PETER PAN.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 775, 26 March 1910, Page 7

PETER PAN.

AND HOW TO SEE HIM.

(fly A. Gladys Kehnot.)

Through this altogether mystifying piece of turmoil, which we call life, there are some people who trudge heavily and uninterestingly in hobnailed boots; there are a few happy ones who scarcely touch tho ground as they pass along; and there are a very, very few who soar over the heads of all tho rest.

But pray do not imagine that these things are a matter of feet or footwear; for surely are they a question of mentality rather than pedality; of perception ■ rather than of pedestrianism. For, indeed, however otherwise it may strike tho casual observer, I can assure him for a melancholy fact that it is our heads, not our feet, which anchor us ,to this too-solid earth. '

_ There are many invetorately optimistic persons who are fond of asserting that there are compensations for everything. Perhaps there are—but I. cannot for the life of me think what could be the compensation for literalnoss of mind. Imagination is one of the new qualities we can really unreservedly thank the cave-dwellers for handing down to us, through the ages. (I think they were the first imagiuers, but I am not sure; still, as nobody else is sure either; it cannot matter very.much.) Imagination is the most beautiful thing over; in faot, it is. so beautiful, and in a general way, so unwanted, that one wonders why evolution hasn't demolished it long sinco. Imagination cannot be acquired if you have it not; nor is it a question of the mental;-but rather of the temperamental plane. to which you belong. For instance, the most. unlettered peasant may see the light that never was on sea or land, while tlie man of science may prove, by fifty different abstruse methods, that tho whole tiling is ah optical illusion. But to what purpose? For tho man who sees it, the light, is there, just the same!

- From indications, it would seom that the unimaginative play-goer has been having rather a sad time of late. He Bad not ceased to shake his head unhappily over the general unwarrantablenoss of; "Peter Pan," when he was further mystified by Maurice Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird'-'; and one can almost imagine that he will have, to be anaesthetised before he will accept M. Rostand's "Chantecler." For people a.re very hopeless. For instance, there are even now some people—some horribly mistaken grown-up people—who don't.believe _in fairies! Now what can. you do. with people like these? Especially when Barrio so beautifully and so lucidly explains that: "When the first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh broke into, a million pieces, and thoy all wept skipping about. That was the beginning of:'fairies."- _ '-■■ . Noiv, what more do sceptics,require to convince them ? . Onoo, during the peregrinations of Peter Pan, through Kensington Gardens, he madei the unique discovery that, "tho.Serpentiho is a lovely lake, and there is. a .'drowned forest at the ■ bottom: of it. If you peer, over the edge .you can .see tho trees all growing ' upside down,' and at night they say there aro also drowned stars in' ■it."."'" ~.;■■': ■/■■;'.{ Of course, if you cannot follow such exquisite, imagery as this;: you must be quite a. hopelessly hob-nailed sort of person, and then it isn't the slightest use your going'to seo Peter and ; Wendy' and -the . Lost Boys, , and. the ■highly-.improbable-.dos-'with-the Zolaish name of "Nana." ~En passant, if you .happen- to bo a dog-fanoier, you may be just.a little, bit troubled about the iout ensemble of "Nana'.'; but;do. not inortify'.he'r ■ with the scrutiny of suspicion, 'for. she is really quit© a dear, 'and' you may take her on trust, like the fairiea . . If you are banal enough to look for anything so.crude and cverydayish as a "plot" in.the vicinity"of Peter, you will. surely be disappointed. Things 'just.happen to him and .Wendy and the Darlings—and they happen most happily. You would not expect—would you?—any ..particular consecutivcncss of ideas,in a.happy dream of your own? Nor must yoiiy expect anything, of tho sort' in "Pc-tor which is just a beautiful dream, only more really truly.

As a,penultimate piece of. advice, d<J not be too superior and critical in your attitude towards the performers themselves.. There, isn't any need; and if thero were, remember that people who arc so mistaken as to live in a placo which isn't.on the high rond to anywhere, and which would not even bo on the map exceptin.!;' for a sad. volcanic accident of a few odd centuries ago, ouedii not to be unduly critical. And lastly, don't go.to see 1 "Peter Pan" in hob-nailed boots—they do so frighten the fairies."