Great Open Spaces

Evening Star, Issue 23817, 22 February 1941, Page 3

Great Open Spaces

This morning when I looked out of iV window’ 1 realised that summer "as cally here. Not, yon will say, a 'oiy lovin’ conviction, since after all the

month is kcbniai-y, and, it snnuncr is ever coniine at all, it .should have hoen here weeks ago. Certainly lint, despite some hot and roaring days, summer itself has been strangely elusive. There have been so many wet and stormy nights, days when we sighed and said to each other: “ Will slimmer never comer 1 ” or, it wc are elderly : “ When I remember what summer used to he like in my young days! ”

But this was a perfect morning, bright and brilliant after rain. No days are so beautiful as those that deride to turn a brave taco to the world after a wet night. Not perhaps in town. There yon have to contend with puddles on the bitumen, with large cars that splash you as they pass upon their opulent way, with all the painlnl indecision as to whether you should take yonr coat and umbrella and look 'pathetic when the temperature touches SO, or leave them at home and look even more so when the heavens open again. No, weather brings responsibilities ill its train in town, but in the country it may have its fling, and you have nothing to do hut enjoy’ it. That, at least, was how I felt when 1 looked out upon a rain-washed and glittering world at an early hour. Joy cometli in the morning—and here it was. There was only one drawback—that overdue writing! 1 could not revel in til ai. glorious weather as 1, longed to do. I must stay indoors and tap dolefully upon my typewriter. As I looked at tin' dark line of bush upon the opposite hill—never darker and more remote than in this bright hour of sunrise—.something rebelled wilhiii me, and i seemed to hoar our old nurse’s voice saying: “ Now, get along out with you. Jt’s a crime to remain indoors on a day like this.” A crime. That was exactly what it was, and suddenly I decided that I. would not he a criminal. I would go out into those ‘‘ great open spaces ” —and I would lake my typewriter with me. I would take it out on to tliilb slope opposite, where the shadows from the rimn trees fall invitingly at 10 o’clock, and there I would write—nay, 1 would write magnificently. What could he more idyllic than to write out of doors? What .better Ilian to sit in the sunlight, green grass under my feet, great trees above my head, soft little winds cooling my forehead (not even in that ecstatic moment could .1. think of that feature of my face as a “ brow ”), and there, with the birds singing around me and the indescribable scent of the damp busk in every breath .1 took why, there I would surely write better than 1 had over written before.

So I went out. punctually fit 10 o’clock, I took a folding cliair and a little I aide and my typewriter; this was fatiguing, as it necessitated throe trips and the hill was steep. 1 was hot by the time I had settled in my idea! spot—hot and a little hit irritable. After all, the house was cool, too, and

IP'riltcn by MARY SCOTT, for the ‘ Evening Star.’

far more comfortable—besides being more accessible. But presently the soft airs and the birds’ songs did their work', and 1 forgot my grievances and sat dreaming of all the splendid work I was going to do. Poetry; what a pity it was that. 1 was not a poet; tor it was poetry that, should be written this morning, in these surroundings. .1 silent a good deal of time regretting that I was no poet. At last, with a. sigh, I decided that I must make the best of it and, since I could not write poetry, confine myself to distinctly perishable prosc. Bnt, simple and idyllic though it all sounded, it did not work out so well in practice. To begin with, the grass was damp and 1, alas! of an age that cannot muck at rheumatic pains. Very soon my shoes were soaking and, sighing bitterly for the ravages of time, I was forced to make another journey hark to the house for an oilskin. Then the zephyrs, which sound so delightful in poetry—or even in prose better than mine—insisted on taking toll of my sheets of paper. They would not, play round my head, like wellbehaved breezes, but caught at a loose sheet and whirled it joyously down the slope. 1 ran in pursuit—and that was my undoing. For in a delirious moment the animals discovered me. First came the dogs, thrilled and emotional as if 1 bad been a. year parted from them. They leapt upon me and pawed merrily at the paper that hung from the typewriter. My voice, upraised in hitter protest, attracted the ducks, and a long procession set determinedly out from (he stream, quacking enthusiastically, circling foolishly round me, assuring me in a dozen foolish antics ol their devotion. If only f could have put thorn on paper—not in my halting prose, but in a lively drawing that would have immortalised my farmyard! Ten minutes more passed in futile regrets that I had never even been able to draw a pig with my eyes shut—-still less with them open. By this time I lound that the sun, delightful from my bedroom window, was making my eyes ache, glittering on the white paper, dazzling and confusing me. A fifth trip to the house tor a pair of dark spectacles. This (lid not improve matters, for the green twilight into which 1. subsided was as cheering as a phantom world haunted by spectres of tile grim past. 1 took the glasses off—and the view beguiled me again. Why could 1 not write descriptions of scenery? True, my friends all tell me flint they make a fin bit of skipping all descriptions—hut at least 1 would enjoy them even if no one read them. . At ibis moment 1 beard the thud of a horse’s hooves, and glanced guiltily at the time. It was noon —and the man of the house was returning hungrily and hopefully to the house, above whose chimney there quivered not the faintest feather of cheering smoke. I jumped up: the papers scattered tar and wide, five blank nages reiiroaehing me. This afternoon I shall sit indoors and write of “ the great open spaces.”