THE MADNESS OF HOLIDAY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7319, 24 December 1910, Page 7

THE MADNESS OF HOLIDAY

' STRENUOUS DAYS BY THE SEA. (By TRASK MORTON.) I have heard it asserted by eminent; spinsters, schoolmarms and a great variety of querulous fine ladies that men. arc queer. That is so. In all tho wide earth there is bat on© thing queerer than man —vromaa. Det a man and a woman put their heads together, and you shall see tho queerest, tilings happen. They happen most absurdly an every popular holiday. 1 live in a We have a tram, in the ordinary course of things., a little oftoner than oneo a week; but on a public holiday tho City Council (aba!) will become frantically enterprising and run several trams. Tor these trams, if tho weal In r, is at all bcaruolc, there is a great and, fearsome- rusn. At every stopping place! in town you shall too the pcopio waning! m their iaoniiies. The- workers, you know, the people out of TaraUise, tne wiso and invincible majority. There they wait on -tno corner, making believe to bo glad. The motner anxious and naggaru-eyed, tho lather irritable and horribly bored by the whole proceeding, the ciiiidi en noisy in their morning; exuberance, the crumpled baby, wicJU dust in its -eyes, squawking like an. in- 1 : jured crow. (Air xregear has wept in cnarming motr© bocauae the baby won t come oftener. I don’t blame the baby a bit.) Auer wait&ig on .uio corner in th-s wind for twenty .minutes or an hour, the people' stir, for tho tram ii\ coming. ■ Thera ensues a most unholy; scramble. Tather has his corns trampled! on, and the remnant of his temi>er tonii to shreds. Mother's skirt is twisted; nor’nor’-east. She longs for a cup o’’ tea and a good cry. Tne children make hideous wholesome noises of delight. And the grave angels, peering clown into thifl pit, wonder hew- it came about that the good God ever permitted babies to bo hung into this idiotic, uncaring world. © • • • •

Tho tram starts, runs another hun-‘ dred yards or so to the next 'stopping! place—stops. There is another-' scramble; and so the silly business ”io-‘ ceeds until the car is dear of town. i*y‘ this time all the passengers‘are in what my dear old grandmother used to call “a perfect fluster," and tho conductor' (God help him) is delirious. Tho dust comes in in eddies and viciouswhirls. But somehow, at length, the terminus is reached, and the car disgorges its load with evident relief—-a perceptible though inanimate relief, such, as the whale must have felt that time ho coughed up Jonah. We are ‘now, ypu will understand, by the seal So, X sup-., pose, was Jonah. But we are about to ,e a good time.. We shall enjoy our-., selves! First ox all, we must yhnd a place o’ut of the wind. There are as many as sis places' reasonably sheltered rrom the wind, alone the foreshore round; far 1 Seatouu; and. outside each of some genius invariably lights a fire. In, tlio shelter you could smoko fish with, #sL*eat success, but (apart from tho "Vi:n( and hardened, sly, mendacious residents)* ever catches fish irom -x-osnore;' so what's- the use. But somehow we are settled,. Hotter sits down, tired to tne none. Father grouches round looking for a straw, because his pipe has choked. The 'children pada*© about, and really enjoy themselves. Ifc is quite true thac the children enjoy themselves. They woma enjoy tnemseives in at puaiule of mud in the backyard; They are in. the golden country, at tne blessed, age. Uh, this is a honaay, all right, an right! The comments of baby suggest 'to the; imaginative the remarks of some scared leviatnan in torment.

