"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3395, 9 April 1919, Page 51

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for the Ladies' Page.)

MAKING THINGS NEW.

January 13i Nature, as well as the politicians, is getting busy with its work of reconstruction. The re-formation of the new ou%of the old is not to be left to the builders of cities and of Parliaments, but to the heart and the hope of every man and woman to whom the simple happiness and gentle, harmless things of life are irresistible. Tho demand in the vital hour of the world's struggle for freedom brought strong men and strong womeii to the cause who endured and achieved to set the flag of the nation's honour on the hill, and now that the Avar has been won by the sweat and agony of the strong, we shall have to face not only the outcry of injustice and wailings for mercy from the merciless, with . determination not to make as nought what was wrenched for us from a hell of pain, but to face the detractors of the strong who saved them, and hold them back from throwing to the vanquished enemy the fruits of tho peace. Phe armchair politicians and soldiers and sailors have always had the most to say as to the government of a country, the storming of a fortress, and the navigation of a ship in a storm, so .we shall be tormented during the making of the peace by those who are sure they could make it better, as we are tormented ever by the pessimists of life who are sure of nothing as they are that the world is going from bad to worse. Those who take the narrowest and most pessimistic views of life and events are usually those of the least experience of life and its tragic situations, -and we hail the return to social life, with their reconstructive knowledge, men and women who have been in the struggle and are bringing back experience that will level pretence, as greatness shames cant. Men of unequal character; men whose lives have been stained even with crime, have done amazing deeds; men weakened by indulgence

and foil? M a mistaken quest for plea-, sure been heroic in danger, and men who laufhed at spirituality found their own 60uJ* in a hell of pain. The mask has been tor?! from pretence, and much that boasted big names of courage has fallen in snivelling fear. So that it is with a new knowledge of ourselves and of one another with which -we have corns out of the fire. Many of the stays and guards of our country and of our household have been found among those at whom it was the custom to jibe and cast stones of aspersion as godless, frivolous, worldly, idle, viciouß. The profoundest humility lias been found at the heart of the proud, tehderest humanity in the deeds < of the great, and on the other side shrinking fear and selfishness where we were trained to expect nobility and selflessness. So does faot readjust bur ideas. That life is for our education is the only sane solution of life. And alj, no period of the world's history or of out own has it been possible to say that a limit has been reached in development of the powers of the earth and air and waters that make and surround the globe, or in the development of individual character and attainment. We never get things ''fixed" either in the world or in our own lives, or in the realm of ideas. When w* v are quite young we think that a certain, attainment of love or friendship or ambi-. <• tion will be the attainment of permanent satisfaction. Were this so we and the world would stand still and stagnate, or harden into inanition. We reach the given point and find there are higher peaks, or there is an unseen chasm between us and itg attainment, and we are turned off another -way. Nature has illimitable seductions to bur activity. We go from point to point with new desire, as ft traveller now on land and now on sea, now. in the sunshine- and now in the shadow, now on the desert fainting jg l the heat, now in the cool valley by the stream. But with the close of every night there is the thought of " to-morrow." Our very proverbs prove our instinctive expectation of finding something better further on. "It's a long lane that has no turning," and our instinctive impatience against restraint and monotony proves that it is our nature to b e up and doing —to experiment,-to examine and test, to experience, to, in fact, be about life's business of the changing experience of joy and sorrow, of labour and pain, pleasure and profit and loss. "A century," says Emerson, "when we have once made it familiar and compared it with a true antiquity, "* looks dwarfish." And all the achievements of yesterday leaves the world still striving forward towards greater, and overthrow, and wonders in consternative mind is pained and shocked by change i and overthrow, and wonders in consernation "what the world is coming to." The pendulum of history seems to swing backwards and .forwards between good and evil events, but time- goes forward carrying on the world's great story—a story of struggle and advance. With every great upheaval of the accustomed order of things many Humpty Dumptys have fallen from moss-grown walls, but the strong f oundationsy on which nations are built stand firm. At the moment we are shocked and shaken and bewildered, but. little by little order will issue from die* order, happiness from 'duty, and peace follow storm. 'The nation or the, individual that can suffer and labour for .an ideal is not degenerate. > The time of battering and breaking, will be followed by a season of healing and reconstruction—not only by the political "reconstruction" which is occupying . the thought and making the plans of Governments, but by. the subtler : reconstruction of Nature,-which flings foliage and flowers over bare rocks and ruins. The time of death and separation is being ' followed by one of reunion and rebirth of happiness, for men, who went away from home taking all that .went to make Jiome as a matter of course, return to realise what home and wife and children mean. We prize most that for which we have achieved most or struggled to achieve. In the Valley of Death memories of the home fires braced many a man with courage, and a woman's face stood - : between many a man and desnair. The realities, the' fundamental truths of life aro simple as profound, and face to'facewith" death, with, sacrifice, with heroio courage, men became simple; the compli<cations of existence, .the manners and customs of society fell away and only the great facts stood—God, Love, Birth, Life, Death. 'Men told their new perceptions sitting in the dirt-, with shells falling.;, about them, writing on a soiled sheet of notepaper, their desk their knees," forget- v " fu] of all else they wrote, " Nothing matters so much as you." _ Many -a woman hoards these mud-stained loveletteTS, sole relic of her dream of joy. But there are lonelier women in the world 'than those who live alone with their Ideal.

