"Growling About the World"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23061, 11 June 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

"Growling About the World"

U • v-» ARE POLITICAL WEEK-ENDS A SIGN OF THE TIMES?

UP ART from mere polite calling, visiting and being visited must surely be placed among the simple pleasures of life. And being simple, and therefore innocent; they should bring as reward that glow of ecstasy which only things of the affections do. R. D. Blackmore says somewhere that "of all the things that please and lead us into happy sleep at night the first and chiefest is to think that we have pleased a visitor." The blessing is on him that gives and him that takes. In sharing entertainment, in exchanging ideas, in receiving news of .friends, host and hostess find scope for the expression of their own personalities, and the guest feels that he has Struck an oasis of comfort and peace in these giddy-paced times. But like many other old customs that' we love, this, too, may yet be swept into the past. Before the tide of zealotry that is swamping over the world. When Herr Henlein, the leader of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia, paid a week-end visjt to England recently, the spokesman of the party made the frightening remark, "All week-ends are political nowadays!"

Visitors With a Motive True, there are certain unwise people who never go anywhere without a reason. /They are the regimenting politicians, or the merchants and the fools of this world. Galsworthy's Soames Forsyte, informed of a visit from another member of the family, asked, "What did she want?" It was an axiom with the Forsytes that people did not go anywhere unless they wanted something ! For myself, I must humbly confess to having a yearning after false gods. 1 have often wished just once I might be invited to the sort of houseparty described in books by people like Norman Douglas and Aldous Huxley. They always take place in spots with romantic and colourful names, such as Amalii, Sorrento or Cap d'Antibes; in marvellous villas with private swimming pools. The two younger members of the party (who are no doubt in love) get up comparatively early to have a swim. Then they come out and bask like lizards, meanwhile discussing love and the communist poets, and pacifism and volunteering in Spain. Their idle chatter is presently disturbed by another member of the party, a nasty,fat slug of a man whom they had thought salely in bed till mid-day. His sluggishness is merely a mask of the Creaitor and himself, hiding an alert

New Friendship It holds a glow of rose-red in its

dawning That never comes again. It tarns to gold, And grows in depth and beauty, giotng pleasure More rich and perfect as it Waxes

old. Bat there is something of a mystic

sweetness That trembles at the first awaken'

ing, And,lingers bat a little space, then

passes; And not the greatest joy the years may bring Holds quite the same strange beauty • v as that dawning—

Its first quick glances, eager, yet i -half, shy, The! first Words spoken, and the first '■ hand-clasping. " The gold rose-red

. -passes by. r,\ '-Ivy F. Smytheman, Papatoetoe.

and most cynical brain. Picking up the thread from the last sentence dropped, he, too/ discusses love and the communist poets and volunteering in Spain. But the extent of his culture is breathtaking and god-like. Quite incidentally, he gives information also on baroque art, the state of sport under the Caesars and the history of perfumes; quotes Donne and George Herbert, and hearea knows what. The originality 1 and cynicism* of hid mind put the _ poor young'things into such a realisation cf futility that they wonder if there js such a thing as love after all. Of course, you would not call that sort of thing quite political, but I havo an instinct that it is definitely a step in the wrong direction. I can imagine myself lying silent and withdrawn .in the midst of all this glitter. All very well if the cynic allowed me to hold my peace; but he would probably want to "stab my spirit broad-awake," too. "And what does Phyllis of Arcady think?" he would ask, patronisingly. And I, too clumsy and unarmed to riposte, would blunder into saying that j I didn't think at all.

He (playfully): "But have I not read in a book by that interesting young man Donald Cowie" —the beast reads everything! —"that in New Zealand alone, that little backwater, the art of conversation survives?"

"Yes,'* I should long to say, but, of course, wouldn't, fearing his retort, "But, you torturing old ass, haven't you also read that the people of New Zealand talk of the only things that matter—cows and sheep and people?" For what are the real matters of conversation but these, Nature and Man, rather than the hazy and abstract matters of art and history? And I should long to be wafted back to a primitive grey shack on my own loved coast, where I might talk at my ease of. garden plans, of what we were going to eat for the next meal —our only concession to culture a discussion as to .whether the local pictures were worth going to.

Harassed Hostesses of To-morrow

It was a very wise man—one of the du Mauriers, I think—who forbade serious conversation in his house. The time has come, even here, when we should put a hard brake on the idea of importing too piuch seriousness and political expediency into week-end visiting. Quite a number of young things nowadays arrive with something Hk« "Soviet Communism," by Beatrice and Sidney/Webb, under their arms by way of light reading; their utmost excursion into the realms of imagination is represented by "New Signatures." Where is all this ' going to lead P Harassed hostesses will soon have to revise all their ideas of bedside books. "Mein Kampf" and "The Intelligent Man's Guide Through World Chaos" must take the place of placid poetical anthologies or the novels of the naughty 1920's (hidden from the children of the family in the guest room), and representing interesting literary research for favoured guests. It will mean an ending of all the amenities. Many a visitor of whom we are not particularly fond *???* enticed, perhaps fed on some'doesn't" agree with him, or OTOjfei Btopping longer tnan lie intended, lest on Monday rnorn-

By BART SUTHERLAND

ing ho should contemplate taking active part in some "push" of which we don't approve. Not long ago some fairly rational adults were skipping lightly, as usual, over the topics of social credit, communism, fascism, the armaments race, the impotence of the League of Nations and other heartening matters. "Dad I" said a wide-eyed small girl to their host, "when you liavo visitors why are they always growling about the world?" I join my protest to this potent small voice, and pray that we may keep to a simplicity of talk —talk that babbles on about everything as naturally as a mountain stream, and remains insulate from cunning and seriousness for ever. There is just one point on which 1 am shaky, We have just had another long week-end holiday—the King's Birthday. I decided not to go anywhere, unless the person in charge of the commissariat department of our house said, "Another of these long week-ends! Well, there's nothing for it but a round of corned beef; it keeps so well. These butchers' holidays are the worry of my life!" If that happened, I decided to scout round to see who would be pleased to see me. But you wouldn't call that political, would you?