Non-Stop Amusement

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6803, 5 January 1929, Page 13

Non-Stop Amusement

BORED AGE OF JAZZ Strenuous Life of Week-Ends

A YOUNG man, who is generally the picture of health, arrived back to the bosom of his family, after a weekend visit to a country house party, with a pale and distraught countenance.

“How did you enjoy yourself?” he was asked. “All right,” he replied, with a wan smile. “Arrived there in the morning. Played eight sets of tennis before lunch. Afternoon, we went up in their private plane. After tea, played squash till dinner. After dinner, came up to London in a racing car, went to a show, and danced at the ‘Hottentot’ till 4 a.m.,” writes Magdalen KingHall in an English weekly. THE MARTYR “Sunday morning, played two rounds of golf and bathed in the swimming pool. Afternoon, played tennis, then looked in at the local cinema. After dinner, played bridge till midnight, billiards till 3 a.m. and danced to the gramophone till 5 a.m. Mean to go to bed fairly early to-night.” So this young martyr to the modern ideal of amusement described laconically the activities of this singularly unreposeful week-end, hardly daring to admit, even to himself, that after a hard week’s work in London, he had vaguely looked forward to an hour or so's lounging about uuder a tree with a book. The formula of the modern hostess with regard to her guests seems to be “Keep ’em on the move.” Ono has to be in very good training indeed to survive the rigours of a really up-to-date house party! The standard of amusement, as set by the modern generation, is altogether

an exacting one. I shudder to think what agonies of boredome one would suffer if one were to be transplanted back, say, to the period of Jane Austen’s novels. IN OTHER TIMES Consider, for instance, a typical party of fashionable young people, described in “Mansfield Park” —the two Miss Bertrams and their brothers, their meek cousin, Fanny Price, and their dashing neighbours, Mr. and Miss Crawford. The most startling scheme that this collection of lively young moderns (because, remember, that they were modern enough at the time!) could concoct for their entertainment was to drive 20 miles to spend the day at Sotherton, the country house of Mr. Rushton and his widowed mother. And what excitement they managed to extract from this (to our ideas) rather uncompromising prospect! The “Sotherton scheme,” as it came to be called in the Mansfield Park circle, was discussed and rediscussed for a solid fortnight before it was actually put into action, from which it will be seen that our ancestors, anyhow, knew how to enjoy the pleasures of anticipation, in a way that is denied to us in these more speedy days! THEY ALL WALKED OUT Nor did the general excitement flag during the memorable drive itself. Fanny Price’s simple nature was happy, we are told, in- observing the, appearance of the countryside, but. to tell the truth, she was considered rather ultra simple, even by her contemporaries; and there were other thrills for tho more, sophisticated members of the party, as, for instance, the intense moment when they drew near Sotherton itself. “Now we are coming to the lodge gates.” “Now, where is the avenue?” “The house fronts the east, I perceive,” and so on. i

On arrival, the whole party was taken over the house and,j private chapel, after which “the young people, as if by one wish for air and liberty, all walked out.” Ona seems to see here the dim beginnings of the impulse that, in the day of to-day, drives their 20th century descendants to frenzied activities on tennis courts, golf courses and the arterial roads. In actual fact, all that this collection of early. 19th century young men and. maidens did when they got out of doors was to wander about the garden and examine “some plants and curious pheasants.” They then returned to the house, "together to lounge away the'time as they could with sofas and chit-chat and ‘Quarterly Reviews’ till the. arrival of dinner.” A drive home and the day of days was over. To 1928 notions it all sounds rather tame! A modern young man asked to spend a day in this wise, would be either in a raging temper by the evening, or sunk in a profound fit of tho “blues,” according to temperament. The young people in “Mansfield Park” wefe certainly inclined to be sulky at the end of their expedition, but their illhumour arose not from boredom, but from over-excitement. AND YET WE ARE BOREDI Yes, we are undoubtedly hard to amuse compared with our forbears! To escape the ravages of the aforementioned “blues” (a mysterious spiritual malady rampant among the present generation) we have to call in tho aid of airplanes, racing-cars, motor-cycles, and motor-boats, portable wireless sets and gramophones, jazz bands, cinemas, movietones and theatres, magazines, library . books, newspapers, boxing matches, football matches, regattas and tennis exhibitions, motor shows, horse shows and dog shows, racing (horse, car, dirt track and greyhound), winter sports, hunting, bathing parties and cocktails (one could go on ad . infiinitum with the list). Yet all this formidable array of pastimes does not avail to keep tile wolf of ennui from the door, nor is there anything to prove that we are less bored than our forbears, with their simpler tastes and pleasures. Can it be that we lack that secret of all enjoyment,—a contented mind?