IK: MARVEL.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17609, 11 November 1922, Page 9

I K: MARVEL.

Bt Hon. Sir Robert Stout « ke 5 r c M.G., Hon. D.n.L. 'P.C- T ?W Manchester, Chief o*m, jostice-/

LIFE OF DONALD GRANT m buchell.

, neon'* the position peop,ein th : * , Tbev are the majority of P'P°P IC ° n (he earth ;, An< ! 1140 see "eve to eye" ruid i?tiff t0D fe t ,; ere would be some real ** "/CL hcin- known no more, arid tn }\ of armaments ceasing. rJ,F T. manv perils to cneounrer. j Sidings will arise and with | rii of the nations tlie end of ** nt near. But were there Z"Jood amongst the Englishpeople, the dawn of peace on be seen. That our Empire •*£ \ttenpt to keep on good terms tfthe chief English-speaking nation i United States of Amenca-.s u,r realised bv many. One way of *£ p li,bing this end is to familiarIn*lve» with the best people m !5Zr hat are their ideals? tkdr Bf.t What books do I' ~*Al What kind of people do £ reverence, and how do our life zLrrotkdings compare with theirs , ... bv eetting acquainted with *£££." "" get an answer to these qucs- *\ f Their best literature ia, conpopulation, permeating L Zttland more than any other on the globe. American toto asd American magazines are in -n oar book shops, and American Z-o, ire M much read as English, 55 or Irish. This is helpful to a ifl. We need such now more than alas, tares are being sown by pjj'ao in America, and in our Homeaid era amongst ourselves that, jf (Bowed to grow up and ripen, will tin at apart and make good fellow--oj. ißPßgst the English-speaking if not impossible. etr drink problem, according to g mgarine article by the Visfgatm Aitor, ia keeping us apart. fa th* August number of the wguieteth Century and After": •"Eie'ttee America went dry the trade has, for self-in-[m ft method of discrediting on an organised prejudice against ijMjp-. New Zealand even alight anti-Ame-from the same for peace and frntrttMaoi. The task is Heavy, lii tfiwf have to travel is long. things, it may jDdaitand the States if we , contemplating the writers. This flitejtt«Dued-to everyone who will Idfe <if l)oniala orant Mitknown' pen ; name of 'flic. .iMblwJWtt#C* •' of "Dream PSjVJ fJtentMvt ' * etc., ie, and of the Mrt States will he ; todoeed. life' hia wasl < Writer, trawU&fiaTO?!,' - journalist,

