THE SIMPLE LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 254, 23 October 1920, Page 17

THE SIMPLE LIFE.

I PACIFIC AND OTHER PARADISES

(By "CYRANO.")

'■ne would like to know a great deal n:..rc about the intentions an:l liopes of I ,, .fit band of English people .vno propose c'ifrtly to sail for the Pacific in search "f-a taxless panose. The idea, seems t.i be to wander about the Vati'.dc in a \;!.lit until an island is found that will i-f mbine with suitability as a home, remoteness not only from civilisation but from the interfering hand of the Powers tlmt have cut jip tile archipelagoes be--V,.en them. There the party will live the ■=i;nple life, knowing "'no joy but calm," nuking it their habit To dream and dream, like yonder amber lisht. Which will not leave the myrr-bush on the heiplit: To hear each other's whispered speech", Kuting the Lotos day by day, To wiitch the crisping ripples on the beach, And tender curving lines of creamy spray. But somehow doubte creep in. Can iiiis paradise be found, and if it i=, "will the tenure be secure? The world is getting smaller every day, and the white Governments. not to mention the ■lapane.-e. arc carrying their "burdens" further and further afield. Perhaps there is no island among the thousand! in the Pacific that does not belong to *ome country or other; if there is 6uch a place, it is certain that before long it will 'be annexed or mandated. One fine day a man-of-war will appear off this paradise, and the simple-lifers will be informed that they are subjects of euch I and such a Power, and have to do -what ; they are told. Then there will be pro- | te?is. and a protection society will lie ■ formed, and eventually there may be a newspaper and a chamber of commerce, j with deputations gains to the mandatary to ask for the redress of grievances. ' Once upon a tims Samoa must have been like this paradise. But even without this development, the future of the little colony presents much ground for speculation. There are to be no taxes. But i= there to be no government? Surely there must be a government of some eort; and how can a government get on without taxes? Politi\ are absolutely barred, nut how can you have government without politics? Of course there will ba polnie?. and the j probability is there will be more of them, there to tlie square yard than in the England the paradise-seekers are leaving, for the simple reason that there will not be much else to do but to discuss them. The story of the >"ew Australia experiment shows how bitter the quarrelling can be in a small isolated community that "sets' out to achieve common ideals. \nd will the paradise be cut off entirely from the world? Will there be no remittances "from England? Because it there are. they will probably have been taxed by England. And will the adventurers be entirely pleased with a lite without "Punch" and the "Times, bopks from Mudie'e, and an occasional concert. This is not a cynical article. It is really worth considering how difficult, in fact how impossible in most cases, it is for anybody to live completely to himeelf and happily in these days. \ou may go and bury yourself like a hermit; but you will not find it easy to separate yourself completely from the world. \ou will want something material from it. You will be linked with it by a thousand intellectual and moral ties and interests, ; and you won't be able to keep it from , your "thoughts—that is, if you are not going to become a cabbage. The cray- | ing for solitude is not confined to these voyagers. It seizes a good many towndwellers. I have it myself. We long occasionally to get away from people, to j "o out into the wilds, to climb moun- , tains or walk by a lonely coast, to go somewhere where you can see a great uninhabited space. It is quite a modern \ craving. The civilised man of the j ancient world had no liking for solitude : and wildernesses. He was wedded to j the comforts of his town villa or country i house. Horace enjoyed himself on his farm, but he would find incomprehensible, our modern enjoyment of mountainclimbing, walking-tours, and camping. Mountains were mysterious and forbidding regions to the ancients —the haunts of wild beasts and gods—and they had no desire to explore or frequent them. , These feelings prevailed until quite ; modern times. One gathers that neither the ancients nor people up till, say, the eighteenth or nineteenth century, cared for picnics. Indeed picnicking would probably have been as%3trange a pleasure to them a« it is to the wondering Asiatic . to-day. Perhaps it was the romantic movement in literature that began the | change. "Let them talk of lakes and I mountains and romantic dales —all that ! fantastic stuff," says Charfes Lamb, j "Give mc a ramble by night, in the winter nights in London —-the lamps lit —the pavements of the motley Strand j crowded with to and fro passengers —the shops all brilliant, and stuffed with obliging customers and obliged tradesmen —give mc the old book stalls of London—a walk in the bright piazzas of Covent Garden. I defy a man to be dull in such places—perfect Mahometan paradises upon earth . At any rate, the nineteenth century witnessed an immense development of the idea that the wilds were enjoyable. Contrast the. young lady of Jane Austen's novels, whose limit of exercise was a walk in the garden, with the strenuous young person who climbs Ruapehu. Mountaineering is quite a modern sport; il dates from the 'fifties. The people in Dickens and Thackeray were quite satisfied with town and country house life, and had no longings for tours away from comfortable inns, let alone South Sea paradises. The modern liking for solitude, a simpler life and the call of the wild, is largely the product of an over-mastering civilisation. The city world, with its rush and din and dust, its stuffy offices, trains, telephones, and money-making, \? too much with some of us. The days ar= sick and cold, and the skiivs are grey and old. And the twice-breathed airs Mow dnmp : And l"d sell my tlrc<l soul fnr J!ie lui-king beam-sea roll Of a black Bilbao tramp. Yet honesty compels the admission that 'sometimes it is nearly as good to return to town as it was to get out of it. "A mob of men is better than a flock nf cheep," continues Lamb, "and a crowd of happy faces jostling into the playhouse at the hour of six is a. more beautiful spectacle to man than the shepherd driving his 'silly' sheep to fold." And as for settling down permanently in a South .Sea island and dreaming one's days away—that is quite another matter. "The heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time," to abandon the light and decline upon solitude and no responsibility: It looks like desertion of duty. But each to his taste. I know of a man who drove a bullock team in the bush, could not read, and never went to town or wanted to. He was quite happy.