TREASURES OF LIFE

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 May 1936, Page 14

TREASURES OF LIFE

YOUTH’S VIEW OF THE WORLD Since that dark hour before the dawn of human history when the Piltdown Man crouched in his cave of ice and vaguely pondered on the mystery of himself there has never been a period in which the “things that are” made such an insistent challenge to thought as at this present time, writes F. G. Prince-White in the “Daily Mail.” Nor, God help us, has there ever been so little inclination to think.

Most people are content, this being a mechanical age, to let a few think for them —whether wisely or not they cannot tell until the ideas of the few are translated into actions. And then of course, it is too late for the many to cry: “Wait, wait; this is what we think!” Thus come wars, and revolutions and almost all great disasters that befall nations. Listen to the talk wherever men are gathered, and you will hear a score of expressed agreements with opinions universally held to one view which is a shadowing-forth of original thought. However, it is still the fashion to ask a man for his opinion—mainly, no doubt, because we are all psychologists in these days, and we know that it flatters him: tickles that fundamental vanity in him which makes him believe he is a reasoning animal. We are aware that the less he knows about the subject at issue the more will he be gratified. KILLING TIME. It is, perhaps, not a strange thing that the people who will not spare the time to think for themselves are invariably those who go about seeking how to “kill time.” Kill time! Heaven forgive them this blasphemous offence unto it. For my part I would I could hold back every moment of my life —no matter whether it be filled with happiness or woe. In my childhood the setting of the sun was to me a tragic sight; and so it is still.

I wish I might lead every pompous, self-important person I meet to the top of some lonely hill at sundown. Would he be humbled before the vanishing splendour? I fear not. And yet, once I startled a haughty individual into sudden civility by saying: “Reflect a little, my friend —you and I are marching, shoulder to shoulder, to the grave ...” This very plain fact that all of us are fellow-travellers on the way to that uncharted country called Eternity is never absent from my consciousness. Sometimes I find myself looking a little wonderingly at strangers sitting opposite to me in train or omnibus; and the thought comes: These men with hard or happy faces, these women whose looks are mean or lovelv are all passengers with me, not for this moment only, but for ever and ever.

And I ask myself whether there is hope that yonder gloomy-browed fellow, who bites his nails as he broods over plans for material gain, will one day start out of his miserable dreams and cry like one upon whom the light of revelation has been shed: “But these things do not really matter!” ALL WOULD BE CLEAR. If such a light came to all of us, and if the whole world were but sane enough to see itself as a show that briefly passes, then racial hating and national covetousness, jealousy, and

all strife would be revealed as a ridiculous waste of effort. It seems to me that many of us would be healthier, wealthier —in the truest sense —and wiser if we fostered a more contemplative attitude towards life. There is more need for a “daily dozen” tranquil minutes ot communion with the Infinite than for all the deep breathing at the open bedroom window. Living, as most of us do, in the midst of perpetual noise—of tongues as well as of machinery—only the loudest voices reach us, and because we hear no others we regard the loudest as authentic. Nevertheless there are many who have wisdom. These are they who are most truly English, for they place great store by a quiet life. It is our innate love of tranquillity that has had most to do with the production in us, as a people, of those characteristics of calm judgment, selfconfidence, and firm control of heart and head before danger, crisis, or calamity, by which we are best known to the rest of mankind.

It has done something more —it has made of us a nation of amateur gardeners; and it is my firm belief that we owe to this fact our stability of temper. THE BEST PATRIOTS. Very soon, now that swelling buds are once more proclaiimng the imminence of spring, the future glory of their gardens will outshine all other considerations in the minds of millions of men and women. I would say here, too, that it seems to me that the most sincere patriots are the people who busy themselves with the soil. To them their country i.s not merely a fine-sounding name, or the colour of a flag—it is their own bit of good, sweet earth, their own few familiar trees, their own patch of dewy grass, magnified to the far horizon.

With every day’s passing I become more assured of the eternal worth of simple things—simple pleasures, simple pursuits, simple ideals —and of the transitoriness of many things that loom with large importance before our ambitious gaze. One of the happiest persons I know is a man with possessions as few as a hermit’s. In his youth he strove after fame, and was very near to winning it when his health broke down. Then the eyes of his spirit were opened, and he saw fame as a soap-bubble in the sun, the sport of every fiickle breeze, and doomed to vanish in an instant with all its dazzling hues. He steeped his wearied mind in quietness, far from the clamour of those who would storm Parnassus, and • when his strength returned he chose a humble sphere for his labours and sought the world’s applause no more. He lives detached days; He served not for praise; for gold He is not sold. There must be many who have renounced their early determinations because they felt, when half-way to achievement, that their purposes were not worth the sacrifice of so much else which suddenly was revealed to be far more precious than all they had been toiling for. I think that most of us, if we are quite candid about it and remember the dreams of our youth, will confess to feeling an ever-present remorse for having failed to keep our heads among \ the stars.

We know —even when, as the world sees us, we are successful in one way or another —that in our preoccupation

with getting and spending, and propitiating that jealous god Security,"we have been blind to treasures no money ihall buy.