SIMPLICITY OF GRANDEUR.

New Zealand Mail, 3 September 1902, Page 13

SIMPLICITY OF GRANDEUR.

“THE CROWNING OF THE KING.”

(By Gilbert Parker; M.P.)

To those who -have any philosophy, each age of life brings its own pleasures, its own compensations; if there is added ‘‘a healthful body, a mind at ease,” its own "happiness. Too many of us fight against the changes going on iu our own tastes and desires and points of view. We think that not to feel as we once felt is disloyalty, or that the years aro destroying in us our joy of living. When the spangling emotions of youth disappear, when a different bloom is upon the flower of life, wo are apt to sorrow for '‘the good tiines that will come again no more,” the colours and sounds aud scenes that are fading into the irrevocable past. But, if we have real knowledge of life, we open wide our eyes to the new phases, the now experiences, tile new years of middle or old age. What we appear to have lost in sprightly fervour is made up by a more even warmth; if we cannot race and row and sit up o’ night, we can ride and shoot and encourage those restful hours which youth flouts. Above all else, if we have the discerning eye and mind, we get to see more clearly the meaning of things.

At first thought and sight, the gorgeous display and ritual and ceremony of a coronation seem barbaric and wasteful—at variance with high purposes and simple worth and national endeavour. The American people, for instance, keep all their constitutional functions upon a base of commonplace simplicity; on the gioilnd, 1 suppose, that there is nothing grander than man clothed and iu his right mind representing the majesty of a people. I have seen such functions in the L ni tedmtates, and I confess they did not strike me as representing anything llke majesty. Simplicity and grandeur of the noble and natural kind I have only seen among savage tribes. I have seen thousands of South Sea Islanders, brown, naked, simple, in a national celebration ■ but they observed the first principles of nature, and had regard to colour, design, order, ritual, personal adornment and beauty. Imagine these same men in frock-coats and ugly “bags,” with vast crowds defying every principle of that order and beauty which they insist on having in every other phase of life. Why not be consistent? Why marshal armies in bright uniforms and give them convention and display and ritual and gold bullion and silver belts and plumes and gorgeous helmets, and prohibit colour and design and the pleasure of sight and sense in relation to constitutional or national functions? Why have beautiful architecture and fin© horses and carriages and exquisite linen and silver, and then regard tile coronation of a king as a splendidly childish pageant? Why have displays in social and personal life, and in certain forms of municipal life’ and deny it to the national ? Are not the .army and navy national and part of the constitution? Should they not go in American yellow tweed and shagreen spectacles ?

Not long ago I saw an article in a newspaper railing at ceremony—and the awful expense attached to it—much in the vein of the critic of Bethany who suggested that the box of ointment might be sold for three hundred pence, which could be given to the poor. This’ article was written in one of the most luxurious and beautiful buildings in the world! It wound up with a grandiloquent plea—in very expensive language—for simplicity. I wondered that the writer had not quoted the notable lines from “Henry V.”: And what art thou, thou idol ceremony ? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st

more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers ? What are thy rents? What are thy coinings in? Oh. ceremony, show me but thy worth! • • • . No, thou proud dream, Tbat play st .so subtly with. & king’s repose, I am a king that found thee, and I know Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball The sword, the mace, the crown imperial The intertissued robe of gold and pearl’ Tho farced title running 'fore the king, ’ The.throne ho sits on, nor the tido”of

pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world; No, not all these, thrice gorgeous ceremo ny t Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave Who, with a body filled and vacant mind Gets him to rest, crammed with'distressful bread. And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep, Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.

But Shakespeare did not mean to decry ceremony. Henry but contrasts his life with the duties and high ceremony inevitable to position, with the lot of the peasant, who

Sweats in the eye of Phbehus, and all night Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse’ And follows so the ever-running year, ’ With profitable labour, to his grave.