IS LIFE LESS EXCITING?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 762, 7 September 1929, Page 18

IS LIFE LESS EXCITING?

When “Mother Was a Girl' Life Was Made Thrift, ing by Innocent Adventures that were Forbidden and by Harmless Amusements that were “Shocking" . . . Now We Go Where We Like and Do What We Please. Just a Little Dull. Don’t You Think ? . . .

.1* amusing eontrib ’i"U to a p- n an,ally interesting controversy by l veltni J . Hope i)l the ‘'Daily Chronicle." life as exciting as it used to lie? I am convinced that even for l CIiMIU J-J the young, and in spite of those hectic amuse j nients about which older people write and speak so often and so bitterly, there is much less excitement than there used to be. say. when my mother was a girl, or even in prewar days. And I can give you at least two good reasons. First, there are no longer so many conventions to break. X often wonder whether our convention-bound ancestors did not get more fun out of defying those conventions than inconvenience from them. I remember hearing in my school days about a sober and intellectual man who fell in love with a rather dashing girl of my acquaintance at first sight, and apparently because of the way in which she smoked half a cigarette—the other half would have made her 111 ’ It would be a brave girl who would

confess in these days that a whole ! cigarette would make her sick, but I am afraid she' would not be thought dashing. Forbidden Adventures Of all tlie excitements of my mother’s girlhood I hear most frequently about three—all forbidden ad- . ventures. One was going down a Cornish tin ! mine, and leaving there a message which frightened the miners on their ! return. The second, walking at night over the Great Western Railway bridge at Saltash; and the third, driving with her sisters, and accompanied by a i young man, to a dull hut distant en- j tertainment, and not getting home till near sunrise. They were so late or ! so early because they lost their way. But I cannot help feeling that the 1 incident would not be so memorable i had it not been certain that the vil- j lage would be scandalised and that ! “dadda” would be very angry if he ; knew. Nowadays a young man returns his dance partner at all hours, and the only result of staying up half the night is that you are very sleepy in the morning._ A Little Bit Shocked Just before the war some friends of ours used to give garden parties in aid of a certain Nonconformist church. Our host’s daughter, herself an excellent dancer, always arranged a little dancing on the lawn, and I am certain

that the most exquisite part of h« pleasure lay in the knowledge th the people lined up in chairs along a laurel bushes were mostly a little v? shocked. olt Now. we go where we like and d„ what we please. It is extremelv for us. but just a little dull. Of coinJ things that are really wrong can nev«?r be any fun. Unsocial things, like die honesty and selfishness, that destroy one's sense of sportsmanship" art bound to leave life a dull affair ’ But since we have done a lot of thinking and got into the habit or deciding for ourselves whether a thinis right or wrong aud why. w e ]j aT ’ lost that delicious if entirely ar »,' ticdal sense of ’’wickedness” in doinr a great many harmless things—ami with it a great deal of excitement. Anti this applies to old and young alike, for though only young people could be disobedient, plenty of older ones were secret and unconventional. Another reason for a duller world is that, life has become too easy. n, e market value of most things l s roughly, proportionate to their scarcity—the value in pleasure of a thing

may be measured very largely by the extent, to which we work lor it. (1 fancy that explains most of the tenn.s and golf enthusiasts.) This Easy Life Nature has responded too generouph to the efforts of our scientific men—too many things are brought to our door. I remember as a schoolgirl waiting In Exeter Fore Street till 4 o'clock in the morning to hear the result of an election. I sat on a stone window-ledge that sloped outward, with my legs dangling (you try ft 11 aud thus precariously perched above the crowd I watched other results coming through and cheered with the noisiest. At 4 a.m. we learned that our man was in by four votes. This time, sitting in our comfortable easy chairs, listening to a regular alternation of a few election results and a little music, we got tired and went to bed at midnight. I suppose the crowds in Trafalgar Square got the thrill all right, but my point is that the thing which is served comfortably at your own fireside ceases to be exciting. Of course, standards of right and wrong founded on reason and not on convention, make for an earlier and deeper sense of responsibility and greater sincerity, and scientific invention undoubtedly enriches our lives. Perhaps excitement can be purchased at too great a price.