THE WORLD IS UPSIDE DOWN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11843, 21 December 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE WORLD IS UPSIDE DOWN.

. [BY touuxga.] | The world is upside down. Christmas used i to come in the cold, wintry weather, and be spent round roaring fires, with boisterous indoor games. We used to deck, the house on Christmas Eve with the red-berried holly and the - long-leaved, laurel and such grovegathered. evergreens, with the Druidiq mistletoe swung high " oil hallway lamps, and parlour chandeliers, and over . unsuspected doorways. We used to listen shivering in the porch to the pealing bells and go blithesome ly to bed to lie desperately wakeful until we could plunder the stockings filled by good Santa Claris before our foxing eyes. We used to trudge through crisping snow or melting slush to churches lined with greenery and swell with childish voices the glad carols that knew not Dr. Thomas. We used to feast unrestrained for that one marvellous day, claiming unchallenged what .we would of beef and turkey, pudding and dessert. We used to listen without rebuke to the gossip of the elders, who bent their wits to younger levels, and made the Christmas-time the time of times for us. For those were the days before the German tree altogether conquered the bran pie of the Saxons,, before the sun stood high at the Yule-tide, and the world got upside down. Those old-time Christmases! Through what long vistas of the conquering years do we look back, beyond the sunshine of the South to the louring days and feathering snowfalls of the North? What gatherings then, what mind-moulding reunions, when the door stood wide to the four ends of the earth and kinsfolk came together beneath the old roof-tree! They crowded every ship that drove its way Homewards. They belated every train with their weight. They crammed into every country coach, and laid hands on every cab. "A Merry Christmas !" And those who could not come were sad of heart and wearied for Home and England as the homing-pigeon wearies for its flight. , . Perhaps it helped upset the world, that Christmas : homing of kinsfolk, that advent of sailor brothers with albatross-breasts wherewith to . cap . their sweethearts, of brown-faced uncles with tales of Indian tigers, of tall colonial cousins who took so kindly to the mistletoe and more often than not left rival swains lamenting when they went back with long-haired mates to the mysterious lands beyond the sea. For surely .they- made us think that over the sea Life was one long, delightful holiday —a holiday of entrancing storms, and thrilling fighting, and glorious fishing, and heavenly shooting, and of riding for which all adjectives failed. They told us of floods more dreadful than that of Noah, when horsemen swam for their lives in sudden lakes that swarmed with ants the size of beetles, and centipedes as long as.eels, and deadly snakes that disputed the rider's right to the saddle. They told us of fires that ate up a dozen counties, and chased to distant rivers the fleetest horse that ever the narrator bestrode. They told us of thirst that made the swollen tongue force the clfenched jaws open, of cold' that made it certain death to rest, of heat ' that made the earth like the fiery furnace of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They told us of settlers who ploughed rifle in hand, and settlers' wives who held hosts of savage foes at bay when all their neighbours had been massacred. And they told us in those days of the horrors of India, and how they cut their way with Havelock into Lucknow.

Perhaps the tall colonial cousins whispered other tales on the stairway of sweeter and softer lands, of snug colonial homes, of settled lives, and orthodox ambitions, and of the old, old story-plot that comes down from Eden.. But no such commonplaceness dulled the glories of our Christmas heroes, who came to sow in our hearts the seeds of discontent with tame Home-staying living, and then sped away, like swallows over that ever-strange and all-surrounding sea. .. „ .• " ' •' '•' : • - -• r- Bv the way, may it not bo that the tam-ing-down of. colonial life has choked I he stream of migration that once flowed out of the little northern islands? When NewZealand made'peace with the Maori, when Te Kooti was a terror no more, did she not lose a danger-charm that drew the English hitherward more than all her genial slues and fecund soil?" How remote New Zealand was, how buried in the ocean foam, how far from everything which seems to be craved

by man, yet how she was rushed by a class of pioneers, surely the best that ever sailed Southward, surely unequalled since the Mayflower anchored off Plymouth Bock! Love of gold will work wonders, but li ve of adventure will reach the Poles by a corduroyroad of dead men, and will think no more of the job than it has of turning the world upside down. V . .

And the world is upside down. The sun lifts early on our, Christmasing, and the warm winds blow over waters white-winged with pleasure-boats, and over fields bare from the haymaking. As often as not our Christmas dinner is cut at dawn and packed in basket—o shades of Squire Western and sweet Sophia!—and is eaten in grassy shade, or beneath the branches of fruiting plums. Never is the skate strapped on the shapely foot of the New Zealand Christmas . girl. She brings her tennis racquet along to' the al fresco feast, or lounges off in her muslins with the flannelled modern edition of the youth who used to tell colonial stories to her mother 011. the stairs. For the mistletoe is as eternal and immortal as the little blind god, and youth is youth even though the world is upside down. Somebody wrote that lovemaking is never really the' romance that women dream it will be, that men never seem to know how to propose properly, and just- blunder it out anyhow. Which only shows, as remarked a Jew weeks ago, that we know nothing at all about our neighbours' private affairs. Only sometimes, you know, as for instance, if you happen to be sitting at Christmas on a verandah, looking back with reverent eyes upon the gay and glad, the lonely and sad Christmases that have been yours, and find yourself unwittingly , approached by a pair of Christinas merry-makers, who have come out to find the Southern Cross. It. is'really remarkable how difficult it is for colonial maidens to remember the place of the national constellation, particularly at Christmas time. There seems some idea that the Christmas mistletoe is now hung from the little twinkling star, that is so hard to see, but it is said to be only visible thereon to properly organised expeditions of two. Anyway the Christmas maiden and the Christmas youth have come star-gazing, too much occupied with astronomical problems to notice your pipe glowing in the shadow. Ib would be cruel to shatter their dream of being the only two existing in the world and such a different and distant world. The preliminaries of Southern Cross investigation are gone through with. He doesn't know it from the Scorpion, but selects a, cross valiantly, and explains its outline. She may have her doubts, but only displays the sweetest of ignorances. He finally has to point her finger to it and forgets to let her hand go. They stand silently side by side and hand in hand. .Lhe Southern Cross has fulfilled the purpose for which it was created, They can hear Pan playing on his pipes. They are quite convinced that when God saw His work He was right in thinking ib particularly good. "I love Christmas," says the Christmas maiden, softly, the conversation pulsing liarmoniouslv through melodious pauses. " Why"?" asks the Christmas youth, softer, and you know he is squeezing her lingCI " Why?" he urges, softer, still, ■as five mi- '• Why?" he urges, softer still, as five minutes passes without reply. " Because — she answers at last, and somehow you know' there are tears in her eyes. Ah, Mother .-Nature,' what weapons you gave to your daughters for the mocking of the strength of'your sons! You know the Christmas youth is smitten unto death, that he is searching lus mind for clue out of the maze of conventions into the open road of acknowledged love, lhe fated moment of two fives has come, ana you would no more think of disturbing them now than of interrupting Tell when his arnow was lining to the apple. You know that their voung hearts are beating like steam hammers, that there is only one more hurdle to clear before . they are in the 'straight for the matrimonial cup. . -It conies :.tt. last, tho fateful question. jerkily' at ' first,- and then with the flow of inspiration. "'Mollie! I say, Mollie. Don't you think—couldn't— can't you and ! have a*Christmas of our own all the time.' And if the Christmas maiden was not satisfied with this way of putting it she seemed to be. And she as evidently thought that the world was right side up, not upside down.