THE GOLDEN AGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE GOLDEN AGE.

PAST AND FUTURE

IMPORTANCE OF THE PRESENT

(By CYRANO.)

There used to be a popular comic song called, I think, "The Conversazione." I remember it all the better because it was sung by an Irish priest who was also a doctor of music. It described how a number of Irishmen were invited to a conversazione. They went, waited in vain for the expected refreshment, and were told at the end of the evening that they "had had the conversazione." The song seems to be somewhat allegorical. So many of us spend so much time waiting for the conversazione. We prepare for it. We devote years of work to give us a golden age in the future, when we shall enjoy the conversazione. Many of us die before It comes; some of us reach it in middle and old age, and are disappointed with' it. A man will work like seven devils for years in order that he may'enjoy himself on his retirement; but wlien he has retired he may be bored stiff, largely because he has made work a habit and has not cultivated leisure. The middle-aged wealthy man who has sacrificed the best years of his life to making money is a wellknown type. We see the same lack of proportion in microcosm in the passing of a single year. Some of us neglect leisure in anticipation of the annual holiday. And mixed with this anticipation of a better time to come some day is perhaps a yearning for the good old times of our youth. Pleasure and happiness are in the past or the future, not in the present. Ancient and Modern. It is interesting to compare this attitude of mind towards individual lives with the outlook on the world ill general. The writer of one of those fascinating articles with which "The Times Literary Supplement" opens its columns considers the history of the Golden Age, and points out that it never is in the present, but always in the past or the future. The ancients believed it to be in the remote past —an age in which everything in Nature was kindly -and man had no need to labour. My knowledge of the classics is sketchy; did the ancients seriously consider whether such a state would be good for man? The idea that the Golden Age was in the past lasted into modern times, until it was replaced by that of progress —that of human society moving steadily and, as it were, by a law of Nature—to better and better things, until a Utopia was reached. It has boon contended with much force that before this belief in progress could take

shape man had to acquire a reasonably long view of the past, and a lively interest in the future. The first condition was supplied by the Renaissance, and the second by the advance- of science. Man learned that the age of human society was Tar longer than had been believed, ancT lie was given a reasonable assurance or a practically infinite stretch of future history in which he could perfect himself. Belief in progress became a religion, and. as in all religions, there were zealots, formalists and iudifferentists. Some men devoted their lives, and often life itself, with fiery zeal to thie ideal. It liberated slaves, gave labour a charter and conferred political power on the masses. On the other hand numbers of people accepted it without thought or action. It was a comfortable creed. The world was getting better and better, so why worry 1 Then came the World War, and after it the challenging of democracy and the great depression—and where are we? The idea of natural, almost automatic, progress has been dealt mortal wounds by the war and its after effects. I doubt whether anything in the war itself was more depressing than some of the manifestations of class and racial madness that have cropped up_ during the peace. Stupidity is sometimes as terrifying as cruelty. The spectacle of a German working himself into a frenzy of mingled enthusiasm and hate over pure Aryanism seems to me as dangerous to* human society as the invasion of Belgium. An Old Complaint. But if we should be tempted to despair there is consolation in the repeated falsification of the dark conclusions of even great men. Many of us know a few of these false prophecies. The writer in "The Times" makes a most interesting list of sayings that show how perplexities and criticisms of to-day arc paralleled in the past. In 1840 Disraeli said the times had become "so soft." In 1839 Carlyle referred to "this perplexed overcrowded Europe." The time of 1800 was to Wordsworth a "degenerate age," yet at that very time England was "busy defeating Napoleon. Burke in 1775 complained that the English were "no longer that eager, unquestioning jealous, fiery people," yet, England, then engaged in loeing one Empire, was about to found another. In 1782 Cowper found England sunk into "a state of decrepitude," and five years after Waterloo Hazlitt wrote the equivalent of "Finis." on the glories of his country. It may be argued that in 1782 and after Waterloo the internal condition of England justified such gloom; certainly it was bad. But let us go back —right back to the "Spacious days" of • Elizabeth. These days to us pulsate with life and energy and endeavour —in many respects a Golden Age. Yet we find Edmund Spenser, the poet, looking back with longing to that Golden Age which his and all previous generations placed in the far-off youth of the world. To Montaigne the sixteenth century was

"corrupt and ignorant." In 1548 an Englishman lamented that "our earth is worn out and no longer produces the men of old." Within the next sixteen years that worn-out world produced, among others, Edmund Spenser, Walter Raleigh, Bacon, Shakespeare and Galileo.

In Paraflise Unawares. Thus, a<3 we go back, the Golden Age retreats. Historians have said that the period of the Roman Empire under Hadrian was one of the happiest in history; the inhabitants of portions of the empire—then at peace and well governed —were better off then than they had ever been before or liave been since. But did the citizen in Rome and the provincial realise that they were living in a Golden Age? There was plenty of complaint about the age in 1913. Sumbers of people thought England more or less degenerate. But, as Max Beerbolim showed in a cartoon, the senility of John Bull was only superficial; he became an ardent youth with a flashing blade, and history will record its profound admiration'of his effort. To the distracted world of to-day 1913 must seem a peaceful ■ back water, even a paradise, but that is largely because our troubles are close to us, and those of 1913 are receding out of sight. ' Even the year 1930, eays this "Times" writer, is acquiring a halo. "Man continually lives in paradises unawares." In a few years "we filial! be looking back to an age of gold." A sombre forecast this, you may say, with our present discontents in mind. The writer's conclusion is that there has never been a Golden Age, and with mankind changing so slowly, he appears to have the gravest doubt whether there ever will be. Every age has its gold and its dross; every age is what we choose to make it. Making it better means living actively, intelligently and unselfishly in the present, with eyes made clear by study of the present and the past. Hear what wise old Hooker had to say at the end of the sixteenth century: "We all make complaint of the iniquity of our times; not unjustly, for the days' are evil. But compare these with those times in which there were no civil societies . . . and we have surely good cause to think that God hath blessed us exceedingly and hath made us behold most happy days."