STRAY LEAVES

Southland Times, Issue 20771, 11 May 1929, Page 13

STRAY LEAVES

A SYLVAN JOURNEY

(By

“L.W.G.”)

I looked at my watch. “It is four o’clock,” I said, “and we have still three miles to go.” Mac nodded, and peered across his shoulder at the westering sun. We were on our fortnightly tramp to the abode of our mutual friend, an elderly recluse, of somewhat eccentric but cultured mind.

“I am glad,” exclaimed Mac, “that these trees are evergreen; there is too much of tragedy in the life of a deciduous tree.”

“Tragedy!” I echoed, coming back from my visions of nymphs and naiades, for we were traversing a forest, or a portion of what had been a forest some miles from Invercargill. “Tragedy,” said Mac, “ is no exaggeration. Until a few days ago it has been my practice for many weeks to walk almost daily in the Rose Gardens, where the foliage of tlie deciduous trees attained a loveliness which has been, alas! only too transient. It was of gold and russet; it was viridescent and silver. Blended into these predominating tints were numberless shades of restrained hue, tinging the environs with a colour scheme that was as soothing as it was delightful. I spent many hours trying to absorb the picture of its beauty, but now I have abandoned this practice because, around the trees the soil is now a mass of deltoid debris, and the trees themselves are mere attenuated spectres. The agony of so much expiring loveliness! When I last surveyed the melancholy scene I was constrained to think of Nature as an archcriminal, as the most callous of destroyers, because she is so often guilty of the only unforgivcable sin—the destruction of beauty. He paused, and then, nodding ■to the surrounding giants continued, “These trees arc fortunate. They are evergreens and do not have to suffer the tortures which are the lot of the deciduous at the dying of the year, for the year dies with the close of autumn. It is strange but true that when anything attains a culmination, when anything is consummated, it dies. This is true even of love. That is why the best lovers do not marry. That stage is the culmination of love, the climax, and as a climax cannot be sustained, it falls more or less rapidly to the prosaic denouement of commonplace affection, which is not love, or it disolvcs further, into eventual estrangement.” We came, as he spoke, to a clearing in the forest. A broad stream flowed through and into the woods beyond, purling its diaphanous waters over a stony bed, and reflecting on the surface the soft green of the trees, and the shadow of a passing cloud. Mac stooped, and permitted the wavelets to gurgle through his fingers until he arrested a dying twig whirling on its way to dissolution. He lifted it from the surface, and a cascade of diamonds scintillated back to their native element. “More of the work of destructive Nature,” said he, “or her myrmidon circumstance. Had it been a flower, I should be more apathetic, for flowers are like pretty but silty women. They are continually striving to outvie one another, and are equally insipid, mistaking a plethora of colour for true beauty. Not so the trees; they possess a majesty, a grace, and a strength that are wholly masculine. One conceives that their demise is preceded by a stoical resignation foreign to the withering of flowers, which at this stage appear to exhibit much of the weak jealousy of fading women. Because of this, and because they possess the highest beauty, I am always grieved to witness the destruction of trees or their foliage. I detest weakness,” said he, “I love strength .and stoicism. That is why I love trees more than flowers; that is whj' I cannot love women.”

“I could,” I said, “defend both women and flowers, for I love them both, with all their varieties and foibles, but your words are so unusual that I should be sorry to interrupt the flow of candid, if somewhat erratic expression. To-night I shall take up cudgels against you; over the genial grape I shall be inspired and you shall be vanquished. Until then, say on, for I am a silent man in this environment.”

‘You are such an interesting listener,” said Mac, “that I feel impelled to continue my verbal meandering. What strikes one on looking around is the profusion of life. There is life in everything that has definite form, from pines to porphyry. There is the germ of animation in every nook and cranny, but this animation, this life, what is it? It is but the continual weaving of pageants on the tapestry of time. Human beings are mere destructive puppets, they are not beautiful, therefore they are less than a landscape which has both life and beauty. The destruction of a landscape, then, is not only the taking of life but also thj annihilation of beauty—thus people so engaged are guilty of that one unforgivable si nr— the destruction of beauty. This forces to our mind the fact that there is an excuse for that internecine intrigue termed war. War results in depth; it tends to wipe out humanity; and the extirpation of the species would do much to ensure a higher degree of universal loveli-

“Passing from war, it will be readily perceived from what I have said, that the megalithic age was the greatest era in the history of the world. Man was not then filled with the lust of riches, of avarice, or of destruction. He permitted the earth to flourish in the luxuriance of its beauty; also he w’as evident only in sparse numbers, so that the contamination of his presence was comparatively negligible.”

Mac wiped his forehead with a gaudy handkerchief—“l have done,” he said, “I have traversed from the Rose Gardens to the megalithic age, and that is sufficient for the present! “But not for me,” I cried, “You can have your hoary age. Give me the Grecian era. Fill the woods with nymphs, the streams with naiades. Cause Aphrodite to spring from the foam of the Strait of Foveaux. Let Triton drift with, the tide

up the Estuary, and shatter that stagnant stillness with reverberations from his unearthed horn. Let Pan pipe, and Bacchus carouse.”

'For my part,” said a voice, “I am all for Comus and Hebe.” It was our host who spoke. During our last utterances we had been ascending the rise to his cottage, nestling against the hillside. He came upon us at a turn in the winding and wooded drive.

As we sat in his cosy study, the clouds were damascened with the sunset. I felt the charm of the place. I was exalted beyond the material; I felt I could rise like Mac to heights of empyreal ecstacy, “Mac,” I said, motioning to the beauty before us, “what do you think?” “I think,” said he, “that I will, on second thoughts have water with it, but,” raising an admonitary finger, “very little please.”