MOONSHINE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20136, 22 December 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

MOONSHINE.

./■■ * ; ■ ' ■ ' - ■■ f - '---K Bl'! MAT ANG A.- \.

'•■ ■ ■ ■ CHRISTMAS AND MYSTIC ISM.

Bottom, you remember, that droll old * wiseacre'whoni Puck gives an-ass's head but cannot make really other than an honest weaver, was keen to ■" find out moonshine." The play that was to please the duke without affrighting the ladies needed moonshine, "for, you know, Fyramus.and Thisbe meet by moonlight." Quin.ie: Doth tho moon shine that night we play our play? . \ Bottom: .A calender, a calendar 1 Look in the almanac; find out .moonshine, find' out moonshine, . ' Quince: Yes, it doth shine that flight. Bottom: "Why, then, may you leave a casement of the great chamber window, where wo play, open, and the moon may shine, in at the casement. Quiuce: Ay; or else one must come'in with a bush of thorns and a lanthom, and say he comes to disfigure, or to present, tile person of Moonshine. ■ 1 Good lad, Nick Bottom! Wise beyond a doubt, and worth all tho fond attention of Titania, Ay, we must have moonshine for the fit playing of our play of life. Fling wide a casement of the great chamber window where wo play, and let the - soft radiance, in which deep thoughts and t tender come to being," touch earthly things to beauty and,sweet comprehension. And if there be nothing better, let us devise the bush of thorns and lanthom, that in some fashion, even of our own making, the ethereal rays be nit wanting. The soul must have moonshine or be sorely ill at ease—perhaps die.. t The savants may* be disposed to cavil. They must weigh all in the relentless scales of reason. To them, " moonshine" is a term, of scorn, and mysticism no more .than idle folly. But this is their off They are on holiday. "The books of logarithms and formulae are closed, the lecture-rooms empty. ■ Test' tube and scalpel are put away. Gone their several ways are these prosaic, mat-ter-of-fact gentlemen, perhaps to discover, in some glan 01 by some seashore, that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy and that they too have souls. This is the hou» of seraphic delight and joys of wholesome simplicity. We will rejoice and be glad ih.it. ' A Wholesome Charm. Christmas, in sooth, is supremely the season of the mystical. Overhear" Marcellus— • y Some ~»ay that ever 'gainst that season cornea Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning eingeth all night long; And then, they eay, no spirit may stir abroad; v The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,. • - No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So haliow'd and so gracious is the time. '''*■■ ..." 'V O', To him, ' So have I heard and do in pan believe ft.' But, look, the inorn, in russet mantle clad. Walks o'sr.the dew of ydn high eastward hill.' ' S \. ' Even Horatio, you see, bent to a very practical aim, must needs own Hp faith in the stories of Christmas dnd couch in dainty fancy his call to sober weirk. i Such is the spell of this seasons. of: the year. A wholesome spirit works fri iti to free our feet-from the'toils of fell materialism and lead us from the dull level of life io heavenly places. whole fqfco of thought? is ishot through with. wystio ' conceptions. •Even the'.theojoglans—scientists these .in very deed no less than they of the field and laboratory—have not been able to yob Ithe festival Of'lta pervasive charm. ,- ( For what, at, heart, is ' Christmas'? It ' is;thW fetVMmd eft thines.npt' Wholly.. colp{irehendcd, - before which the mind is fain 0 kneel questioning but humble, readier to obey than to deny. 1 ' In the Christmas story of a Babe Divine, " incomprehensibly made man," of angelic song heard ." in' the solemn niidnight, centuries ago," of enraptured shepherds and worshipping wisdom, is truth embodied in a tale. .The tale can be told again and again and yet the' truth 'do never altogether, captured. Mysterious, baffling, it nevertheless blesses.. It eludes, but it beckons., ,It perhaps can, nfeyer be completely understood by,mortals, but it satisfies, strength- . ens, t|plifts. • ,If the Christmas story is true—and.it stands very searching tests —God and man, heaven and earth, are not far apart. Mystical ? Of a surety. But not- preposterous, and certainly of great, servico to life. , • Father Christmas. Take for instruction a normal child's regard for Father Christmas. It is a glorious bit of beneficent moonshine. Ihere are rough edges on the notion. You won't find him in Euclid, but he remains one of the irremovable institutions of tho world. ■- There comes, of course, in every- child's; life the hour of disillusion, when he sees the bush of thorn and the .. Lan thorn.. The unquestioning belief, iu Father Christmas as a real creature, of flesh and blood Ms shaken; but those- who know much of that marvellous thing, a littlo".child's mind, are not afraid on that account. There is. no crude shock. . That, mind is so clastic, so resilient, so mercurial;.that.it.adapts itself ■with amazing.ease to the new situation. All the oarly years of normal childhood are full,of interplay between • malA-belictfe and matter-of-fact experience.,. The r6ck-itig-horso is at once a fancied frisky: mount- and a wooden gee-gee. l'ho decorated chair is both a piece of stolid furnj-' ture and a. flying motor-car. The leaf on tho flowing, stream has been thrown by fingers oasjly deceived, but it is, for all that,: a Splendid ship in tho argosy of imagination.The ugly figure of rags and paint is known for what it is through very inquisitive search, yet it can have lavished upoii it an ardent love as tho lovely Lady Esmeralda. For Ever Blowing Bubbles, if on revel, in; this sort of thing yourself,* you solemn, grown-up, if poetry and musii; and painting mean anything to you. You're ,for ever blowing; and :.. fragile products of . venturesome thought, but" splendid in their iridescent attraction; If you've lost all poWerto imagine, you're a very luckless, decrepit mortal; this world is 110 place, for you, tind may the Lord have mercy ou your soul.» - > But iyou haven't lost-it ? Well,..tho children can beat you hollow at this sane exercise ox fancy mingled with fact Tlioy have not come to any stupid rigidity, in their conception of reality; and that's why Father' Christmas and tho gnomes and the, fairies are immortal. - Father Christmas dead! Of course not; . Even if the children find out that;you imper: sonate bim, they will but havo their con-, ception of him enlarged and spiritualised. He is as real as God, and »as beneficent and invincible,and deathless.,! • < '■, So have ho fear that any infection of what you sometimes mistakenly call ifcality, can smite Father Christmas with a fatal disease. If he had not been thoroughly immune he would : have. come to a bad end ages ago. Perlutps the doses of scepticism that silly JifcChoakumchilds have administered to him by idle words uttered in childhood's hearing have but nerved to innoculate him against , all deadly danger. . . t Cherish as dearly your ,owrf 4 heart's moonshine. . It is not exactly the'light of day, but it comes ultimately from; the sun, and in its gentle.enswathing/ihe soul can play : the more bravely* its part upon the stage ; of life, . And abovo . all cherish the:truth in Chmtmos, ; coming ".'clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,", with its gilt of a cross-hiltecl sword, whereby' to 'drive the heathen out" of cvciy heart gK