THE YOUNG IDEA

Southland Times, Issue 20496, 26 May 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

THE YOUNG IDEA

UP IN THE AIK

(By

Susan Lee.)

And to think I have been living in a vacuum all my life. A vacuum made up of pining and wanting and repressed desire. A life of hoping against hope, of pining against pain, of suppressing impressions. To think that I have been born with an idea in my head—to one individual, one idea—which has been recognized only by unkind circumstance, who is such a poor nurse that it has been allowed to wrinkle and wither inside me like a little, hard pea which I can never move. Poor, little, neglected idea. The wonder is that it has been allowed to survive my stunted infancy. I don’t want to appear unduly grasping; but don’t people ever get what they want ? That’s a foolish question, when I know perfectly well that they do. It isn’t very long ago since I read that comforting book, "How to get what you Want,” by a Doctor of some “ism” no other. I think it was there I found doubtful comfort in the assurance that although we can’t all get what we want in this life, the likelihood of fulfilment in the next is extremely probable. We may have started wanting too late in this life. When we are reincarnated we will be conscious of our want from infancy. And, it has just dawned on me that there’s my explanation—l have been on this earth before, and not having got what I wanted then, which I can readily believe, 1 have become a person of one idea on my second bite at life’s apple. The trouble is that I seem no nearer the goal now than I could have been in some distant age. That’s not the only book I’ve read on the subject. Aren’t (I use this word as a kind of locum tenens until fhe American Controversy has decided whether “Aren’t” “Ain’t” or “Am’t” is to be used) aren’t the publishing houses always sending out books by Successful Business Men, and Women who have Won, and Well Known people who for Obvious Reasons prefer to remain Anonymous, discoursing about Life, and as far as I can see all endeavouring to say the same old thing from the restricted areas of their own vision—you can get what you want. 1 have felt the accusing finger of Success pointing at me from the pages of expensive advertisements, trying to claim me, button-holing me, threatening me with the same disaster as betook these other torpid ones who would not pelmanise, or eat rolled oats, or buy the newest short-cut to literature. I have attended lectures on every known “ism,” “ist” and “ophy” in the language. I have made absurd vows and kept them; I have taken Hope kindly by the hand and become her intimate; I’d have burnt joss-sticks willingly if I could summon up the smallest fraction of conviction that they could bring me nearer my goal—nearer an aerodrome, even. I must—l will—l can’t—l may not, go up in an aeroplane. That is what I want; it is what must always stand between me and happiness. If you would like a portrait of Frustrated Hope, you may snap me. I do not need to pose, because the pose is always with me. The pose is me. I am the pose. There is no doubt, as I have remarked before, that this is at least my second life. It would be unreasonable of me, as you can see now, to bear any grudge against the circumstances of my former life which prevented me from going up in the air. Of course, wasn’t it one of the old Greeks, or was it a Roman? who sowed the seed of an aeroplane in the world by sending his son over a cliff on a kind of inflated balloon which failed him ? I used to be sure of the facts; but now, as I have said, to one person one idea, ami that is not mine. Anyway, even if I was a member of the last generation I couldn’t complain about leaving my desire unsatisfied. It would have been one of the times when the fact that such things simply weren’t done would not have been without comfort. The acutest cut of all is that these days such things "are done; very much so. As a small child it was the dream of my life to be able to fly. I can remember standing for hours with my arms outstretched trying to concentrate sufficiently to make the thought father of the deed. I never tired of this. Somewhere at the back of my funny little mind there was the idea that somehow this was helping to get me there. Lindbergh on his bicycle suspended from a tree in his back-yard could not have experienced as much ecstasy as I as I lay on my back on the grass and let my thought soar upwards, carrying me with them. I was a lark shooting up through the blue haze. After staying up there for hours, hovering over lands deligtfully indefinite owing to my distaste for geography, I would come down, plucking off bits of cloud from myself with reverent fingers. In those days thoughts and deeds were closely intermingled. The world of impossibility had not then entered my limitless vision. The first time I read “Peter Pan” gave me renewed effort; for a time I was Peter Pan waiting for the signal to rise. Many days have passed since then, and the sere and yellow leaf is beckoning its own. Many aeroplanes have come and gone, and with them my renewed hopes, and always this turbulent desire that is in me. I want to feel the thrill of rising off the ground unaided, I want the heart of a bird, that I may understand why it sings. I want to feel such stuff as the clouds are made of, and discover their association with dreams. There are certain people of my acquaintance whom I want to-view from a great height, in what I feel sure is the correct perspective. I want to feel power, distance, without having my feet on any portion of what I gaze on. There are thoughts within me which can only be conceived in the air. I want space, immensity, peace. I want even for a little while, to be God. And now even the May Fair aeroplane is departing, and the nearest view I had of it was from the golf-links one morning, soaring above with that huge serenity I crave, sw’ooping down maddeningly as if it, too, were in the depressing conspiracy against me. If rides were to be bought, there are many things one could pawn. But it is not easy to destroy circumstance. Evidently I am one of these who were meant to look upwards, ever upwards, craving to look down. Such a moment could be a century of bliss. And the moat maddening thing about the whole business is the knowledge that there are people of one’s acquaintance who have not been denied.