QUIET LIVING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 122, 25 May 1935, Page 10

QUIET LIVING.

ATTRACTIONS OF N.Z.

AMERICAN'S APPRECIATION.

"VICTORIA STILL REIGNS."

'"The thing for a traveller to do anywhere is to enjoy things as ho finds them. In Xew Zealand thie is easy," Bays an American' tourist, Mr. Glanville Smith, in an article written for the May number of tho "Atlantic Monthly/' one of the oldest and best-known American reviews. Mr. Smith found life in the Dominion greatly different from what he had l>cen used to in the United States, and he found it very satisfying. "Obviously, tho place is Great Britain," ho writes. "The beefsteak-and-kidney pies, the skylarks, the policemen's helmets, are unmistakable. The rivers, it is true, are rather unruly, the mountains are very peremptory, but it is Britain all the same. The date, howover, is a , study. "In some ways it appears to be the Britain of the future, where inequalities havo been ironed out by long adjustment and sacrifice. The only department of life in which excitement is permitted is sport. There are no ultra-rich, offensively living in palaces; there is no one too poo , - - to risk something on the horses. Nobody ever is killed in a railway accident. Qualities of Newspapers. "The newspapers are handsome in looks, gentlemanly in policy, most perfect in morality; oh, happy land, nourished on such blameless journalism! The school children are in uniform, strictly; no thought need bo squandered on little Marjory's wardrobe—it has long been established, as has also the menu for each of tlie day's six meals. "There is no agony of creative endeavour; nature and the botanical gardens are full of wonder, and tho past has heaped up already more masterpieces than the longest life can enjoy. Among the violent upa and downs of their terrain, and the tortuous ins and outs of their coastline, the New Zealanders have achieved a society as level and as safely circular as a pancake. "But wait. There is unemployment in this Utopia. Wool growers, .disgusted at what the buyers of Germany, France, Bradford and Japan will give them for their wool, withdraw it from the sluggish market. At the same time a Britain without manufactures, a land of wool growers, cheese makers, and sailors, suggests an age prior to the industrial revolution." " A Dickensian Quality. ,, Mr. Smith escapes from a picture theatre in Auckland, where "some Hollywood star, vastly enlarged on the screen, sings a song which is undoubtedly of this year of grace. It is at such times that the visiting American's patriotism grows most intense; how ardently—for tho honour of the Stars and Stripes— he wishes that she would stop singing." His escape is into the gardens of Albert Park, where "Albert's queen, plump and regal in bronze, watches quietly over the city." "There is abundance of evidence about that Victoria still reigns," he continues. "There is a Dickensian quality in the hotels that is delightful; tho 'hot joints,' the 'cold viands,' the waitresses' rattling aprons, and the big oil paintings tJmt lean from the walls, all ore part ot tho spell. Certainly it is a- day prior to the invention of clothes closets or coat-hangers; one hook, for the visitor's periwig presumably, is found on the back of his bedroom door." Country Hotels. The country hotels of the South Island gave Mr. Smith a taste of a new and pleasant life, and in particular one at Lurnsden. "I kept looking up and about at the old brown room, with its (lowers and tire and friendly people. The wor'.j about Lumsden is very large ami lonely, yet here, in the middle of it was a core of warmth and comfort that I, a stranger, wVis free to share. Thoreaii once said that a man's pants, don't tit Jjini' until he lias worn them three or four years. Chairs take longer; how humane the acquired curvature of these commercial room chairs. "The pictures on the wall wore equally pleasing: 'Lovers' Lane' in rich colour; the big dog and the little dog, Dignity and impudence respectively, and a framed Masonic document with its columns, seal, and staring eye. 'Why,' the eye seemed to ask, 'do your American hotels fail to grow old gracefully, like this one? , "It is all very perplexing. When you would call for a sedan chair, up drives a motor bus. And in the bus, as you ride briskly along. . . . voices come in by radio, reminding So-and-So, who has been balky about his porridge, that ho will never grow into a big

strong man if he acts like that. What can be made of such chronological puzzle? I think tho fates have put a snarl in the thread, to tease me. But the thing for a traveller to do anywhere is to enjoy things as he finds them. In New Zealand this is easy." Picton and the Lakes. Mr. Smith is full of praise for Picton, and the quiet beauty of Queen Charlotte Sound. Later he speaks of the southern lakes. "As for Manapouri, the southernmost and most beautiful of New Zealand's great mountain lakes, here I am, by it," -he writes. "There was brown trout for luncheon, venison for dinner; what will breakfast be? . . . Beyond are the mountains, topped with snow. New Zealand's secret may lie locked up in the deeps of all * this grandly heaped up masonry, but how shall I fetch it out? The secret hid in the mountains is perhaps too strong after all. And suddenly the gorse of Picton, the roses of Elbow's wallpaper, bloom fresh and significant in my brain. This is a good place."