CIRCUMSTANCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2524, 30 July 1902, Page 61

CIRCUMSTANCE.

Twv children in two neighbour villages, Playing mad pranks ulong the healthy leas ; Two strangeis meeting at v festival ; Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall; Two lives bound faat in one with golden ease ; Two graves grass-green beside a grey church tower, Washed with chill lams, mid daisy-blossomed, Two children in one hamlet born and bred. So runs the round of life ifroni hour to hour. —Tennyson.

"We are, indeed,'' says a recent writer, " the prey of Circumstance. Men with a valued gift of foresight plan out a straight course for themselves through the future. Yet- the strength of the uncontrolled turns them aside, and they are thenceforth lost in a maze of the unforeseen, spite of all their planning. A circumstance so contemptible that men laugh at it may be the preface, to a tragedy. After all. how much of our lives is the mere spent of Circumstance ! Even our creeds — our 'religious convictions,' as we aie pleased to call them-— .ire but the fiuit of Circumstance. An we were born, so we believe. Our faiths aie ours, because they were our fathers' faiths. We aie but loyal to our blood and breeding, yet flatter ourselves that we are dominating Circumstance, the very while it is making us its pawns and playthings."

Another wiitei calls Circumstance "the handmaid of Destiny." Is it not rather true that in most lives Circumstance is Destiny? For most of us. leading lives more or less commonplace and tiresome, and rigidly bounded by the conventional limits of middleclass existence, the woid Destiny seems us out of place as to dream of a palace or to hope for fame or glory. Palaces, titles, fame, glory, destiny — what place have these in our home.} lives? The atino>phere of home, the surroundings of childhood, mould .our characters; the circum.staticex of youth and middle cige determine our success or failure, and — the tale is toM!

Tlie choice of a, profession, the selection of a vocation — -t i£ lTere, perhaps, that Cir-crni.-tance exhibits most powerfully her piquish disagieements "vvith Nature. Kyery <lay, too, we see Natuie laughing iv her sleeve at the ironie_s she forces upon us. Ht-re is a young boundary-rider or insignihc.uit clerk, with the beaiing and physique of a king, and there is the heir to an ancient title, with blood as blue as the Howdid.s", mean, insignificant, and with a cidven heait to match his stunted body. Just as Natuie laughs at the* misfits she tnin.s out of liei laboratoiy, so floes C':icumstance -coif at the (ricks .-lie plays with a thousand lives each d.iv.

Circumstance often >crms to me to ])lay the pait of lh.it wend tribe uf yypMes of whom Victor Hugo writes in his powerful nove', "By Older of the King,'" or u& it in sometimes calU-d. ' L'Homtne Qui Kit."

'I hey wt'ie cuivei- ol men. thpae gypsies, <>i mallei* of grotesques. Fiom children they made monsters ; from men and women, masks. Gympldine, whose fwee «ds caived into a. liuieouv mask, grinning from ear tv ear, :md earning him the name of "the m.in wlki laughed." was proof of their devilish skill Tr> tliese Comprachicos rich sinners eon>ignid the unhappy children whose existence was an infamy; plotters and ciinmidls delivered then* human, prey to be caived. altered, distorted beyond hope of recognition — in shoit, to have their identity dp^troved.

Little children were put into huijb. earthenware jars of grotesque shapes, and, imprisoned therein, grew to the shajje of their clay piison hou^e, and became monsters.

So it often j^eems to me that Circumstance tloses iound «.nme lives, and. pressing irresistibly on al 1 sides the yielding mental and moial fibres, closing this door and openiEjj that, creates from a m».n but a mask,

and leaves of a woman but a w eary automa ton.

The difference between our life as we plan it and as Circumstance overrules it seems, so akin to the plans of the gardener and the inexorable decisions of Nature. Here is a corner of the garden that was set long since to represent a certain idea. That idea, however, did not altogether find favour with the master, and he directed this alteration and that, insisted on the addition of some cabbage trees, a birch tree or two, and clumps of hardy ferns. The gardener seasoned his obedience with a sour smile. His idea had been a plantation of rare strangers, a little company of nobles from "the islands," whose presence in the garden should shed distinction on himself as gardener.

Years passed ; the gardener had long ago drifted to fresh fields and gardens new. Returning as a. "cheap tripper," radiantly "dressing the part," he called on his old master, and wandered with interest through the garden and shrubberies, grown out of knowledge of their former- caretaker.

"Ah, sir!" he said, "I see my grand idea came to naught. Where are the noble strangeis from the islands? I see nothing but your cabbage trees and silver birch, your veronicas, mountain lilies, and hardyferns." The master smiled. "You were young then, Johnson," he answered. "The strangers pined for lack of their accustomed mists — drenched with the spray and salt with the brine. Long ago I expect you have learnt what life had already taught me. We are powerless against Nature, and weaponless against Circumstance." • • • • Yet while conceding the great power of Circumstance in shaping OU r lives", and in asking if the every-diy agenc ; es through which she works upon our everyday lives is not almost compatible with the ancients' idea of Destiny, I cannot, and I trust never shall, agree that we are " weaponless against Circumstance !" Weapons we have —our mental and moral armoury is full of them ; but they must be keen and bright indeed, as ready for use as we are used to u«e them. Nor even then can we promise ourselves victory — it may b? but partial deliverance — only an escape from that worse thing which mitfht have befallen vs — but it is worth fighting for. To yield unresisting to Circumstance is to exalt her into Destiny, and to place ourselves and our little all at the foot of Destiny is to surrender each hope of frerdom and develop- " ment, each incentive to a higher life, to sink to the effortless nothingness of the fatalist.

Our idea* of Fate are mostly vague and mistv — we rarely, stop to individualise the personality of the grim daughter of Night, of whom the Greek poet wiote: Clotho. who spun the thread of life ; Laches-is, who w ove the web of destiny ; and Atropos. slip-irs in hand, ready to sever the thread ay the inevitable moment. A weird fascination holds the imagination to this last sablegarmented figure Heie is the child's web of life, a haze of fairy tints all misted with dew. fiom which no pattern has vet been evolved : it drops- beneath the shears unheeded. The brilliant and successful life, gorgeous in design — roses of Love scattered on the pale azure ground of Hope, lightly veiled with the silver web of yesterday, and shot with the rosy illusive sheen of tomorrow.-: to this, too, Atropos, pitiless, passionless, lifts her shears and severs the gleaming thread. Here, indeed, we speak of Fate — Circumstance has fallen forgotten.

Instinctively we reserve the word Fate for life's tragedies : its agonies, its glories. Circumstance does for commonplaces, and yet it is commonplaces that make or mar vs — the constant piessure of Circumstance, which we must endure, conquer, or turn to our advantage, rather than the supreme and infrequent master stroke of Fat: .