THE NEVER LAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20740, 6 December 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE NEVER LAND.

AN UNCHARTED SHORE.

BY R. G. POLI/ETT.

The littlest -star, which is, of course, the naughtiest, looked down, blinked once, then winked; came a breezy puff, and there lay the casement open to the night, and the long, mysterious road to the Never Land. Who, given the chance, would refuse that long, mysterious journey ?

But the route to those strange, incredible shores where Peter Pan once met in mortal combat his deadly foe, Captain Jas. Ilook, and where the Lost Boys waited for a Mother, is a starry one which only the few may traverse at will—tho few, of course, being .those lucky folk whom Peter still visits of a starry night, and whom 110 has taken under his wing, or more accurately, presented with those invisible fairy wings that those who wear them may wing their way where the wind blows and tli? ways of men are not. . High in this esoteric order of Fairy Wings will be found a certain James Barrie; and we may be sure that a certain dainty casement in the Adelphi does, on occasion, puff pecretly open to permit of its owner, shorn for the night of all those tedious degrees and worldly honours which it pleases a grateful public to bestow upon its chief-loved author, passing gracefully out over the fretted domes and spires of London town, and sailing through the blue empyrean toward the Never-Never.

Alas! it is equally certain that such enviable passagings are not for you an<] me. We, if ever w« make the journey (and God be praised that many of us yet do!) must accomplish it after the manner of the Lost Boys who all arrived there by falling out of their prams when their nurses' backs were turned. If they were not claimed within seven days, off they went to the Never Land. Then let us, when we can, fall, if not out of prams, then at least from our office stools, when dry-nurse Mrs. Grundy's back is turned. Sometimes we do manage it, but the pity is we ara always claimed within seven days. Returning Dumb. Well then, many have been and returned. But can they tell of the wonderful things they have seen ? Or, are they pitifully dumb, their eager lips sealed by the seal that nonn may break, that of ordained forgetfulness? Alas! too often the latter. The experience, they feel, has been a rich and strange one, and that is all they know. So when one of the initiated, like James Barrie, who is a good friend (o the *' Midnight Folk," can with due authority tell us of the dwellers in that desired land, we hang upon his overy word, and hasten to honour him with our Sir this and Doctor of that.

Vanity, which is said to be a childish trait, though one that too often grows up with us, calls to mind that brightest spirit among the Lost Boys, the one named Slightly. His good opinion of himself was based on his being the sole one of the six who heeded no re-christening, arriving with a name ready given. There could -be no doubt about it, for there on his pinafore was marked for all who would read, " Slightly soiled." Many a more mature Conceit has rested upon more slender foundation! And then, Tootles. Oh! Tootles, though you know it not, you were always our favourite. You, who always wanted to share in daring deeds, yet always managed to be round the corner when they were up and doing. A rather pathetic little figure, and so like ourselves!

Assuredly your only adventure was a misadventure—when you were beguiled by wicked Tinker Bell into shooting the Wendy Bird! But you owned up to Captain I'eter like the man you were; and, as luck had it, it turned out all right, because the arrow had struck the button of Wendy's nightgown. Do nightgowns wear buttons. Mister Barrie ? A.*: far as we recollect, ours, did not! Laughter-Born Fairies. But who can pick favourites from . a community so delightful as that of this dream island ? They are all favourites of their author, one feels sure. Even the black-souled Cook—is our detestation of him utter and profound? No; for the truth is, so skilfully has his creator painted him, not contenting himself with mero tones of sepia and grey, but ever insisting upon that ultimate and pure black which makes the night seem as day by comparison, that the piratical countenance bears a certain lustre which we cannot but admire. Like the perfect enamel finish to an expensive car, the blackness satisfies, nay, gratifies, even while it appals us. Not for nothing are we informed that the dread captain is " blackavised and with long black' curls like molted black candles." At this we gasp our horror—and our admiration. After all, who should know better than Barrie that about the most scoundrelly villain there must yet be some slight, saying grace ? And so he tells us that in the quiet of his cabin Cook the flute! And he is even allowed a not inglorious end; for, though this monster's blood was of a peculiarly unpleasant thickish yellow, yet he was a " public school man," and perished with the words " Floreat Etona" on his lips. When Peter is explaining to Wendy (he origin of fairies, he tells her that when the first baby laughed for the first time the laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and each little bit went skipping away to become a fairy. One feels that Barrie's own characters arc formed in a like manner. When he has conceived a new play he allows himself a chuckle at his own cunning, and lo and behold ! the chuckle splits into as many pieces as there are characters, and there they are ready are characters, and there they are ready to start. The biggest slice of the chuckle that greeted the birth of Peter Pan must have turned into the hero himself; for " the boy who wouldn't grow up " bears, more than all the other children, resemblance to its creator. Barrie's Favourite. Which is Barrie's owt: favourite? Without a doubt, Wendy. There can be no doubt of that, for does he not bring her back twice. Loth lo part with the child Wendv, the strange Wendy Bird who became'the Lost Boys' little Mother, ho re-creates her many years later in the play '• Dear Brutus." lfe re-christens her, it is true, and .she becomes Margaret Dearth, at that age when you like your daughter best—just "before she puts up her hair." But even tlicn can J.M.B. have, done with her ? Not a bit ot it. One feels he has fallen under her spell as much as we. And so she puts up her hair and trips once more on to the boards, this time aged when you like your daughter just a little better than best the age when you feel you are going to lose her. Now she is no other than " Mary Hose," the most perfect of all Barrie's creations. But lie has the wit to fcee that to prolong her life now would be to run the risk of spoiling the vision, breaking the dream, and so he calls her away to that strange island which may well be the stepping-off place for the Never Land; and while the rest of the characters age she becomes the girl who couldn't grow up. At length she is seen as the pitiful little ghost who has " lost her way from Heaven, or near thereby," and is searching wearilv for she knows not what. Remember, it was " the tiniest star which is therefore the most mischievous" that first blew open the window for Wendy to fly off to the Never-Never, and, appropriately enough, it is the same 11 smallest star" whom Barrie invokes to call Marv Bose " as with her arms stretched forth to it trustingly she walks out through the window into the empyrean," seeking the land where the Lost Boys, headed by Peter, await her.