' inland cities —the country: rnd I havo still more pity for those who reckon a season at the summer enjoyment. Nay, my feeling is more violent than pity; and I count it nothing less than blasphemy, so to take the name of the country in vain. "I thank Heaven every summer's day of my life, that my lot was humbly cast, within the hearing of romping brooks, and beneath the shadow of oaks. And from all the tramp and bustle of the world, into which fortune has led me in these latter years of mv life, I delight to steal away for davs, and for weeks together, and bathe mv spirit in the freedom of the old woods; and to grow young again, lving upon the brook side, and countin" the white clouds that sail along the sky, softly and tranquilly—even as holy memories go stealing over the vault of life. "I am deeply thankful that I could never find it in my heart, so to pervert truth, as to call the small villages with the tricksy shadow of their maple avenues—the country. "I love these in their way; and can recall pleasant passages of thought, as I have idled through the Sabbathkmking towns, or lounged at the inndoor of some quiet New England village. But I love far better to leave them behind me; and to dash boldly out to where some outlying farmhouse s jt a —jiice a witness —under the shelter of wooded hills, or nestles in the lap of a noiseless vallej. "In the town, small as it may be, and darkened as it may be with the shadows of 2trees, you cannot forget—men. Their voice, v.rA otr-ff, and ambition come to your eye in the painted paling, in the swinging signboard of the tavern, and —worst of all —in the trim-printed 'Attorney at Law;' Even the little milliner's shop, with its meagre show of Leghorns, and its string across the window, all hung with tabs and with cloth roses, is a sad epitome of the great and conventional life of a city neighbourhood. "I like to be rid of them all, as I am rid of them this midsummer's day. I like to steep my soul in a sea of quiet, with nothing floating past me as I lie moored to my thought, but tho perfume of flowers, and soaring birds, and shadows of clouds." He was not a dreamer, though ho could indulge in all kinds of dav dreams of the students of youth, of romance, etc. - What a beautiful picture he could draw! Here is one painted when he was 29 years old of the closing days of a father: "It is later August, when you call to Madge one day, to bring you the little escritoire, in which are your cherished papers; among them is your last will and testament. Thornton has just left; and it seems to you that his repeated kindnesses are deserving of some substantial mark of your regard. " 'Maggie,' you say, 'Mr Thornton has been very kind to me.' " 'Very kind, father.' " 'I mean to leave him here, some little legacy, Maggie.' " *I would not, father.' " 'But Madge, my daughter!' " 'He is not looking for such return, father.' " 'But he has been very kind, Madge; I must show him some strong token of my regard. What shall it be, Maggie!' "Madge hesitates; Madge blushes; Madge stoops to her father's ear, as if the very walls might catch the secret of her heart; 'would you give me to him, father!" '" But?— my dear Madge—has he asked this!' " 'Eight months ago, papa.' "'And yon told him—' " 'Tthat I would never leave yon, so long 4 as yon lived 1' . " 'My own dear Madge—come to me —kiss me I And you love him, , Maggie!' j■ ' *' "'With all my heart, sir.' :" 'So like your mother—-the same flgnre—-tt'e same true honest heart! It shall, be' Sis you' wish, dear Madge. Only, you will not leave me in my old age; eh, Maggie!!' '." 'Never, father, never.' " -He' was a ,\ybrker| and he could-in lafeff ,':-'''.'.•*//''''■' '■', "".;'",:';."""'■ ' ■ f There is' no maimer of work done upon a Nevp Englsind farm to which some day I have .not put my hand—J whether it, be chopping wood, laying wall, sodaling a coalpit, cradling oats, weeding corn, shearing sheep, or sowing turnips." ■.'..':.''.'■ i And he could do his work in all. He could bind up the sheaves of corn at harvest with the stoutest of his men. He 1 loved the country, and he said he could not'counsel any man to think of a, home in the country "Whose heart does not leap when he sees the first grass • tips lifting in the city courtyard, and the boughs of the Porsythia adrip with their golden cerises.". He was writing ''. of, a'''country" where there was five or six months of snow, and frost bound the land, ■ What a different; position we are in where I am,now writing my notes. Here snow is never seen, not even on the "tops of the.distant hills, and yet save in two or three mbnths of summer the heat is never excessive. At present here in Auckland, in the end of September, there are cool and invigorating southern breezes. He was successful in his farming. His biographer says: 'fit should never L be forgotten that the Master of Edgewood was not a more book-farmer. Competent helpers; of course, he intended to have beside him; his' was always to" be the directing mind. He entered upon his work with definite notions, determined to work y/ith his own hands and likewise, determined that the venture should be pelf-sustaining—even profit-, able! He believed that 'agricultural successes which are • the result of simple, lavish expenditure, without reference to agricultural returns, are but' empty triumphs.' • He was endeavouring to work out a culture that would commend itself to the average farmer, a method that would make for the advancement of agriculture; and to this end, he believed that 'no success in any method of culture is thoroughly sound and praiseworthy, except it be imitable, to the extent of his means, by the smallest farmer.'" In a .letter dated February 29tb, 1860, he said: , . *■ ■ "I am not rich, enough to make a plaything of the farm, but am reaily dependent upon its returns and somelittle. wbich I do literary-wise. For this reason I want it pushed to its utmost capacity, and a man at the helm who will feel an interest, and extend its sales and productions. Of course, I want meantime to give an example of neatness, and order, and thrift; and taste .. . . and I want the workers to live and to do well." He had, as he said in another letter —"had wife .and children, and farm, and cows, and pigs and chickens, and hay to cut, corn to hoe and muck to dig, and bills to pay (for family groceries)." ' .-> I point out these short extracts to inform our farmers that a good farmer may live the literary life do good, farm work and make it pay. What a different social life we would have if even 50 per cent, of our farmers had joy in literature and in art! I would like to see every Bcnoolhouise made the' County Library and meeting house for the higher .things of life. This biography ia valuable for another purpose. It tells of his travels in Europe. He was in Paris in 1848, and saw a little of the then Bevolution. He travelled through many countries in Europe—Prance, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, etc. And we can learn much from what he saw and records. No more interesting reading can be recommended to our youth and even to those who are descending the hill of life. The part he took in social life should appeal to us. .He is what we may truly call a gentleman, lewdly, unselfish, humane, ever anxious to serve his; day and generation, fond of friendships. He Said "There is no man more glad to meet friends; —

