwaway? It does not seem an overwhelming dilemma to the average intellect, and yet what tremendous consequences may hang upon the decision to throw away ! Here a virtue, there a vice. To-day a trifle, to-morrow a cataclysm which all the future will never set right. From childhood to old age, we play at this pretty little two-edged game. In the broken doll which a stern nursemaid would sweep from our gaze, and in the ancient love-letter with which old age dallies before breaking altogether with the past, is summed up the history of a life. Shall sentiment have its way, which asserts that our torn and battered favourite is still the queen of our heart; or common-sense, crushing alike in reason and logic, which would send our treasure to the dust-heap, our romance to the oblivion of the flames ? How many things have we not regretted throwing away, how many may we not come to regret having kept! But common-sense replies that an accumulation of useless objects is a worse enemy to happiness than the loss of sentiment. Alas ! it is difficult to catch the complacent certainty. The feeling of sentiment lies deeper than the utilitarian philosopher finds it convenient to go.
And yet to be perpetually tossed, in the vortex of " to keep, or not to keep P" Surely there must be law even here, though to this order-despising generation the mere suggestion of law is abhorrent. But what law will command alike the reason and the heart? Who will pass sentence on our dolls and our love-letters? True, a new waxen favourite may dry the tears of childhood ; but where in age are the lovers who will sing our praises or hang upon our smiles ? But common-
sense asserts that dolls and lovers are not the whole of life. There are other things almost equally desirable which thoughtlessly or deliberately are cast away. Money, time, friends, chances, all will do to play ducks and drakes with. Nay, life itself, and reputation, and sound argument, that most fertile and ever-recurring source of waste. What, too, is "throwing away "? Losing does not wholly cover the ground, and giving away is only half the matter. A quid pro quo may be a gain, and, like a hand at commerce, we may discard to pick up a fortune. Some of these at least, common-sense urges, should be kept at all hazards ; and yet something might be pleaded for their loss. Gordon, some may say, needlessly threw his life away by staying in Khartoum when wise men bade him come out ; and yet England would have been the poorer by such a keeping. And the great names in the past! How would history read if these had not " thrown away "their lives ? But common-sense cries out at our disingenuousness. This is not the throwing-away we started with. From broken dolls and old love-letters, we have slipped into politics and history. The Irish Question will be upon us in a moment, and then good-bye to gossip and good-temper. We confess our slip, and return to more humble matters. Friendship suggests itself,—a compromise, we fear, as common-sense looks askance at the word. Friendship, as differing from acquaint- ance, savours of the foolish idealism of youth. Acquaintances, yes ; even the most practical of people will say they are needful. Indeed, on this point common-sense feels very strong :—Never throw away a chance, and acquaintances—useful acquaintances —are so many chances. Friends ?—well, "it takes so much time to make a friend," as the late Mark Pattison once said ; and let as add, so much more time to keep one. Friends are a mistake ; they die, they cease to care for us—in fact, they are but human —whereas acquaintances are simple units in a large conglomera- tion of utility. One goes, another comes, and the heart is left intact. Keep acquaintances, and throw away friends—no, not throw away, it has an ugly sound—but do not make them.
