AFFIRMATIVE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2727, 20 June 1906, Page 77

AFFIRMATIVE.

Hope leads the child to plant the flower, the man to sow the seed, Nor leaves fulfilment to her hour, but prompts again to deed, And ere upon the old man's dust the grass is seen to wave, We look through falling tears to trust Hope's sunshine on the grave. —Sarah F. Adams. If anyone has been enterprising enough to consult an authoritative dictionary on the terms embodied in the subject of our debate to-night' they. will hare found much to marvel at, much to meditate upon. In the first place, " taking the word •'pleasure/ we find that it means almost anything:, the subtle fragrance of an opening violet conveys pleasure to the j senses^likewise the exciting emotions induced in concaving a fellow-being's cranium. Anything "that pleases the senses is pleasure, and man embodies a multitude of senses of every shade, from the baser animal to the highest spiritual,. Hope we find scientifically classified ~ one. ' of , the higher moral sentiments ; memory, Well, I am speaking of Hope to-night, others may .classify Memory. Sweet: Ah! the gentleman .who compiled my dictionary, was too gallant and too prudent : to place, any restricted meaning -upon so girlish ft' phrase. The dictionary is too- staid to shed^anyt great- flow of light'- upon- so-sweet-a word — we must go to life. This morning I saw si wee lassie, sucking a treacle spoon, and she pronounced it "sweet." Once . while crossing, Wakatipu I, overheard a- lady j tourist going into ecstacies over the magnificent scenery. "It's 'just perfectly 'sweet,' " she declared. And only last night I overheard a giddy young girl calling her lover "» dear old "'sweet.' " By which we may glean that "sweet" applies to anything that affords pleasure, and as there are various pleasures in life, there are likewise as various sweets. Now, . although one may take a light view of the question, I have simply sought to show that a higher, grauder interpretation is possible, and is preferable. Memory: Memory deals with things past; facts, and individual facts only— "that which I have • eeen." Hope: Hope embraces all the future,^ all time to come,- all eternity. Hope is unlimited, commands the imagination, and soars above credulity and reason. Hope is inexhaustible. As the seen is to the unseen, the natural to the spiritual, the mortal to immortality, so is memory to hope. It is merely necessary to define the two articles to establish beyond dispute the claims of the hopeful as more pleasure deriving." Truly Hope springs exultant on triumphant wing. Are < ur- friends on the opposite side wearing lorg faces? -Note, them well. If so they fiDd ;ittle pleasure ir. the memories they have cenjured up. Do they smile in triumphant anticipation? Then mark you, they arc Lcpeful, and find- much pleasure in it. Man may lose hiß memory and leniain quite ha-Dpj'.' but take »wfty. hope from a man and hedfe's. Without hope there is no pleasure; without hop© memories, were »ll pain. The pleasures of memory are - admirably defined fey. Burns,- Byron.' Longfellow, and many others'** ;Btt?ns*s" evergreen* expression being "Pleasures' are lifea poppies spread, you gra^P "the flowery th*~ bloom, is shed.-. ,, Or, like * snowfall- on., the river, a moment seen,, then gone, forever"." , The meaning of which is that pleasures- are 'transient, and only truly pleasant in^anticipatidn.— in* Hope^ - The 'budding life- has nothing to- look-back-to: youth, is -all hope, middle age has no time, for memory ; "But " you say, "old age ! What of old age? Old men when they get frail live on memory, revel in it." Do they? Remember, memory deals only with fact; old men love— but wait. -I visited an old digg3r cnee and heard him tell a yarn. How he gloried in the pride of his young adventurous <layb! I longed for just such adventures that when I became old I. too. might taete them again with gratification. By-and-bye I went back, and he told me another yarn. -I look it home and compared it with ♦he first, *nd, lo!it wa» as a child that had grown. Tht» likeness was unmistakable : it was the same, but it had donned long skirts, had reached the hair-up stage, had come of age, and was still full of possibilities. Then I discovered that old. men love to relate not fact, but fiction; it is not memory that affords, them pleasure, but rather the lack of it. A man lives the future 10,000 times in imagination before it is once realised. No man, however young or old, would face his life a eecond time, and undertake it step by step as memory unfoids the way. Its bitterness, its emalhress, its utter weariness, would choke him. "Oh, could I but live my life over again" is th<» common cry. but it is not a desire to live the same life, but a new life; a life vivid with -all hope's possibilities; a life shunning those' things, those wayward hours that -memory, now recalls with agonising persistency. No memories are altogether pleasant, all memories are saddened by pain. The old man tell stories of his happy boyhood, and you say the memory is pleasant to him F«Uow. thon art blind!, Why that sudden "wistful • look -as old scenes surge over his. mind ? Why does ,he hastily brush away a U*r? Why? Because he is saddened to know that his boyhood's pleasures are dead. Never more can he romp as he used" to, for Ws limbs are gaunt and feeble, his bleed is thin and slow That eye so keen to mark the eagle's flight is dim and misty. The voice that c-ncc exultant rcse in wild "halloo" or lusty song now comes trembling and cracked from a dry, porched throat. His teeth have dropped out, his senses are fai lmg. and even memories are jumbled and confuted. Each day he realises more keenly than before the frailty of mortality, and wito liis weakening interest in- material things Hope increases the joys of the immortal spirit within him. Memory tells him thy »11 things have an end. Hope says no. Man, thou art immortal and shall live for ever Frienda, father? mother, wife, brother are liot dead, nor lost, they are merely gathered home, awiiting your coming. Pain shall be put off with your mortal apparel, and you shall reign immortal through all eternity. j "Eternal Hope, when yonder spheres sublime Pealed th-3ir first notes to sound the march of Time, Thy joyous youth began— but not to fadeWhen all the sister planets have decayed, And" wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow, And heaven's last thunder shakes the world below' ' Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smue, Afid light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile. —Campbell.