22. I? V 0 more for their Presence at times more than I " .J^V^*,*', Übe aßb ed, was his tanermost thoughts, if you—to quote from an old boo k .', Co / e h Jf^™ S£f if t0 -n y r ~ then y° n «™ tell &5? T U d - Here » » quotation from his last public appearance in a £SS?* he . delivere d at the Two Hunaredth Anniversary o fthe founding of the great and noted University of Yale ~<m Waa then 79 years old: ihere are oldish people astir—-gone-by products of these mills, of learning—who will watch anxiouslv lest harm be done to apostles of the • h " m y iltles - You may apotheosize the Faradays and Danas and the bisons and Huxleys, and we will flin? our caps in the air! But we shall ™ K tl,at you spare us our Plato, our Homer, our Virgil, our Dante, and perhaps our 'chattering' Aristotle and scoffing Carlyle. Truth—however and whereven won—without nervous expression to spread and plant it, is helpless; a bird without wings! And there are beliefs tenderly cherished—and I call the spires of nineteen centuries to witness—which do not rest on the lens or the scalpel!" And now, what was his attitude to the things of the Spirit? His biographer savs:—"As the shadows lengthened, he fell to musing upon the deep things of the sphlt, and felt an increased awe and reverence growing upon him. His religion became simpler and more vital; it had, in fact, long been growing so; he valued increasingly the realisation of religion in loveliness of perfect deeds,' and became more arid more impatient of mere words. 'Sermons should not surely belong on Thanksgiving Dav; but short, and crisp, and keen, and clean, and abounding in high incentive to all worthy work,' he once wrote. 'Let us get over the idea, too, that hearty thanksgiving can only come out and declare itself in long prayer; or that any specialty of "attitude or utterance will cover and exhaust its spirit. It finds voice in every man's day-long and week-long cheeriness, and in the equanimity and the courage with which he battles with the worst. Right manful and sturdy endeavour in all needful or humane work of any sort is in itself thanksgiving. A close grip on duty is as good as a 'saying of grace.' More and more the monasticism v of mere hoTy utterance is giving place in wise men's minds to the holy helpfulness in all ways of charity and mercy that sublimes the tenor of a life." And this:" 'What can be better,' he asks in one of his random notes, 'than implicit trust in the Power that placed lis here, and that will reign wherever we got What weariness of brain and heart in the wastes of theologic discussion as to what may be, or may not be.' ,In regard to the personality of a Supreme Power,, or about our own relation to that Power, what can we know save that the one is dominant, is immanent, and ceases not; and the other beyond all reach of thought is compassed in the words, 'Our Father'!'? What he would have done had he been a Parish minister he has told us:— "If I had a parish, I.would lay out subjects for every .Sunday in the year. I would not indulge in. theological disputation, nor try to" defend dogmas, nor even to preach morality j but I would try to grasp vital subjects, and bo enwrap them with our hopes, and affections, and ambitions, as to make then panoplies of faith, and constant argents or determinists of good works. I would tell what I had come to know* and feel of the Fatherhood of God, of His determining presence with us, of His mystery, or of the mystery which enwraps all earnest thoughts of things supreme and ever-during.- I would discuss praver> conscious and unconscious; and other forms, fcf spiritual contact with Deity. I would try to show that it is needless and bootless to struggle for a conception of Deity determinate and fixed; that to attempt to arrive at: such a conception is like putting the. tape-measure with .which ■wo estimate cloth-width's, .tof ambuii•tain, or the sky. Why, indeed, is such a conception important, or to be sought! Can words or thought ever carry us beyond the actuality, the factooncept that He is, and* He reigns! The greatest word-master' can P ut tints and colours into his exhibit of. Divine quality; and what painter can approach the ineffable, inexpressible mystery and power, and love of Him ■who reigns!". And may I end my quotations from this interesting book by a. verse he wrote:;- ; - ']' ..-. [:.■■.. "Is It morning we shall see When the night of flesh gives out, When life's battle ends in routShall we call it morning, then! , Morning such as mortal men Know not, and shall never know! Mortal eyes can never see Dawning of the 'things to be.' Shall death purge us of the dross • That now films our eyes across!" ■ Beading such a life as his, explains how he could have written "Dream Life," and the "Keveries of a Bachelor," and may it mot be hoped that it will show us what kind of men are to be found amongst our kin on the other side of the Pacific. Professor Dunn has done his work lovingly and well. He has made us se£ what Emerson called Longfellow, "A lovable soul," and he has brought home to us the glory of our kin in the United States. Who can avoid reverencing and loving such men as Emerson, Whittier, Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lowell, Hawthorne, etc., ate. and last but not least, Donald Grant Mitchell! They are examplars to us, and can we think it possible that we should ever quarrel with a .nation that can produce such noblo men!