The exceptional comradeship .between men and women during the_ war has drawn them into a closer intimacy and a more genuine understanding of ono another. They have returned with a new conception of women's strength aj?d new surprise in her charm. They have ex-, perienced her compassion and patience and courage. Their interests are more akin, and the simmering contempt in many a giri-heart for the men they used' to know has been changed by the man's new manliness into respect.

Cupid is as busy with his reconstruction work as 111 the Ministers of the Allied Nations put together. He is binding country to country and interest to interest with indissoluble bonds. There are innumerable weddings to he announced and unannounced, and the spring time will be a "ring time" through all classes of society. Many of the engagements' data from the first call to arms, many others

to "home on leave," and some to "wounded in hospital." The novelists of the future have an enviable choice of romantic situations: "The Land Girl," "The Woman at the Wheel," "The Women Who Did—everything under the sun to keep the nation's " end up " and the home fires burning till the boys came home.

And the boys know it. There is no question now about which is the better man. Both have learned to obey the cal of duty, both love and honour, and the boys do not find the girls of to-day either " unwomanly" or " unsexed." There were those who prophesied a hardening and roughening of women as the effect of her greater activities. The woman of to-day is certainly more selfreliant, as" she is more independent of marriage as a provision, and the reason that she remains " a nice girl" in spite of her freedom is because she is not pent up in herself. Among interesting engagements announced are those of several daughters of ancient houses whose sons have distinguished themselves in the war, and the bridegrooms are ako men of note. There are quite a number of weddings taking place with the grooms still in uniform. A lighter note will mark the armistice weddings, and with the old-time honeymoon "in" again instead of the speedy parting and uniforms, the trousseau will be a more elaborate affair. The nurse and V.A.D. brides will soon be a memory of the past, and the bridal veil and orange wreath and the bevy of charming bridesmaids complete the picture. But what heroism and fortitude attended those war weddings, shadowed by the unseen, haunting, grim figure of Death. Happy youth is coming into its rightful heritage again. Girls and young wives are gladly looking forward to having a home of their own. And not the "brides only. With the demobilising of the men and women there is a great demand for houses and flats and the release of warehoused furniture. The -difficulty of obtaining suitable dwellings is felt acutely, for when thousands of hotels and " desirable residences " were taken over by the Government for war purposes smaller residences were in demand for the mansion-dwellers. Millions of the men were away or in camp or sharing billets, millions of the women in hospitals and billets —now they are disbanding and desire their separate homes. The hotels are being released as their Government use disappears, and the tens of thousands of residences lent for .hospitals are becoming vacant one by one, and, after renovation, will be ready for the occupation of their owners once more. Many of the people who. generously vacated their homes for the use of the wounded have lived for the war years in. hotels and furnished houses. The refugees have also swelled the congestion, and soldiers from all the dominions. Gradually, as the millions return to their own countries, more houses will be available.

Never has England—and especially London —had such a spring-clean as it will have this year —painting, paperhanging, refurnishing, renovating from roof to basement. Already the work of making things new has begun, and as the weeks and . months pass and the men return to work and material is more available grime ,and dirt and dinginess will disappear and London, spic and span, with flowers blooming in its window-boxes once more and the parks and gardens blossoming anew, the wonder-city will renew its old-time enchantment. There is such a dearth of ballrooms in London .at the present' time that a "demobilisation" dance, organised by a Government department, has had to be abandoned. There has never been such a boom in dancing- I —the siiqple new step 'dances in which middle-aged and young can join, fathers dancing with their daughters and mothers with their sons, and the waltz make up the programme. The Lancers are not placed on the West End programmes. The great fancy-dress theatrical ball a week ago was a very brilliant affair, all the stars and leading lights of the stage being, present with numerous other artistic folk. Every conceivable character of history and myth was represented, and the Allied Countries, the Dominions, and the Services,' the whole producing an unaescribable blending of colours and sparkling of '-gems.