THE CARNIVAL SPIRIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18297, 13 January 1923, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE CARNIVAL SPIRIT.

V- BY VIVIEN.. Picnics, boating and harbour excursions, tennis and riding and bathing parties—all these are perfectly normal, ordinary, typically English forms of amusement which each year blossom forth with the summer sunshine as naturally as flowers open to warmth and brightness. And so at tho present time all these simple outdoor pleasures, though popular as ever, ore being indulged in with no more zest than usual, and troops of happy children are daily swarming like bees on the sunny beaches just as children have swarmed there every summer. But this year something strango and novel seems to ' have happened, a new and exciting element seems to be permeating the holiday atmosphere throughout New Zealand, and even Auckland, with its strangely enervating, semi-tropical climate, its atmosphere of dreamy, langorous peace, its air of drifting eternally, like the lotus-eaters, in a tideless sea of . lethargy— Auckland has felt a quickening of its pulse and roused itself to action at the thrill of a new sensation. In short, the impossible lias happened and the carnival spirit is abroad in full force.

.The impossible indeed, for the real carnival spirit as understood on the .Continent is something alien to the more phlegmatic British temperament! It has, ind.ed. frequently been said of the British people generally, that they value their dignity far too" highly, that they "take their pleasures sadly" and themselves too seriously. As for the inhabitants of the Emsrald Isle, their fame as fighters for fighting's sake has only been equalled by their reputation as a queerry-constituted folk who are "never so. happy as when they are miserable!" Be that as it may. it is certainly true that those who dwell fa» the British Islev together with their overseas kinsfolk, do not a3 a rule take kindly to the real, red-blooded, wildly joyous carnival so beloved of the continental races. For in nisny of the gay cities of Europe, ranid passionate, volatile, beauty-loving people of the Latin races, carnival week represents the very spirit of joy incarnate. With them "it is a yearly festival, when dignity and aee and respondWi* J,, B are all forgotten, when caution is flung to the winds and young and old alike hurl themselves into a mad vortex of pleasure and excitement with all the gay abandon, ithe care-free joyousriess, the whole-hearted ieest of a crowd of lovable, bat irresponsible children. And the English temperalaenfc watches the merry-makings, looks on At the festivities as at a strange fantastic puppet-show, and secretly wonders "how en earth they can do it!'* ! -Bat though we of the calmer race may lK>t seek to emulate such scenes of wild hilarity," though we may be ■ temperamentally incapable of entering into any, ificeh amusements with ust the ssane ; joyous zest we would do well to cultivate a little more of the carnival spirit. For these folks who can thus forget their sorrows and live in the joy of the present have at least learnt the secret or eternal - wait. They may ■ suffer more than most, may run through-the whole gamut of human emotions and experiences, but they can never really grow old because they have never forgotten how to play, never ? forgotten bow fe be children again. They live so vividly- and whole-heartedly and intensely in the present, possess so entirety the faculty of extracting the nmxi"inuni of sensation out of every moment, that to them life is always worth while. It ia the carnival spirit which keeps people eternally young, which saves them from the misfortune of ever really growing np, or at least from the calamity, of ever f rowing old. And so Auckland may take eart of .grace and enjoy, with the chil&en the fun of its "beach carnivals."