AGES AND STAGES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 14, 7 April 1927, Page 8

AGES AND STAGES

(Written for THE SUN) VV T HEN we are young time marches ** along on leaden feet and, impatient of the slow progress of our days, we cry aloud for the eternal to-morrow. When we reach life" s meridian our thought is of the moment: we look neither forward nor back. But, when we arrive at the declining years, where shadows are clouding fast upon our memories, we live in a dream world where the horizons are dim, and even the foreground is a little unreal and insignificant. Yet, time passes inexorably, and the years gather in greying head and stiffening joints with incredible swiftness. When one thinks of the longevity of elephants and crocodiles, how appalling brief is the span of man’s mortal life: three-score-years-and-ten is the allotted promise. Yet some are luckier. Recently I have come across some marvellous old people. Old men of eighty who played tennis and could walk many a younger man off his feet. The other day I met a man of 76 who was paternally enthusiastic over his last-born son, aged 18 months. The most remarkable case of sustained vitality (both physical and mental) I have ever met was an old lady of 94 who had, the previous year, ridden over the Rocky Mountains on a donkey, had recently learned to ride a bicycle and was, at the time* of our meeting, engaged in writing up her reminiscences. These I call the evergreens. Each age has its penalties and its compensations. In youth one finds the fine frenzy of enthusiasm. Life is an adventure and, to a large extent, a jest. In youth’s green moments the world is a playground to be exploited for the fun of things. Restrictions are resented as intolerances: but, in these very resentments, lie the unhappiness of youth. Youth is ever restless, reaching out for the the moons of promise and, alas! finding in their failures only the loss of illusions. Middle-age is a period of calmness, girt by the philosophy of experience. Gone are the illusions and chimeric desires. Life is real, apparent, and one has learned the lesson of adaptability. It has ceased to make demands and assimilates in its being the things that are. Middle-age has drunk deeply of the experientia qua docet sapidities . Despite the saying of the late Sir William Osier, the middle years should be, and are, the finest period of a man’s activities, for in those years he can deal with the events of life in a definite, unbiased fashion —neither the unbalanced frenzy of youth, nor the shrinking timidity of old age—and such dealings of his mind are more likely to be logical, organised, and in correct perspective. In old-age one lives, more or less, in a world of dreams —a world of mists and vagueness. The harshness of life has become blurred, and nothing stands out in stark reality. Life, too, becomes encompassed in loneliness, for friends and acquaintances are passing one by. Old-age lives between the dream fantasies of Youth and the shadowy world of Silence. It is a period of listening and waiting. If I were an artist I would paint my allegories of life like this: Youth: A fine water-colour drawing with sharp brush strokes in clean, clear, colour. There would be sunlight, primrose-warm, and a sky of scintillating light. A fresh breeze would rush across the landscape, stirring the trees and grasses, and the

dominant figure of Youth would shine with the eager, coursing glow of life. Middle-age would be limned in oils, patterned like a poster in bold design. Rich colour would riot across the canvas, and the forms laid down with geometrical precision. Old age demands more subtle harmonies, so I should paint my picture in pastel—a medium that is gentle with the soft gradations of tone. The lines would be a little blurred, and the design lost in the blending of quiet colour. This allegory of age would have a dream-like "quality—ethereal, dignified but a little sad. JOHN CAM DUNCAN. Rotorua.