I know quite well, dear madam, that it is tashionaole pretence in these highly decorative times tnat baby nas ail tne. streets o' the earth to give zest to his* still nnfaded memories or paradise. Nonsense, my dear! A baby born into our civilisation is often a - most miserable mite. He is strapped up and bouiid round. ; He -is pat to sleep relentlessly in a smother of flannels and fluff, in the stuff atmosphere of a roomWhen his little stomach is overloaded,, and he squawks his reasonable protest, mother (dear heart!) gives him something to drink. Then, because he belches and wheezes in an utter agony of discomfort, mother admlnisteis some slcp whose name I forget, smelling vaguely like inferior German noyau diluted to the thousandth tome in stale water. I don't want to be a boy again in years, being very well content to remain the boy I am. But if you suggest to rao that X would like to return to babyhood, you offer a grievous insult to my sensitive intelligence and. we*, part no more as friends. But this holiday—let us get back to it. The wise law of this wise, wise land has ordered that father shall not be able to purchase so much as a bottle of lager out there by sea. There is not so much as .a simple restaurant where folks can sit under the trees and enjoy a snack while listening to a band. There is nothing but Boreas and rude Ocean—with sand-midges, fleas flies, and other busy little creatures hanging round the -edge to warn off trespassers. ; ;

ft. ' • ' • • • But there is—how dare one grumble!— then© is tho crowd, it is a mark or symbol of ortir incredible idiocy that we have formed the opinion, or agreed to feign acceptance of the fallacy, that satisfaction is only, to bo found in crowas. i\ow, you and i know quite well, between ourselves, that the dearest delights of life are those that one seeks in secret, or shares at most with one selected person. I love my kind as much as any sano man reasonably may. I think that men and women are, on the whole, the finest and loyaiest and. kindest creatures on earth. I scoff at and utterly loathe the idea that all human beings are instinctively .and naturally bad.. It is an,idea that was got by the carrion of distrust out of the slime of superstition. Wherever I look, I findpeople trying to bo friendly to each other, seeking unselfishly to remove the thorns that wound tender feet, doing a vast variety of docent tilings. However much . I . misbehave myself, however' grossly I offend (or you; Mr Smug), I find good friends to inake excuses for me, brave eyes to shine with sympathy, kind hands to clasp and cheer. But crowds I hate, I hate! My pleasure in a theatre,is spoiled' w-hen the place is -jammed with peojple, and enjoyment gasps half-suffocated amid an odour of overheated flesh. One loves his fellows best when he stands on the brow of some great old hill, alone with the earth-gods, untramclJed beneath the sky. Give me a pipe and a book, u glass of claret under a congenial tree, one friend in the old boat as the sail bell-es cordially under the embraces of the fresh breeze; and you shall find mo philanthropist enough. One loves humanity best when one has you beside him, Aranlinfa! What else can equal the dear atoning intimacy of two entirely sympathetic persons? Do* you remember? . The King and the Pope together Hare written a letter to me. It is signed with a golden eeeptre. It ia sealed with a golden key.’ The King wants me out of his sight; The Pope wants me out of his eec. / The King and the Pope together Have a hundred-acres of land: I don't own Hie foot of On which my two feet stand; But the prettiest girl in the kingdom Strolls with me on the sand. The King kas a hundred yeomen Who will fight for him any day. The Pope has priests and bishops Who for his soul will prav: I have only - one little sweetheart. But she’ll kiss me when I feay. The King is served at his table By ladies of high degree; The Pope has never a true love, But a cardinal pours his tea:

No ladies stand round me in waiting, Bat my sweetheart sits by me.

Tuc King with Lis golden sceptre. Tho Pope with Saint Peter’s key. Can never unlock tho one little heart That is opened only to me. Tor I am the Lord of a He aim. And 1 am the Pope of a See: ,Indeed, I’m, supreme in the kingdom jTliat is sitting just now on my knee. { And so wo leave father, mother, the iChildren, and bobs to get back to town ■os best they may. It . is no easy or pleasant finish to a holiday; fer the*rush going back is infinitely hotter and move wearisome than, the rush going out. • © * © • It will appear to you, I think, that this is not tho ideal way in which to spend a holiday. The idea of a holiday is rest and change. Many of the peoples of tho world have such a holiday once a week; but wo know better —we have changed all that. There was once a good bishop in Dublin who was wont to hid his flock on Sundays, early celebrations over, go out and see Dr Greenfields; but conjecture falters and turns eick as it. seeks to determine what the measure that bishop’s unpopularity would be, out here.