SAFE RETREAT FROM' WINTER'S ICY BLASTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23097, 23 July 1938, Page 1 (Supplement)

SAFE RETREAT FROM' WINTER'S ICY BLASTS

By BART SUTHERLAND

JT is very much to be, doubted if the Moscow professor who is reported to have discovered a serum that is a complete cure for influenza and the common cold, is. going tq do the world so very much good after all. His staff of research, workers regard the discovery as' "the year's most startling contribution to modern science," and one can imagine that soon we will lie bombarded with columns of statistics showing all the extra working days put into industry by millions of the world's workers, and the resulting fillip to trade and material prosperity. In short, it h another contribution to the economic materialism that is the pest of the age, and will withdraw from man and womankind 0110 of their few opportunities for spiritual withdrawal. Secretly Disappointed

Why do we go about days before it really happens, saying, in pleasurable anticipation: "I really believe I'm catching a cold!" Why are we secretly disappointed if it turns out a mild affair, not hampering our business? And why, when it proves to be a synopsis of all the rheums and miseries that ever were, do we gracefully "give in," protending that it is because of consideration for our fellow man, and agreeing with all tho doctors who say that bed is the only place? Because it is about the only opportunity left for the average healthy person to indulge in retreat from the noisy

There are Compensations in Having a Cold

world. Not often do we experience such sheer animal pleasure, as when we are Secure from a wild and windy world in this splendid cocoon-like existence. Moreover, our sad state allows us to break many conventions. The ministering angel who comes in early with water in basin, soap and towel may be overcome bv this sort of thing: That you have authority for not washing is an original thought from a modern philosopher. "Professor Joad," you say nasally but firmly, "says that the middle class English have far t<3o many baths. He says that women in particular boil themselves pink, and scrub and scrape at their skins until there is 110 oil left, and that's how they catch colds." Charles Lamb called a cold "an i.oiirmountable dayniare," and says the sufferer has "an oyster-like insensibility to the passing events." But I would rather call it a day-dreaming. There, like poor Tom Bowling, wo lie "a sheer hulk,"' but slightly more sentient than the submarine Tom. We certainly may not feel like debating the possibility of evacuating foreign troops from Spain; we may not even feel like reading; but we may give way to the vagrant and pleasing thoughts that skip like hares over the landscape of experience. Completely Silent World To return to Professor Joad. Ho says that women maintain an outrageous insensibility to uglv sounds, while affecting a great niceness in the matter of smells. And lie looks back with longing to the Middle Ages, when people sewed themselves up in things like padded quilts and did not take them off for quite a long time; but thev had wonderful quiet streets. It would not be a bad idea, you reflect, to spend tho win-

ter in one of those new zipp-fastener housecoats that sweep the ground. It is easy, in this raucous age, to express testiness at noise of any sort, yet a silent world would'be frightening and inhuman. How nice it is to hear that chink that means the kettle is being filled at this moment; how comforting to hear the dog barking a welcome to someone; how finally lovely are the calls of the children at play in the school grounds near by. But these sounds are what may be called historical: the people of the Middle Ages heard something like them, too. It is against the machines that Professor Joad and all sensitive people rebel. Yet even machines have a rhythm and power that are impressive if they are not pleasing. 'Nobody really lil&s the sound of motor.-horns or changing gears, any more than our Minister of Transport does. Yet, by association, they spell swift travel and a certain imperial progress. Life in a car is to many of us—as it was to the naughty Toad in "The Wind in the Willows" — "one delightful, toot-toot." Sounds We Love Best The rush of a train in or out of a station is surely one of the most promising sounds in the world. The root of the matter is that none of . us want these loved sounds perpetuated for long; enough to cause a mind-stirring only Incessant noise has driven many to madness. No one would want even music all diy. Some people cannot stand it at all, finding it distracting and too disturbing to the emotions. Charles Lamb, if I remember aright, places the charm of early-morning bird-singing in his list of exploded myths. And many of the tortured and sleepless would agree with him, I think. These voices can sometimes be so blithe, competent and incessant as to be annoying! What sound in all the world do you love best? Keats in one of his letters says that "the Earth is our Throne, and the sea n mighty minstrel playing before it." The surge of the sea is certain Iv one of the most majestic of all sounds, but it speaks too much of eternity. rnd paradoxically, of mortality, to be a sound loved bv all neoole. The same might be said of the menacing wind A Norse proverb bids us steel ourselves to accept its dismal drone, for it sounds the true note of life. Steel ourselves to it we mav. but none b"+ hnrdv rovers could love it, snrelv. The loved sounds are the more human ones: some give their choice to distant b>>)ls over the countryside; but "distant." mark vnu. for manv have been known to rebel at church bells next their ear. and oft repented. Some like a loved voice above nil else, but ecu that must not co on for ever' Horses' hooves, the clatter of footsteps, the postman's knock!

Neighbours' Feet We have no time nowadavs for developing faculties that could teach us much. Gertrude Jekyll. the great gardener, could go out after dark, and "hear what tree she was under" by distinguishing the sounds of the rustling folinrre. No two trees, she said, rustled alike. Once, during a long period of a cold gone wrong. I learned to know the sound of all mv neighbours' feet, and the rhythm of their ears. Without bothering to lift my head, bv the hour and hv the tempo I could almost toll you where thev were going. Such a pleasant Sherlock Holmes' game did it become that 1 almost wished it could go on for ever. But other sounds: the vacuum cleaner, the telephone ringing, and early morning milk vans remind us that we are far from the Middle Ages. Our random thoughts have now disappeared; our cold, by reason of many roistering drinks of rum and lemon has almost disappeared, too. Philosophically. we decide that if we can't be ouiet we can at least be clean, so we have a good bath and face the world let us hope that that Russian professor's serum is only another false alarm!