THE FLYING YEARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 307, 27 December 1924, Page 17

THE FLYING YEARS.

REGRET AND CONTENTMENT (By CYRAXO.) AJ.ts, that Spring should vanish, with the And Yutith's sweet-scented manuscript bSoUJ '. '.ose: —Omar Khayyam. Orow oVI vri tli mc! The I pst I? yel to lie, The last uf li:'i•, !•>! which the first wn? —Browning. Years ago. when I was a boy, I lay in bed in a Xcw Zealand homestead and waitrd for the coining of the New Year It «-;s a t-till, wnnn night, and the tall pines thai 1 could sec through the window ili.l not ninve. It struck mc as curious tlwt Nature pave no sign of the great chungc that was imminent. The transition was marked by no stir in earth or air; Nature, indifferent to the hopes and fears of man, glided along the river of years with no thought to his divisions of time. And a terror seized mc. Time was going—going—going. It could not <jo grasped and stayed; it was inexorable. My life was passing; I was another year nearer the time when there would be no more mc. I was then, per haps, twelve. It was some years latei that I read <\f the same, sort of terror that held the hoy in "The Story of ar African Farm" as he listened to the ticking of the watch and reflected that with enrh tick someone died. Then on the morrow there was the sunshine and fishing and the world was bright. As we grow older, 1 think, wo do not feel this menace of the years in quite this way. We are still acutely conscious of it; we look b.aok wistfully on our lost youth; we realise with a pang that our bodies will not do what they once did; we hoar louder and louder the noise of that unknown sea on which we must venture at last; but wo have compensations. Many of us have now ties that are dearer than anything in our youth VTe have, become more philosophical The sting and venom and unrest of youth, its wild pessimism and depths oi morbidity, have gone with its roses and raptures. The spirit of wonder has not gone (or should not have), but with it has developed a better sense of proportion, a larger tolerance. Our interest." are wider, and we have learnt a little (even if it is ever so little) wisdom Our intellectual powers have developed and opened up new horizons. In youth we thought we knew everything (01 sometimes nothing); now we'know that we know little, but for what we know we have surer foundations. Then it was a case either of "I can do everything!" or "I can do nothing!" Now we have a more correct estimate of our powers We know that we shall never set anj Thames on fire, and there is tranquility in that discovery, but of the abilities God has given us we have made some use, and their limitations are easilj visible. We are less egotistical, and at the same time less conventional. We care less what people think of us and therefore are freer. And the world has lost neither its beauty nor its intellectual nor moral interest. The thrill may not be so piercing as it was when we were young, but appreciation has widened and mellowed with experience. * no advantage in living in this time is that man is less disposed to grow old prematurely—outwardly, at any rate— than he was two or three generations ago. I have always thought Thackeray's famous "Age of Wisdom" ilhiminatin° on this point:— ° B °; Pretty page, with the dimpled chin, wTsh Tw^nYo' **^> Th w It «n e way that "°- vs be K' n : wait till you come to forty year. The implication in this poem is that a man is middle-aged at forty In Thackeray's time John Leech and Uiiarles keene were drawing in "Punch" men of forty or thereabouts whose appearance shows that this was more than an idea of Thackeray's; it was a conception of the age. Look at Keene's lathers of young families—so heavy in form and feature, so grave in demeanour. Their whole appearance denotes an early acceptance of middle age. Today a man never considers himself old at forty He keeps up his games, looks to his figure, dresses like a man of twenty, and often when a few more years have passed can hardly be distinguished from his sons. It is the same with women. The mothers in "Punch" of the old days are matronly. The mothers in "Punch" to-day are like their daughters. The years, however, do ring their knell From the moment man began to reflect he must have medidated upon the shortness of life and the warning of the passing years. Such thoughts are in all literatures, and have inspired many of their most moving passages They are in classical Greek ("a dream of a shadow is mankind," says Pindar); in the B.ble (life is -a watch in the night and "a tale that is told") •in the Persian poet who through the genius of an Englishman has become a possession of the world; in English, from the Saxon story cf the bird and the banqueting hall, through Shakespeare to the present day. (A bird flew into the •ball from the darkness, fluttered alon<» its length, and disappeared into the darkness at the other end, whereupon it was likened to the life of man) Shakespeare uses the subject in some of his grandest passages. Tennyson has put life into one line, "Man comes and tills the fields and lies beneath," in a poem that as poetry is higher than his hetter known "King out, wild bells." I think we would appreciate the solemn propriety of Longfellow's metaphor if the poem were less hackneyed. 4"?i1 m" he m rt !' thox, B* stout and brave, Still like muffled drums are beatin" Funeral marches to the grave. "' To all men, to those whose faith is unshakable, to those who "faintly trust the larger hope," and to those who have no hope at all, these majestic or poignant or solemn meditations on life and time strike home. In reminding him of his mortality they bring man face to face with the truth and purify his spirit _ The test for the New Year, however] 3s from Browning rather than the seductive but weakening philosopher of Persia: "(Irow old along with mc. the best is yet to be!" Youth rnded. I shall try Mv gain or loss thereby: Leave the tire ashes, what survives is goldAm] I shall weigh the same Give life its praise or blame: loon? all lay iv dispute; I shall know, being old. The gifts of the years are many memories, experience, wisdom, friend- I ship, tolerance, a wider knowledge and a deeper understanding of that blend of comedy and tragedy, that awful mystery, which we call life. I offer you < two mottoes for the New Year ! lirowniug's "Greet the anseen with a cheer!" and that sayinfr of Bacon - s ■which John Morley put over his mantelpiece—"The nobler a soul is, the more , objects of compassion it hath." Unless j pity is one of them, the gifts of the j years are worth little. ,