QUEEN-STREET IN SPUING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12955, 26 August 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

QUEEN-STREET IN SPUING.

1!Y XOfIUNUA.

I"* masons come and go even, in the hearts <" towns, as you know if of late you have' gone into wet and slippery Queen-street, °» » morning, when life is streaming into «-. as of course you have if you are a man weighed with business cares or « woman «"T»ng her living somewhat as men do. And though you may be so used to it that von do not notice, the details, yet you can »w the springtime calling if you have ears at all. the streets are wet with last sight's vain and the clouds hover still not too far li'om the topmost storey of towering building*, but behind drifting clouds is the dear clean blue that ever marks the spring. And when that wonderful blue is spread across the sky who cares for dampness underfoot or for drifting cloud overhead, when the soft breath of promise is in the air who cares for the chill in the shade? Surely "one but those whose hearts are old; and who have old hearts now'.'

Years do not count with hearts. Some perchance are born old and cold, but this you cannot judge by bald heads and goldrimmed spectacles, much less by weary eyes and silver hairs. For the weariest eyes are often only weary because of life's uni'ulfilment, are blurred by the salt sea spray in long looking for the Golden Isles. And hair turns grey in the. same impatient yearning, which is none the less within us bocause, we all go cm pretending not to care. We are a nation of pretenders, each afraid of being thought, strange and peculiar, yet each one knows that beneath the fleshtinted mask commanded by good English custom is a heart that leaps to day-dreams at the soft whispering of Spring— the Eternal Feminine of the seasons, that warms and chills and laughs and sobs all in a. breath, that is never the same for an hour, yet always the same for all time.

Somehow in Spring we are kindlier one In another, even hi Queen-street, where one would think Nature might be shutout, by brick and stone. A man bumps carelessly against a woman; if looks could kill ho would die the death, hut as he humbly begs pardon for his'clumsiness a glint of kindliness lights up the lace, thai cannot altogether hide its thought on such a day. This is hardly as it ought to be, to carnivalhating Puritans, for in Queen-street all should wear masks, women the more hm penetrable.

It is passing strange, if you think of it, the absurd importance we attach to the hiding of our feelings, even from those nearest and dearest, if we could but be frank wo should admit that, the laugh is often in our heart while our mouth holds set, that the tears arc often near our eyes while our faces hold indifferent. We are as chary of letting ourselves go as though we all had enamelled faces, in the fashionable style, and were afraid that the giving vent to our feelings would Oracle the enamel beyond repairing. And perhaps it would—to those who see it cracking. But the result would depend—would it- not?—upon whether they cared for what we actually were or for what we pose as being, in our accustomed masks.

To right and to left the mask-wearers pass you. Here a weather-beaten woman shuffles' by. Her bonnet is old and frowsy; the lines of her mouth are lost in a hollow ; her face is seamed and wrinkled; her hair is grey and wispy—but from behind this haggard mask look out. her eyes, alive. She'has just finished her.round of efficecleaning. Sin* is oil' to work for some more fortunate fellow-Christian whoso husband understands better than hers that man was made to work and woman to encourage him and who very properly expects and intends to get her Ihrcc shillings' worth of scrubbing pressed (town and iuniting over. She pretends to be stolid, unconcerned, full of the business of, life, but in her eyes you can read that she is thinking as ill the long years ago when her cheeks were smooth and rounded and her lips were ripe and red, when her hair was the crown of her womanliness and .'vcrv fibre of her being answered to the Spring. And still the old heart answers, as the worn-out charger to the bugle, and we can laugh if we like, but some dav it will oe thus with us all.

For whether we go dressed in silk or in cotton, in tweeds or in dungaree, whether t,yc scrub our wav through life on our kuees 01 saunter round fatly watching that we j get our money's worth, we all grow old and we all must die and wc all must leave everything that is ours to others, our greatest hope'that those others may be of our own blood. And Youth is a possession passing Wealth and Beauty a satisfaction greater than Wisdom— as we all know in the bottom of our hearts, men and women alike. And the Spring is what it is because it brings back the tingle of Youth, even to the oldest, if you have in you a spark of the divine fare that Prometheus stole from the gods and for stealing which, for his children, the impotent gods vainly strive to torture him into repentance. The old Greek knew the human heart, although they did not have our modern opportunities. They knew that that which has been always is and that even Zeus could not lake from Prometheus the joy of bavin" scaled Olympus, the memory of having warned his hands at the very Altar of Lite -that, no matter what happens, alter Youth is immortal in our memories, and though it sleeps long and low under a mound of years, it ever wakes, if only loi a moment, at the magic incantation of Spring. , v ■ i That is, of course, where the divine spark has found lodging as it evidently lias in these two pompous men who pass, -barely tue\ must keep shops-men with such propnetoiS writ large" upon them cannot possibly do ess. They walk sedately grave.down the street, so sedately and gravely t at oyotuer grave and sedate men will believe that these pompous citizens once climbed trees and tore their clothes, hiughcd Sid loved, wooed and won. 0 course hey did win—for no bachelor ever walked as tl ev walk. For bachelors, you must know, £ I funsatMed walk. Eveni if they are honeless-but, there, no bachelor is hope-os-even if they are 70 years ol age tfaer walk with shorter steps, more jerkily, uXor briskly. They have a hunted an oor wretohes-as who would not with the . |en Diana, and her mother and all her eSves in full cry behind then, and every Diana the wrong one.' And a* the, age the restlessness in their eyes betokens unti bilifv suppressed or otherwise. But, just ?Vv n they are in better mood Hop, 'you see! Spring brings it every year. Ibis inevitable. , ~ „ ltnr the young have not always the j ut mo you. l ho would r'fb.rf^-.d.Xi''^?! I,e " n««h«S»stl'»»« 1 ' ,du) " , , w °!' <1 a ™'a b3 nd the field open or Ins bangs and dalle o i .such a careless omn g > . , U]is IUOTI , boring cart behind si a J d But if only a. few i c c •-" d t]nW it that splay-100 fed 1 pits bod. and. be down its head i J 1 hero the wind uff l " big grM ii out du ting eyes. And tosses manes *itl on J «• ()f ~ y across the e l; I m halter at which holds his hill,tl f e S f ;A I vd auUtngs. He a- great Koman-lace by u0 K bu( . is only being led ■ "° nst-i c cannot he] the Spring is »i h 'Jt leash and throw it. He must strain at to « But hi hindquarters o\^' l]iavr ~ mad . for the blinkers h. to shy at tier dance; as J- to start at every sound. every sight an« to s^ m though the Horses, ,deed ; k „L it is Spring, and as very motor-cars know ea ,^. nd for the plants n l J« ,' 1 > 0 {! it week or two