IN THE BACKGROUND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2674, 14 June 1905, Page 65

IN THE BACKGROUND.

[Emrneline desires to say that the foregoing article has been — with the permission of the editor — republished in answer to the nurneious requests from readers which have reached her at intervals ever since the article fhst appeared in February, 1901. The last reader to ask for the re-publication was "Madge," and it is in consequence of this proof that "In the Backgiouncl" reached the sympathies of many of her friends that Emmeline for once goes into "a second edition."]

It scarcely sounds an attractive .heine, yet since that is where the majority of us are likely to remain all our lives, it may not be a waste of time to set ourselves to di3oover come of the charms of the position. Strange, too, as it may eeem, there are some people who actually prefer being in the background. Not in the stock society sense, which means they are only waiting gracefully to be brought forward by th? right person at ihe right moment : but as ar. honest matter of preference.

These are usually the people who make such a background as constitutes the real value of tho picture.

Anyone who paints even v little will know what I mean by the inestimable value of a background. The finest portrait in the world may be* mad© or maired_by it. the most perfectly-conceived picture may ba ruined by a harsh or badly-executed background, while many an unpretentious composition, crude, perhaps, in conception, feeble perhaps in the foreground, is saved from obscurity by the tefefter tints, the mellow distance of its background. So the women and the men who choose to bp in the background 1 — who make themselves, as it were, the background of other lives — are often the noblest and truest of their sex, and really make the value of that foreground about which the ignorant public goes into ecstacies. It is not difficult to recall many well-known instances where the life work of poet, painter, and artist has only been rendered possible by tho beautiful background of silent sympathy or encompassing love of one who was contend to spend all life's labour in being — only a background. Instances, too, in our everyday experience of everyday life may occur to each of us.

Here, for example, is Mrs Etheredge, What? You did not know Etheredge was married? Ah, well, there is nothing surprising in thai, perhaps, since the whole life of his chaiming wife is spent in working out the commonplace but necessarydetails which enable Etheredge to shin© as a brilliant and notable personality. W© all know how well he paints, writes, and photographs : what a historian and antiquarian' he is ; how fascinating ore his science papers, how brilliant his social c-ssays. Start whatever subject you like, in the heavens above or the earth beneath, be will always be able to tell you something more than you know, and tell it, *too, in tfo?> most easy, natural manner in the world. We occasionally speak of him as generous, but that is on some inspired impulse. On reflection, and reviewing the transaction dispassionately, we notice that I his bump of acquisitiveness reaches absolute genius, and we smile feebly over the little sprat which is all we have to show for the whale which Etheredge has annexed. To the world at large Etheredg© is a marvel. How he finds time to fulfil the duties of his appointment — to say nothing of all those casual secretaryships, etc. — and to cultivate the hobbies of a man of science and a dilettante in art and literature — while his spare moments (?) serve to render him popular with all women (to whom the delicate gradations of -his manner are a subtle instinct) — is one of the deepest mysteries to Ethered£>.»'s acquaintances. How, indeed, is it all done? His few friends smile meaningly, and answer .- "Do you know his wife? " The financial affairs of this man of parts are always a problem of a perplexing kind. His modes b salary in most handis would barely reach respectable gentility, much less ran to the elegant simplicity which marks Etheredge's modest menage, or account for the steady acquisition of a store of art and miscellaneous treasures which has already turned Ms house into an amateur museum ' Whare do the common details of life find room in this picturesque chaos of art, literature, music, natural history, and half a dozen minor hobbies? Ah, the answer is simple, enough — it is all contained in those words : "Do you know his wife?" What a poos.' caricature, dressed in a suit of motlev — incomplete, garish, wearisome — this man's portrait would be but for the wonderful tender beauty of the background whose atmosphere penetrates everything, softens, deepens, blends into harmonious brilliance.

It is the wife's hand which, quick, clever, and untiring, undertakes a score jf technical details ; it is the wife's management which steers the family bark through economic shallows and avoid_s the quicksands of debt, which reduces household expenses to a marvellous minimum, and thus leaves that, maa-gin for the husband's little vagaries and hobbies. He is so hard worked, it !•: imperative that lie hhoulJ go away for a "change eveiy year — his " well-earned holiday," the friendly Local in the morning's paper calls it. And she? Well, she has her holiday, too — v, hen he is away, and she can live on. .bread and butter and a cup of tea. can have the yearly blanket -wa&hing arw j spring- cleaoainjr.