And dare we say common-iense is altogether wrong ? When weighed in the light of happiness, is ^ertain a given friendship will furnish more pleasure than pan, 2 Count the chances of inconstancy and remorse, of jealousy, of disappointment, of pro- bable differences and possible estrangements,—might it not be urged that acquaintances who are welcome to come and go at their pleasure are a less perilous investment ? And, alas ! must it not be said that it is granted to few to have both P —it is a profound if unpalatable truth that, as a rule, friends will not stick where acquaintances are greatly sought after. Friendship is a proud jade, and likes to feel herself supreme, and is jealous, and sus- pects a rival in every eagerly sought acquaintance. To have a friend there must be a need ; to keep an acquaintance it is never safe to show one. Time comes next, and who does not plead guilty here ? Wasted time ! What visions of delight come to the memory ! The many times the book has slipped from our fingers, and in the reverie of a moment an hour has flown away. Duty, business, all was forgotten in that conscience-killing draught of pleasure. But is it certain it was wasted time ? One man's poison is another man's meat. A waking dream has produced a poem ; an idle thought has laid the foundation of a fortune. True, to each his fellow-dreamer has appeared a spendthrift,—one a mere searcher after vanities, one but a foolish babbler of vain words. Of all things, throwing away of time is the most difficult to judge aright. Some people can do nothing without large margins of real idleness ; while with others every moment is full of work precious ia the doing. Here, if ever, may come home to the idler the consoling doctrine that to be is greater than to do. It is given to some men to idle unselfishly, generously, nay, even nobly, and to go back to what most people would alone call work, to accomplish in a comparatively few minutes a result better in quality, and perhaps more even in quantity, than is effected in days by those who never idle. And even to really wasted time may we not give just that word of sympathy we long to say to children carried off for punishment who have had a "high old time" of riot and disorder P
Letters and memoranda are another question altogether, and common-sense grows less impatient and more didactic on the firmer ground of practical life. Keep those which are useful, throw away those which are not. Excellent law ; but how shall it be carried out? What is useful P Like Pilate's, a question difficult to answer, except by our Positivist friends. Usefulness is that which improves our own or our neighbour's temporal good. It has a touch of the earth earthy about it, for "usefulness" appears to us a word which will drop out of the vocabulary in Heaven. And clearly a heap of old letters and papers accumulate dust, and dust is a great enemy to temporal comfort. Still, even from the strictly utilitarian standpoint, difficulties arise. A legal mind will always conceive that some letter may possibly be useful in explanation of a situation or as witness in a lawsuit, or for some other possible but equally improbable purpose. Receipts, too. For seven years the cautious housekeeper sees a possible request for repayment of an account. Old counter- foils, old cheques, old leases, all call up visions of future con- fusion, if not of something worse. Even here common-sense has not got it all his own way. The man who is conscious he has left no loophole for the sharpest legal quibble may sleep sounder than his lighter-hearted comrade who, in the name of order, gaily throws away everything that cumbers his table or litters his drawers.
Other points suggest themselves. Patience, temper, reputation, arguments,—who has not thrown them away time after time, at least in the eyes of his friends P Why waste your arguments on one who will not be convinced P Yet if you keep your argu- ments till they are sure to convince, they are apt to be found rusty when they are put to use. Temper, too, there is no question, is good to keep ; yet we ourselves remember occasions when we would have given all the world to have been able to lose our temper thoroughly, completely, irrevocably. Simulated loss of temper is a great gift ; but a real, genuine loss has a power of closing a controversy or putting an end to a situation where simulated loss can effect nothing. No doubt the losing is expensive; it generally means apology or compensation of some sort ; but for the moment it carries a man through a difficulty unconsciously, and, as it were, on wings. The wounds received in the excitement of battle are said at the time not to hurt, and loss of temper means an excitement where wounds given and received become almost a pleasure.
But reputation ? Here at least can arise no question. Reputa- tion is the solid foundation of life. Throw it away, and you are lost. Risk it, and you risk everything. True, 0 critic ! altogether true so far as foolish risking, foolish throwing away, is concerned. Risking it to gain a dangerous enjoyment, to satisfy a moment's passion, to gratify a jealous pride ; or thro wing it away because circumstances are against us, or suspicions are aroused, and we grow defiant,—for this throwing-away nothing can be pleaded. But for risking it to save another ; for throwing it away that we may gain something far higher,—is there nothing to be said for this ? Let the world surmise you guilty, and your friend goes free. Let society look askance at you, and it is none the wiser when it holds out its hand to the man who but for you might be sinking never to rise again. But a conclusion to the matter,—there lies the gist. Where can it be found ? We have been looking for a law—or guidance at least—in the art of throwing away, and we are as ignorant and guideless as before. So says the critic, as he turns away, sure at least of this, that he has thrown away good time on our trifling words. And yet a kinder reader may judge less harshly. To almost everything there are two sides, and time, patience, or words are not thrown away in realising this ourselves, and helping others to do so. Strive all we may to go through life with a hard-and-fast rule, Nature will assert herself. Some men will keep more than they can use ; others will let slip from their fingers what afterwards they would give worlds to have kept. Let every one at least be sure that what he means to
keep is worth keeping to him, and what he throws away is thrown away intentionally, deliberately, to gain something else which shall make him happier in the days to come. This anyhow is a guiding principle, an abiding law, which each man must apply for himself, certain, alas ! as it is that when he counts up his treasures in the silence of old age, he will find he has thrown some away with a light heart which the possession of all the rest will never entirely make up for.
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