SURROUNDINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2433, 31 October 1900, Page 64

SURROUNDINGS.

CUCULLUS NON FACIT MONACHUM.

BY PARTIIENOSr.

There is no God but God; There is no people but Us ; There is no person but Me. — Mohammedan Cry, and Others,

It Avoxild be premature to ask: Hoav are Aye to convince soirfe people that the Avorld is not a gladiator's arena, or vulgarly, a mere bear garden? because some shoAV such admirable consistency in refusing to be convinced, and it' is not established that some ever even discover the fact ii> time to use it. To begin with, Avhat is the Avorld? Do men ever go outside of it? Certainly they do, and are thrice happy thereby. Does it include the whole British Empire? Certainly not. That would be greedy, and, on the part of a poorly defined poAvei, presumptuous. The world, I make bold to explain — for moft delinitions are indefinite — is that which the seer can see, and is bounded by his view'; which he kno\vs more ,or less intimately ; which contains no more than the land to which he has affiliated himself, and Avhich is more particularly the area in which he turns, and certainly does not include any territory, A'illage. or family circle in which his mana is unknown.

It is possible that many hundreds of years ago, before man Avas thought of as l*the magnificent beings Aye are to-day, the men of the only Rome did not consider ! their Avorld a gladiatorial arena ; but then they had toy arenae of their own making, | and there is no necessity to call one's Avorld I after one's toys. Finer conceptions are ! born of civilisation and grow Avith refinement such as ours, so that Aye have magnified the. arena and restricted the world until^ they have become one and the same sphere.

I As a sad matter of fact, that is the process we have achieved, and if some people choose to exclude from their world all the grim realities, the internecine civilities, and the unceremonial killings that loom so large in the minds of others ; well, they may abuse the function, but they^may not alter the definition. The minority must be considered. Now what is the reason for the views &ome people hold. There must be a reason, probably a good one. The most unreasonable actions are actuated by the most excellent of reasons. The only trouble is that the reason employed is the reason for another action altogether. In short, the sequence of cause and effect was- miscarried. There is probably only one reason for the gladiator's views of the minority, but there may be a hundred, tind of the hundred I have chosen one which is probably far wrong. It 'is this: The man upon a hillside, howsoever small -a pimple he be, thinketh himself in view of the whole world. Perhaps the reader has never thought of the position and the mental precariousness, of the man upon a hillside. The hill is so sublimely big and the man so absurdly small that if he only looked in the right direction he Avo'uld be humbled for evermore. But that is not man. He looks outward, surveys the plain surmounted by the hill, and straightway thinks it is .surmounted by himself.' He goes farther in his folly. He sees the artificial ant hills and geometric ant walks far below him, and hears the iEolian nnt soundsr At loss of dignity he becomes interested, and looks for the ants, the creatures that Avith industry have raised right-angled piles I wherein to 1 dwell.

Unfortunately for himself he finds them, and looks down upon them : pawky, creeping, paltry, proud, among their own. TheTe is no pleasure born like looking down upon something and despising. The man upon the hillside views with disgust the trenches the ants have ruled and paved, whereon, too weak or too effeminate for Nature, they walk ; and he puffs himself with conceit that he is so far above them and in such a pure atmosphere. Though he should next moment tumble into a rabbit hole oi trip over a tu&sock stump, he is still superior, and — perhaps nobody saAV him. And yet he thinketh himself in view of the whole 'world! He sees many pawkies on the- flooi of the earth, and he thinks they see him. That is three parts the joy of seemg — to see and be seen. It doesn't occur to the ordinary exultei over the atmosphere chat Simon Stylites or the Sphinx were seen when they could not see, and that while the watcher .seer five hundred pawkies in an houi, one pawky sees the watcher in a clay.

That is a beastly unajsthetic reflection, because if we were all of gladiator theories the beauty of the upper atmosphere would

be despoiled for ever. There would be no dividend for the investment of energy in hill climbing, and no beauty in a hill, or in being aboA'e things. But why on earth at this-, stage of civilisation does a man climb a hill? • Why does he soar to a point from Avhich the vieAV is deformed? Can it be that there is any beauty in Nature still? That is another unsesthetic reflection and a miserable anachronism to boot in an age when Aye are about to pave the upper atmosphere for our overhead trams, to store our jams and frozen meats in the rarified air above, and then roof it all over Avith corrugated iron advertising the British army and the Sacred Griefs to keep out the rain. After that if Aye Avant beauty Aye shall dig for it. We are really too busy to stand on ceremony for the sake of the beauties of Nature. Let us admire them until Aye Avant the material and the room for our advancing civilisation. Then Aye can very well do Avithout them or dig. There is not the least doubt that if a man will only dig and take a lantern with him he can find beauties sufficient, all his own Avork, Avhich he may sit and admire, and- call in his friends to 'admire, until the bell goes for lunch.

That is fin de siccle. The civilisation that put off its courtly manners when act of Parliament forbade the Avearing of &words, which cringes to the hostess and fawns upon the Man in. Position, 1 - Avhich hustles the Aveak and fair, and spits upon the demure, doesn't Avant readj.*-made beauties of a hundred years' standing served up to it cold-blooded. That sort of thing became prosy too long ago. GiA'e us something neAv, something of our OAvn making, but above all, give us something fast. Because Are are civilised. We became so by act of Parliament in the year 1900, and have been so ever since.

No, if a modem man climbs a hill, it is not for his aesthetic tastes or his love of pure air, and it is certainly not for no reason at all. Possibly it is to be seen, to be above.

There is an infinite pleasure in looking doAvn or backward. If it is only the pleasur^bf exultation at having survived a life of pain and trouble, surely that is a pleasure. Just so the shoote* takes a proud breath at the top of five hundred feet of scarred, rocky hillside, hoAvever little sport he has had.

But there is another pride in being above — a sordid pride -which it is aJmost sordid to mention. That is, the pride of despising. Not everyone can sniff contemptuously at the heights which overlook him as Cicero did when he built his dvrelling in Rome that all might look down upon if and upon his domestic life. Because we are not all so certain that our life and character Avill look equally Avell from both ends and from all points of vieAV.

The man upon the hilltop is in a breathless danger neA'er dreamed of. He is in (he position, foi all he knoAvs, of one who is looking at the world from tlie wrong end. That is not considered a very great mistake nowadays, because the probability is, if he Avere at the right end he Avould look at it in the wrong spirit, Avhich. Avould be almost as bad. Of course the chances are in f.ivonr of the man at the right end. He avlio places himself morally upon a plane above the other rabble on earth is apt to be discontented with the morals of his comrades. Then, again, discontent leads lo progress. This is a very valid apology for the man who insists on assuming a coign of vantage or a social position not his OAVI).

Although this is not merely circumstantial, I hope nothing herein said Avill prevent any little village that cares to having quite a healthy moral and pleasant social life, with patches of beautiful scenery of good repute Avithin a mile or two, and often A r isited ; and that no man may be hereby prevented from. looking at the world from beloAV, and being as nearly as possible satisfied Avith things in general, saying he is probably as good and as* bad as most people, and Avill not disarrange his meals because putting the world absolutely straight would occupy almost the AA'hole day. Then again, all this only applies to the world, and the world is very small, and not clearly denned. It begins* everywhere and ends everywhere according to the hill the seer makes his point d'appui. It doesn't seriously interfere with the earth as a Avhole and simply doesn't touch the British Empire. *fffi this should appear to be deformed •'conception of things, pardon it/ O reader, because it is Avritten in the City of Shams, slightly A'eneered, but, oh ! so cherished.