TIN HARES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19762, 8 October 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

TIN HARES.

BY MATANGA.

FRUITFUL PURSUITS.

It had started over dinner and had proved almost too absorbing a topic— Fairfax, at any rate, had forgotten to take his customary second cup of coffee—and so was uppermost in thought when the sitting room was reached for the usual sequel enjoyed in semi-privacy by the four At tht table there had been talk of what a "tin hare" really was; neither tin not hare," a club visitor had said, after the manner of Voltaire's famous girding at the Holy Roman Em pire. The obvious gam there was in substituting a thing of insensibility to pain for a frightened creature fleeing for its life had been expounded loudly by somebody at an adjacent table, and for a while the " clay pigeon" view neld place between mouthfuls What the tn troduction of the electrical contrivance had done to increase gambling on coursing had been dwelt on for a while, the evi aence seeming too strong to be contro verted seriously Now, however, as the four slipped into their accustomed easy chairs, the topic took a new turn. , The Deluded Dogs. Blobbs it was who switched it over. " 1 think it's playing it low down on the dogs," he said " The poor brutes are in. They are sent off aftei the thing as if it were a real hare; and it isn't. That's not playing the game." Enough to shake a dog's trust m human nature, you think ?" suggested Appleby. Very likely," Blobbs answered; "but *1 hadn't thought of that." " That would be a calamity indeed,' was Appleby's comment; " but 1 can't imagine an'y self-respecting greyhound being long content to chase a tin hare for the empty fun." " Are there any self-respecting greyhounds ?" Fairfax asked. " A poor type of dog, it seems to me. Fit only to run—and that's no commendation for any creature. If they must run, perhaps a tin hare is as good as anything for a quarry." " But it never can be a quarry, in the real meaning of the term," objected Appleby. " That's Blobbs' point." " Yes," the latter agreed. " It's not a fair thing. They'll find out, these deluded dogs, and then there'll be an end. They must find out. One dog cut across the track the other day and rushed the hare sideways. Broke his neck." "But what he learned is of no account," said Fairfax. "It won't be any good to him—will it, Templeton ?—in the place where the good dogs go." " That's all very well," was Blobbs' return to his argument; " but what about the dog that got a mouthful of tin hare ? There'll be more. Something goes wrong with the works, and there you are! At any rate, two dogs not long ago started fighting each other instead of going after the tin hare—perhaps over a difference of opinion about it, probably because they were puzzled past bearing about the business. Anyway, I think they'll find out —the best of them first; and then what's going to be done?" " Get tin dogs," said Fairfax, with a grin. " And make it a game of skill among electricians and the mechanically minded ?" was Appleby's extension of the idea, A Grim Philosophy. The conversation itself seemed to bo chasing a tin hare, and, as if suddenly reaiisiug the fact, stopped dead in us tracks. Templeton re-started the talk, thinking aloud — " Tin hares everywhere: we're all after them." " How so?" queried Fairfax. " Chasing things we are not allowed to catch, or else finding, when we catch them, they're really not the sort of thing we thought they were, and then we are unsatisfied and go after something else. " What!" Fairfax exclaimed. "Is your thought that Providence is playing it low down on us too, Blobbs puts tlie deluding of the dogs?" "Not that," answered the padre; " though the view has some grim exponents. Take Hardy's novels, for example. Remember how the King of the Immortals, at the end of one, has finished his sport with Tess. It's common to him, this idea of a heartless, if not malevolent, Deitv, underlying many of his sombre tales". There's ' A Pair of Blue Eyes. All three of the book's chief characters are chasing tin hares, put up by a tricky Fate to make fun of their pursuits. El-ride's eventual capturing of Lord Luxellian is no satisfaction, and he finds i o v pitifully elusive. As for Stephen Smith and "Knight, the case is just the same. ' Dead —denied to us both , is Smith's final word about their shared trf.gedy of love Even young Jethway sn -f pr / so —at all events, that is his mother's reading of the facts. Tin hareare Hardy's pet contrivances, the mocking allurements of a malign, not a benevolent, overlord of things.' Striving' for the Unattainable, Yet I cannot believe he is right, Appleby' interposed. " And you don t, -Certainly not. What Hardy fails to note is that much of human striving after the unattainod—not to say theunattainable —is tn itself beneficent. There ,s a little touch oi this, perhaps not in tended, m thai Wessex tale oi Hardy s to which I was referring us go on says Stephen to Knight, as they learn the fact of Ellride's eluding through death's door of their rival pursuits. Ihey are unutterably pained Above them is a sky no better than a dim grey sheet of blank monotony.' To Knight Stephen has said * Where shall we go ? only to'hear his equally stricken companion say I don't know Vet Let us go on ' IS their sorrowful agreement lo ko on is life's deepest urge-- the only thine SeH when satisfaction is denied. liut vou think it need not be sorrow Jul, padre?" Appleby broke Templeton 3 i evened silence. * " Sorrowful By no means need i he deeply sorrowful, though disappoint mcnt be expei lenced. We grow by ou, strivings. Attainment cannot satisly To know all truth, to sweep the whole gamut ol human ecstasy, would- -para doxical as it may seem- -take away th. eitei part ot us The gieen of the fai hills is fine pasture for the soul. Horizonsenlaige oni lite A re.eding rainbow n a boon. To reach it would be to lose it We cannot evei clutch the pot »< gold at its foot, but to go after it, evei after it, is tlie true gain. 'To travel hopefully is better than to arrive,' so far as this life goes. We may nevei here reach our El Dorado, but to seek n with persistent feet is much more than a duty—the quest itself has a joy. Tin hares? They may be' lustred tor us following mortals with the gold of an enduring, quenchless hope—and that's enough—now." Silently, the four rose to go. Even on Blobbs' face was a look of solemn quiet as he took his way under the evening sky, its western glow full of the promise of another dawn.