and, forgotten by the world, released from he* duties a» curator, secretary, cook, housekeeper, and accountant, belong io herself for a few shoit weeks ! The woild — scientific and intellectual society — thinks she is out of town. "Nice, sweet iittlo woman, you know, but really nothing In her." And £o wandering savants * and globe-trotting collectors pass on, and the beautiful barkjround to the life of a sellabsorbed genius is left to rest for a wh.ilo How thankfully the pretty brown head sinks into the cushions, how quietly tho thin hands lie in blessed idleness, how weary the feet that for a whilo may rest from their willing service— only He know*. It is raro to find a man content to form the background to another's triumphs, successes, or happinesses— even though that other ba 'his nearest and dearest. The rarity of such cases lends brilliance to their beauty. Here is a man who ha^ watched the y'eais sweep by, tearing in their curvent' personal advantage, potential riches, heart's desire of passion, battle cry of stirrinT strife and conflict — past him, past him. With longing eyes he has seen, with roble self-denial 'be has foregone. He had otht-r work to do. There is a sister wl^se married life avps p, grim tragedy — a. soft -voiced, elegant, delicate creature, who cannot bo left to the world's mercy. So the man — he was only a hoy ther— sets himself to he the background, upor which peace, comfort, and well-being for Ms sister and her children may ba painted — for life. '" He is a real good fellow." "That's & white man, if ever there was one." "By Jove ! that dear old chap might have been worth thou&ands ! These are the things men say of him.

Nay, he might have been worth more than many thousands — which, after all, is a mere synonym for success — he might have been worth a wife and bairns, love, home, happiness, if 'he had not sacrificed t>li to bo only a background. Only a background! Yet upon that noble seK-effar-ememt what fair pictures of the lives of others have been painted! The education, culture, and happiness of a group of nieces whoss lives had otherwise been a sordid drudgery, the peace and comfort of a sister broken by misfortume. Only a background! And yet the exquisite texture of that life of self-abnegation, woven as it is in sombre purple, yet shot with marvellous tracery of gold and silver threads of noble deedls, seems to me a thousand times more beautiful than the groups which form the foreground. And yet another life whioh, o! its own accord, has renounced all individuality-and become a background for the material happiness and prospei'ity of others. Again, too, it is a man. He has reached middle age, is well nigh past its debatable land, yet clings to the little airs and graces of youth with a persistence which, renders h.im to most, people ridiculous — to ins pathetic. He is "namby-pamby."' effeminate, " the good boy who didn't die wben he was young 1 ' ; he is the mild flutterer after pretty girls, paying a host of "delicate attentions," which always lack the finality of "an offer." To the outside world this is his portrait, and it is commonplace enough, its mediocrity dashed sometimes with a ludicrous anecdote supplied by the adoration of his gentle little mother or the pridefu! garruUty of his qwaint old grandfather. Most oi us. ihe men especially, look upon bin? with an impatienc '&lera.r'.-£ — declining tc lake him seriously '■ Oh, fools, and slow to undeistand " To the strength, oi his devotion to t-hal gentlo little mother the personal desires and ambitions of his whole life havi been sacrificed : from the days when, as a strong, turbulent lad. he forced himself to speak and move softly in consideration for "mother's headaches,'* on through long years of self-denial, in which dreams have faded, passion been strangled, desires curbed, so that he might walk within the narrow limits of genteel conventionality, which atone represent happiness and wellbeing to 'his mother He who would fail, have roamed the earth, a Bohemian to the core, remains still, at, middle a.ge, an elderly boy, "tied to his mother's apron strings *'] He whose dreams were all of adventure and discovery, whose virile bodily strength for ever urged en his restless spirit, tc individual life, has curb .id and chastened, dianied aaid disciplined himself tc be only thp background of happiness for two old people — the banker from whom they draw all material comfort ; L'De obedient, docile youth in the honua of which he is really master. It a dull and contemptible life in your eyes, pprhaps, but to- me it seems herodo. To bo "only a background" like this is truly to be " greatei than he that takelh a city."

Theso muj ali be extreme types which I have chosen, but there are many instances fcrown to us all of beautiful lives that seek no oih&i happiness than to form a iendei or harmonious background on which oilier lives may shine resplendent, other characters develop, other happiness glow, other life histories be 'v-'iUen on characters of undying flame. What? To live one's jife only as a background! Ah, but think of all the background! means, dear heart. Deprive

this beautiful, delicate figure leaning from. the balcony to wrtleh tho passing throng below of its ri^h crimson background— "hat poor commonplace would remain: Take away iruin this delicate pastel of a child'^ Lead the exquisite blue of Ihe background, and with it you take ilio gold&n sheen from the sunny litde head, the life from the wide, questioning eyes — all grows flat, f-piritles?. Ah ' we cannot, dare not, deny all iho value arc! importance of a background. Home of us will always be that, and nrMhm<r incrr", \cl tc do not feel either dispirited <v ,<sh,'ir,rd. Let us s«e how beautiful -no m.iy make our background, instead of .cuitc'ii" it to an unlovely dnub.- a biukcn chaos, by our fruitless and repining -.uifishnesp. Be sure that upon tho tender, harmonious bacl ground of a pure and uoble life the Master himself lias some worthy picture to paint.