UMBRA AND PENUMBRA

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 817, 14 May 1910, Page 6

UMBRA AND PENUMBRA

AND THE LAMPS THAT WERE.

(By "Gyro.") The weariest and most loathed woddlr .life ; That age, ache, penury, imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death. Drip, drip, drip. . . . The rain, this Monday morning, blots the pervading redness of tho roofs of To Aro, and, as one puts down the morning paper with its black borders, he oonies squarely face to'. face . with.- the .blank fact of death, with some intimate reference, naturally enough, to the-onslaught of the Pale Rider on palaces,and the ludl of kings.-- ■ In, a few days from now it wfll be tie day after tho funeral, and then, no doubt, everything . w3l bo v«ry ranch like Vassili VerestchagLn'fl description of his freezing canvas of a violent' death in. Petersburg. "Yon see," he said, "I have painted in-the snowflakeefaffing, alike on the dead and on. the helmets of tho dragoons. Near by are some fashionable young fops hoping to obtain a snip of tho man'sclothea' because .they say...it brings them luck at cards.- In tho middle distance emoke is rising- from the factory chimneys; work is going on just the same . .-."• 'Death,, says of the> Golden. Diction whose own grave is only four days from New Zealand—deati is the most ghastly of all human accidents . because it is the last of them. And, when tho. sore business is done a.' pto is knocked.out by whioh a thousand' subsidiary friendships and relationshipa hung together—fine mute friendships and relationships with hosts of personally unknown _ people, among whom kings .and divines figure rather mcro prominenUy than others. For to, tba (lark,furtive- storming- firings, on i&e) landscape of life who are ooDectrvely "the Nation" have ever leaned heavily and wearily on bothi throne smlcbrroh: for support. And even, also fin- bats.' Jap the fashionable hat on Lambton Quay to-day, is the very hat which the Kinc wore at Ascott.two yeara ago, B ha. Majesty had not worn ft, »t woaldnfti have been here.: .'. .'■■'..-

Therefore watchman, now &st f% white light in, the long dim arcade of. Royalty has been put out, what of. £ho night? Is it, as one. feara it ia, at very, so- intensely, dark? They say, do the master whose ships dot our own bine bay, that; if one.would really know what icy fear is he nrnst navigate ,tho Strait an ft Stygian night when the great recurrent beam of the Brother which wheels athwart the' sky' and : vanishes " and comes again is lost' m the fog and spindrift,., and nothing but fee near.walls of gloom dose on the helmsman's eyes. For some of us, and especially those of us ,who were evangeficak; by tho faith, it is nearly the same tlmig In art, in literature, in edehco, we know,'almost'to a fraction of a m3li-; metro, where we stand. But, as tos Conduct, .which, must aver he ths springs of all, we are very mnrb Kkg travellers in an African desert. 'Vfe draw our bottles to. lift, the life-saving' water, and, is the mirage. Or should it prove to be really watery alas, no sooner do blistered fimha blunder into it than, our feet are caught in the mud of polemics, and we. drown. It is a very real and terrible thing this absence of the canons of oondcct that sustained our fathers in-' their peaceful progress down . through thai silver Victorian age. Now, to be sore* wo can have fairly exact science tuuch--•ing linoleum and soap, sealing-wax,' carrots,' and prints' ink,'' but, on thai' great matters of Conduct, and Attituda to the. Ultimate, no'wbithax? ■'at aIL '••' "■" ;. '' : '■, '

Here,'for instance, on the toils, tat one writes, is' tb« buff-covered, 6ombn» "Contemporary Review 1 ' (the number just out), and, one puts down the: scratchy,' futile" pen and opens it Tlw first - .

/The Synoptic problem is stall with us, and it Trill, doubtless, ooirtjnrie to be the centre of critical interest for some time to come. It is, how-' , ever, not top early-to point, out that;.-when we have settled tie question of the documents, the larger and more formidable problem is still outstanding. When, the problem of the Gospels is solved we are stfll only at the beginnings of things. . .;. We may in time arrive at such a truly scientifio theology, as ma; conceivably satisfy ~ even SchmiedaL : Just bo; it is : eonsoiine to thirdl that it is possible, if difficult, to satisfy, this disturber of the peace, this terrible Schmiodal, or even that other mora terrible fellow, that desperate, Niefeche, Bat for us poor, ordinary creatures, who must march on from half-shadow to shadow, from full shadow'. to . full blackness, ... it is distressing, hor--riblo. . .

For we MUST march, -even though; devastating blasts of German analysis ,put out tho old, bright lamps, and the more devastating hand of, death hews down the Head of the Nation—the fine impersonal Friend on whonv we leaned. Wo must march, for instance, forward towards war, with the consciousness that, when we''do, we are setting out for-.the grim enterprise totally unequipped, with that .inflexible attitude towards Conduct which made our resolute forbears such awkward people to encounter. And now, too, we must march without Edward VIL

After twenty years' study of tho. subject of warfare, in which, by thev way, almost everything of any value, has been written by German pens, the writer feels that he has no illusions on this subject at least Despite all the tilk- of arbitration there is scarcely, a German who believes other than thsb the predisposing causes of war' are in-' creasing in' potency, and' Mr.•''." H. G. Wells in his "Anticipations" (originally, read as a paper before the .British ,Association) said praoticaDv the same 'thing. Prima facie, an enlightened democracy ought to make for , peace, but, as Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown! in his study of sociology,' the unexpected consequences of •• any departure m the activities are always much greater than tho expected ones. In a small State, when the usual type of' democratic leader wishes to divert unwelcome scrutiny from points In ha policy which will not bear scrutiny, he presents a and the current of talk and criticism 1 at once leaves tho old dangerous'points, and'fastens on the gift which, to him, is a welcome change, and not v dangerous at_ all.. Perhaps the ultimate in democratic: statesmanship in. tliis respect is best expressed by.Hoenig. - He. says: "Can we doubt that when the democratic leader, knowing. that he cannot meet certain unpleasantnesses which an unenlightened democracy will always cast up at an equally unenlightened chief democrat, will sock to cscapo > the_ coiieoquences of these by- plunging his State into war. . Assuredly, when he can do this monstrous deed with advantage to himself, the temptation to do so will be very strong." But, as individual navigators on unlighted seas, must we give up? Must we lose heart? Must,we cry "Actum est?" I do not think so; the horizon is not quite so grey as the rainstovm now falling on Tc Aro roofs; all tho old lamps are not yet out, and somo burn very briglitlv indeed. Amid the umira and .penumbra of things consider, by <vav of finale, this one sontrmont fiom tho Man of the Golden Diction, mentioned above —from Stevenson—that ■»' man should stop his ears against paralysing terror and, girded aes triples—with a heart bound in triple brass—should set.out with patience on the Kreat wrestle that is set before him.