ROMANCE AND REALITY.

Evening Post, Volume XLVII, Issue 82, 7 April 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

ROMANCE AND REALITY.

[By Baiuk Barnes, Wem.inoton."] Romance and reality are two different things— especially romance. It is more different than anything else. Komance is a kind of oil-paint-ing of reality: one of the worst kind of oil-paintings ; one of the kind with the name on, for handy reference— an outrage in oils. Look into a polished pewter teapot and smile sweetly, but not so sweetly as to dent the teapot. The image that you see there is very much more like you than romance is like reality. Some people don't know that these two things are essentially different, and that they do not go together. They fool away a vast amount of happiness in trying to amalgamate them, but they never succeed. You might just as reasonably expect an ox and a hair-trunk to plough together as to try and make romance and reality go in double harness When you can mix oil and water, then you oan try and churn up the other two ; but it is time enough to try the second when you have succeeded in doing the first. You might with advantage practise opening oysters with the thin end of a rat's tail. You will find it excellent practice for the job you have in hand, because it will teach you not to be discouraged by failure. One of the first things that led me to look into the matter was a picture that hung in my home when I was a child. The scene depicted was something of this kind : — An old-fashioned farm-house, several old-fashioned cows — at least I suspect they were, for their hides were magenta and Blate-colour — a running stream with sloping banks, green to the water's edge and Bhaded by graceful weeping willows. Here the cows drank each other's health, bathed their tired feet, and whisked their restless tails to drive off equally restless flies. The pretty milk-maid stood some distance awuy, with her arms akimbo. A milking-stool lay at her feet, and she waited for the cows to come and be milked; and, although I frequently looked closely at the picture, I saw no traces of profanity on her lips. This stiuck me as strange even at that early period of my life. Of course I didn't know then (how could I ?) that bad language could not be painted. Scarlet is the only colour that would be of any use for the 'purpose, so far as I can see. I made a resolve to seok out a milk-maid such as the one in the picture when I should be grown up, and having wed her, to pass the lemaindor of my life in drinking new milk and listening to her merry, cheerful Bong. But when I started to find one, I found I had a bigger job on hand than my small means would enable me to carry out. The milk-maid that approached nearest to the one in the picture was a warm-headed, shackle-footed, dirty, loud-voiced wench who sat in a filthy cow-shed on Meadow Farm. Only in one point did she come up to my ideal maid in. the picture, and in justice to the wench I must say she totally eclipsed the other. That point was her grip of things seen and obscene. The way she gripped the tail of one cow, twisted it round, and drove that cow into the bail before a storm of profanity, excited my warmest admiration ; but I couldn't wait to hear her sing. Again, who that has read to any extent is not familiar with the life of "the sailor on the wave." Who has not seen, in his mind's eye, the blue-eyed and yellow-haired tar sitting on his trunk on the shore of an open roadstead, with his arm around his sweetheart's waist. (He generally prefers an open roadstead to do his courting on.) Living such a free life as he does, it is easy to understand how he cannot bear to be cramped up. His whole soul revolts against it. He prefers to court on a rock out of sight of land — when he can — but he will put up with an open roadstead. In romance, he doesn't chew when he's courting. Then again, we have all seen him on board his saucy ship, in his trim suit of blue sorge, making things ship-shape, standing bareheaded on the main truck, whistling fora breeze, singing a merry song in the fo'oastlo, or refusing to go to sea on a Friday. I had seen him liko this scores of times — in books and pictures — but I had never seen him in real life. I resolved to do so at once. I saw him, but he didn't appear as I expected he would. I went on board a large ship, aud there he was, on all sides. No two •articles of his clothing were of the same colour. His brrast was not bare and bronzed. He wore a large and dirty muffler around his neck. His trousers were certainly baggy, but not round the feet. H e was an island in a sua of tobacco juice. I longed to hear the boatswain's stentorian voice order all hands aloft. I heard it. It said : '' Now then, you lazy sweeps, get up aloft there, and furl them royals" I turned sadly away and went ashore. I must havo got on board the wrong ship. The next time I saw our hero he was in the Police Court, charged with being drunk and disorderly. There must have been some terrible mistake about it all ; for although songs say that " With joy he drinks the reeling grog, 1 ' they never Bay he became drunk and disorderly. Sick transit glorious Monday.