LOSING THINGS.
IN days before motor-cars, wealth was playfully described as a margin for unlimited hansoms. The present writer would describe it as a margin of ready- money to replace small losses. But only inveterate losers would agree with him. How delightful it would be not to care a pin whether one brought home one's umbrella or did not • not to " try to remember " one's- gloves or worth- less little parcels ; not to mind whether or no a_ lent-book returned • whether a ten-shining note fluttered away or got into the waste-paper baSke6 I How much of -the wear and tear of life would be taken off one's shmilders if one Yost nothing, or if it did- not. matter what one lost. There are, of course, a vast number-of happy people in the former position. All their small possessions are faithful to them. Nothing of theirs seems to disappear. If they do happen for one moment to forget something in a train or a strange room, that something seems to call after-them. No sound is heard, but they turn round as though in answer to a summonsand retrieve what they seemed. about to abandon.. Again, they know instinctively what is of value. They never neglect-to pick up, they never mechanically throw away, apparently meaningless little objects which- they see' upon- the-floor- or upon- a- shelf. They- know by instinct, for instance, that this or that little square bit of metal or useless little knob is a vital " part ' of a large piece of furniture which- may all its life remain infirm if the tiresome little object is lost! They instantly salve- the .stray "'bit," which no sooner is missed than it is returned. The -worst of small losses is that like other little--misfortunes they never come singly. They always entail loss of temper or loss :ottinicor 'owe the sense of liberty. It is so. tiresome to have to confess to the. household that you have lost the latchkey. Somebody grumbles because he may have .to sit up, somebody else because she lives in fear- of -burglars.. Altogether the poor loser 'feels himself in dis- grace for no great cause. He is perfectly convinced he can't help it • -and, indeed; experience would seem to prove liner He-never does help it, even if his property is -npon-him. it seems-to go. 'One of the (not very numerous) pleasures of complete and tieless independence is the feeling of being answerable to oneself -alone for what one loses. No one knows ; one need not change the lock when the key goes, or explain why an umbrella has a different appearance. If one. could'know the value of all the thin. gs an incurable loser has lost during a long life, it is very unlikely that they would be worth the time that he and others have spent in searching for them. Some-losers, of course, never will look for anything. They will not be at the trouble of getting anything back, not even if it be the rebate on their income-tax. But for the most part they feel them- selves.compelled by conscience or poverty or public opinion to look for what they miss. They seldom find because they are so unobservant, but very often their aimless wanderings and lamentations induce a friend to search for them. It is a thankless task. Another result of their habitual want of observation is that they cannot describe. " Which of your eyeglasses have you lost ? " demands the kind person who has left his comfortable chair to come to the seeker's assistance. " The ones I wore last night," or some such vague reply, is all the help he will get to direct his efforts. Any mistake is badly received. The would-be finder is irritably told that the spectacles found are not in the least like the ones lost ; that is all the par- .ticulars he can get about them. •Wandering aimlessly in the hope of seeing some imperfectly-described thing which we can only hope to recognize is enough to drive a man crazy, and losers come in for a good deal of well-deserved abuse.
A strange romance hangs about everything which has -been long lost. It would give us all great pleasure to find any possession belonging to any ancestor if its loss had been a tradition in the family. Such a thing as a worthless ring, for instance, would be retrieved after two generations with much rejoicing. Part of this pleasure, of course, is simply the feeling which many persons, specially those of limited imagination, have for• any object whose history they know and can connect with their own tra- ditions. Certain minds have a great difficulty in realizing the past, just as others cannot, as we say, "look forward: 'The deluge lies as immediately behind as.before many men and women, and any new and tangible• thing sticking up suddenly through the waste of waters vivifiewthe dull, flat picture-which they are accustomed• te see if circumstances cause them to look back. But it is not only time- which enhances the value of lost property. The habitual loser knows nothing of the passion to find which sometimes overtakes the unaccustomed man. It is a passion analogous to the collector's passion. Some people 'who pursue stolen pro- perty with a ferocity which bores and even nauseates beholders are less moved by a determination to get their rights, no matter whose fair character they may asperse, less set on revenge, less moved by parsimony than one would think. The spell of the quest is upon them.; they want to trace and, incidentally, to track down. Obviously those who seldom lose anything set a higher value on their property than more careless people ; some- times, too, they set a higher value on other people's. It is not very- safe to lend to losers. It is- the careful man as a rule who is the more scrupulously 'honest. All the same, there is something to be said for the loser. If he is not perfect in the matter of returning, he is a. very ready lender ; and if he misses his property usually accepts the instantly offered explanation that he has lost it himself. He is never suspicious ; he is used to being the culprit, and with a formal sentence of self-blame sets off on the hopeless search we have described or forgets the matter. No one, we think, will deny if he examines dispassionately his own experience and considers the lives of his friends and acquaintances that certain people are in large ways unlucky. They seem, as it were, to hold bad hands all through life. Often these people are not unhappy. They have compensations. Good spirits er good friends or unusually strong domestic affections make up. to them for hostile fortune. They make up their minds that the 'chances are against them, and- that the prizes in the lottery are never for them. This is specially true where money is concerned. They learn that they must never speculate, 'that they- will- never get a windfall, and that none of the forms of luxury which money can purchase will ever be 'theirs. ;If they accept the- fact and never stop to regret it, they seem-to get as much pleasure out ofttheir ling& ginger- bread as others do out of their more showy provision. The same thing may be true where small matters, such as a tendency to lose, are concerned. This tendency does really seem at times like a small- curse. In spite of the moralization of the naturally careful, we have often wondered if it would not be better where one's own pro- perty _is concerned deliberately to accept the peculiarity as a misfortune and to determine never again to search for anything that one could afford to lose. For a busy man it might really be worth while. Pretty serious incon- venience might occasionally result from the resolve, and possibly the inconvenience deliberately borne might prove a corrective. More often, we think, it would not. The born loser would still be parted from his small belongings ; his income would be taxed, but not his patience nor his energy nor those of his friends ; and faced with this choice of evils, there can be little doubt which is the least.
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