JUST DUST!

Otago Witness, Issue 2902, 27 October 1909, Page 71

JUST DUST!

There are so many kinds of dust! Th« dust that i.« an abomination in the eyes of every true woman ; the dust that steeps in delight and despair every true artist ; the motionless dust that 'ie 6, mute, voiceless testimony to indolence ; the -whirling, whirring dust that flies and eddies where the machinery of mills and factories beats out its tale of toil and endeavour.

There is the dust of Life and the dust of Death. Yet since -jvery word seems to have an entity of its own, and conveys a subtle impression of pleasure or pain, well-being or discomfort, beyond the mere material meaning, so the word "dust" lias gathered to itself an impression of sadive«sK, of decay, of dull negation. But who has watched a birch forest tossing in the lusty winds of lat.- spring and seen the clouds of yellow dust shaken out into the sunshine from the myriad microscopic tasselr of Mw birch blooms? Was ever a more gladsome cioud of dust than this? Win has watched the rich brq*vn and gold dust of the bracken floating upon some still mountain lake in autumn, while purple shadows deepen and long ripples break in quiet cadence on the shingly shore? Could anything be more beautiful than this bronze-gold dust, charged with life and cast by wandering winds to the keeping of the waters? And the flower dust with which the heavy-laden bee crawls slowly over the hive floor, having crept from flower to weed, and weed to flower again, fructifying all, bent on accomplishing his own little deatinv. insensible to benefit or injury to the lordly man who*e clover fields he saves or flowers he contaminates. Ls not tlii^ the dust of life, not death?

There i> no death. This bogey of death wherewith w« eha^ten life is but a dream in the daik. a nightmare, a fable; ju.<t as suiely as t lie -pirit lives again, so surely do?.s the body live ag-iin. Nature is. a economist ; bhe waste? nothing. You remember those lines of Omar's : I sori^time-s think that never blows so red The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled^ That every Hyacinth the garden wea-rs Dropt in its lap from come once lovely Held.

Ye-.teiday upor the roof of a little cottajjre beside the du.=ty street, but shadowed by a high fir tr-ee, I sai the grass springing gieen and tender from a pale brown drift. The fallen pine needles upon the low i oof had made a little carpet whereon the du.-t from the street had lodged,- and here in the du.«i and drift, the grass sprang green. Jn all du*t lies the germs of life. Always I remember in a lonely little cemetery among the moun-tains, — a peaceful place which the sunshine bathed with golden drea.ms — a lovely wattle tree. It .sprang from the tiny grave oj a little

' child ; its Splendid growth and vitality j had forced apart the frail wooden fence : and -overturned the time-worn litUe grave* stone. The 'ovely, frail,- ewrthly envelope of the dead child lived again (\ that glorious tree, whose golden splendours were the first herald of spring for miles around. Dust does not' mean death any nan than death means ajmibilation. -There m no more fascinating thought than, that of tb% awakening of the d«sert — the arid', empty dust of the desert quickened froia its grey slumber: by the "nagic of irrigation The desert wells and their oases were a familiar thought of childhood. Like the sirocco and the mirage, they spranf. into vivid mind-pictures to enliven th-e dull monotony of those Sunday readings and services which pass un-heeded, yet solemn and depressing, over the mind o£ a child. But the, reclamation of fchr American deserts, the dreary miles of sag* bush, the leagues or leagues of dry and arid dust turned by a network of iraij gaticon. into orange and lemon groves, orchards, melon and pineapple farms; thia is a- thing. of. out .own time, no strangeir or more typical of man's endurance over i Nature th'aoi the ■ irrigation of - ancienti i Egypt, but more vital to, " os because it is of out owntifne. I Think of it — the long leagues of barren, lifeless desert over wnich the suns of centuries have burned ; over which fcfre i winds of oenturies have blown. Grey, featureless, dead dust, a plaoe of terror Ito man and brute. Think of the glistening alkali plains: dead dust oaneath'thati deadly frost of glittering powder. Back in the long, dim. ages these shifting sands and thirsty plains, may have drunk the ■ blood of l «st legions, covered -with their 1 deadly, impalpable dust the pitiful carcases of man and beast, nor ever thrown upon the grey expanse an answering flower 'or leaf. But when the..water comes racing ' joyously down through miles and miles of skilfully built channek from the ?ast dams j where science has prisoned it in the Rocky, ' Mountains, then, the sleeping dust-awakes. ; All the riches it has drawn ttf itsejf from ' sun, and air, and wmcl ; each drop of blood, each cruinrbW bone and desiccated , tissue, springs to life — quick, eager, urgent life, ready to be adsorbed by trees and . plants to bloom in th© primal glory, and fruit with the splendour of a. Tew creation. Gill this dust dead! It was but sleeping decay ! it did but dream. | It is not tie dt\sf of Nature which is sad, t"nat Vjolds only the wistfulness and . mystery of suspended life; it »is the dust of civilisation, of. mat's interi course with man, which ;s; s sad because of all it implies. An instajice of this cam' bom.3 to me lately : I A quaint, old-fashioned house stood fronting the brilliant sunshine of th© spring morning, sheltered by a belt oi high firs and la\n>ek? f <rom the 'spring wind. ■ The- dust upon th< steps, which had lain undisturbed through the drenching storms of winter and the soft patter of spring rains, dried back to dust again in that ' still, windless warmth* Many a year had parsed since the tenant of tbe".brown i house fulfilled the "written words. "Dust thou art, •to duet returnest," and it had stood empty ever since. Yet there was little sigP' of decay about the bi«_ churchlike door, the wide windows with their tiny panes, the overhanging gables, but Nature had bsen busy with her silent, eternal* work of blotting out the tra/nsitory toil of man as speedily as may be.- From under the ahade of the great laurels and from the surmv slope of tangljed grass the blue periwinkles and the tall ?ri* have crept nearer and «.e£wer. covering the old pximp, and blotting out the wood-pile ; a. little army, invading the forsaken lawn where the pink oxalis crowds in rosy masses* about the dust> steps, and balm of gilead sends up the aromatic scent of its crushed heart beneath your feet. Many a year has passed since the gentle- gallant-old eoldierartist laid down his paiett© and brushes for the last time, and trapsed on to that life 'beyond where, as Kipling pictures it: No one shall work for money, and no oca shall work for fame,' But all for the joy of the doing, and each in his separate, star. Shall paint the thing a- he sees it, for the God of things as they are. * Before the quaint, old, deserted house, where the babbling of the brook, pouring It? miniature cascade bsneat! the oW footbridge, and the rustling of the breeze among the trees mingle with ■ the song of the skylark soaring far overhead in the windy blue one loves to think of the old soldier- artist as having lain down the vexed proWems of life and glory and art to Rest for an aeon or two, Till the Master of all good workmen shall I'Ut him to work anew. Life is over — over and forgotten of life. But out of the dust of forgetfulnees springs the flower and balm of the spirit to speak of the new life, its possibilities* its hopes, a reminder that : Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.