NOTES AND MEDITATIONS ON THE ROAD.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 314, 13 July 1888, Page 2

NOTES AND MEDITATIONS ON THE ROAD.

FROM BLENHEIM TO CANTERBURY. Any man who lias tha slightest degree of the artistic element in his nature will prefer walking to any other means of travelling. Proceeding on foot, wo aro able to see the country better, and can stop for a few minutes wherever we wish to contemplate any novel combinations of color or any striking formation of tho landscapo. And then again, when we are walking we find ourselves more in harmony with nature, and feel nearer to the old Areadian simplicity of past ages than when hurrying through space on tho wings of steam and being constantly reminded of the fact that life is too short to stop by tho wayside meditating upon tho mysteries which surround us. These were the considerations which led mo to undertake tho journey from Bienhim to Canterbury on foot. And besides, I thought the strengthening effects of such protracted physical exertion were greatly to be desired, for a perfect education consists in the training of the body, as well as the mind. I am fond of being able to read Virgil, Goothe, Voltaire and Shakespeare in the original languages, but I am also proud of being able to handle a sword, a spade, or an axe as well as any man. I carried a small pocket edition of Virgil with me, and the rythmical sonorus metre had a soothing effect upon a weary body and mind. lam not one of those who believe that the unciont poets are equal to the modern. The so-called unsurpassed excellence of the classical writors of tho Old World is only asserted by the spirit of affectation—by tho sumo spirit which has so ludicrously exaggerated the merits of Goethe among the modern. Nono of tho poets of Greece or Romo has a passago to equal this :

“ Sorrows, crown of sorrow, is rornemboring happier things.”

“ Tho still waters, sad and chilly, With the snow of the lolling lilly.” And yet there is something in tho classic?. Something which fully rocompsnses for tho trouble of learning the languages, and which can never be rendered in translations any more than the voice of tho j nightingale can be heard from a cage. I met a good number of swaggers on the road. It touches our sympathy to soo our fellow-creatures wending their way with a burden on their shoulders, homeless, friendless, footsore and dejected. On the first impulse we are tempted to curso our social adjustments aud regulations as we contrast the miserable lot of such men with the comforts of the better classes. But our socialism disappears by a better knowledge of the facts. From unanimous testimony I learn that a good station hand need never carry his swag. Ho can always get a new place when he leaves tho old, and, if not, ho has sufficient laid by to keep himself until something turns up. Drink, laziness and improvidence are, in tho majority of eases, tho causes which send men or the roads with their swags. One was sitting down by tho road-side about to partake of iny dinner. A swagger came up. I asked if he was hungry, and got the answer “ Oh, yes, a little.” I had a dozen hard-boiled eggs in my bag. Taking out four for my own dinner I told him to help himself from the bag. When I had finished my four eggs he was just swallowing tho eighth and last in one mouthful. “Friend,” I said, “it is said that hard-boiled eggs are rather indigestible.” “Oh,” he replied, “they don’t hurt me ; they might if I were to oat a lot.”

The landscape between Blenheim and the Waiau is uuinto. esting; but the scene at trie Clarence is magnificent, and wortfy walking 50 miles to toe. On one side is the palpitating blue ocean, sending lazv, languid-rolling swcTs against the white beach ; on tho other side the wood-clal slopes at the foot of which lies Woodbank Station surrounded with trees, and in the background tower the lofty ranges covered with perpetual snow. As wo advance in years we get a better eye for the beauties of nature. In youth we are too full of our individuality, 100 intent upon contemplating our own importance, to look around us upon tho majesty of nature ; but as age creeps on we recognise our littleness in the midst of the ness of the.inanimate universe. The joy* and sorrows of our lives are like leaves that flourish but a transient span ; but tin snow on the mountain peaks has been gilded by the sun-sets of centuries. Men are like bubbles on the sea of time. The hubbies rise and burst, but the sea rolls on for ever.

Virgil stands out unique among the ancient poets by his chasteness of sentiment and an absence of all obscene allusions. Even the celebrated love scene be-

tween Dido and ..Eneas in the cave is delineated in such a manner that any ■woman might road it without a blush. There is, however, one point in which Virgil is in thorough concord with the other ancient authors, and this is in his contempt for the lower classes. “The miserable vulgar,” “ the ignoblo vulgar,” “the ignorant vulgar”—such are the titles ho bestows upon the mass. Of course any man of humanitarian and Christian sentiments will censuro such a spirit; but there is such a thing as going to the other extreme, and of this our age is guilty. Tho haughty Roman looked down on the ignorant multitudes with scorn, but we deify and worship them. Public opinion, or in other words, the voice of the ignorant majority, is with us tho sole criterion of truth, tho tribunal from which thero is no appeal, tho only standard by which to measuro legislation. We know very well that politics is the most difficult and complicated science, and yet we assert in tho same breath that the classes who have neither tho leisure to, nor capacity for, complicated studies ought to dictate tho politics of a nation. I resolved to go right through tho TEneidos, and have carried through this resolution as far as the seven books. I have never met with a singlo classical scholar who has read every line of Virgil, any more than I have found among the many who rave about Milton, a single individual who has read “ Paradise Lost” from beginning to end. The fact is, the elevation of Milton is one of tho most gigantic frauds which pedantic affectation has over foistered upon literary criticism. I have always failed to see in what tho merits of “ Paradiso Lost ” consist. It cannot bo the style, for that is labored and stiff—in fact, not English, but purely Latin in construction. It cannot be the beauty of thought, for the gems aro few and the commonplaces legions. Tho only way in which I can account for the popularity of tho work is that the , subject is a theological one and that Milton was the first writer who Christianised the Epic Muse and applied tho art of poetry to thoologioal dogma. Beforo Milton, English poetry was essentially Pagan Tho most interesting part of thevEneid is tho descent of iEneas into Hades in the sixth book. It is interesting not only from intrinsic merit; but also from presenting us with a clear idea of what men during Virgil’s tirno believed about a futuro life. One feature of this belief is revolting to us. The children who had died in early life wero by Pagan theology condemned to Bpend a hundred years with tho miserable “ earth-bound ” spirits who wandered on the banks of tho river, unable to cross. Indeed, the old heathens knew notbing of lore for children as we know it. They loved tho child as the promise of a futuro fighting man ; but in no other sense. Thero comes hero to my mind tho remembrance of a woman I met in the North Island, who no doubt would have been able to read this part of Virgil unmoved. Her first child died as soon as born, and her husband dug a holo in tlio garden to bury it in. Coining into tho room whore tho wife was lying, she asked him where ho was going to bury it. Ho replied, “By the fence.” She said, “ No, don’t do that. Bury it under that apple troe which looks so sickly.” 0. E. Huao.