AUNT HILDA’S LETTER.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20274, 7 April 1934, Page 23 (Supplement)

AUNT HILDA’S LETTER.

AUTUMN JEWELS. April and Amber and Op al. Sun-flooded days, rare end clear as amber; Twilights, purple as an amethyst; Wood-smoke, rising in a pungent plume; Leaves, richer than the gold of Ophir; Leaves, redder than a sultan’s robe; Fruit* sweet as attar drawn from roses; And seed-pods, bursting with a ripe exuberance. J)EAR STARLETS,— Happy are we with the wealth all around us, gold in the gutters and under the fences; opals shining in the wood-smoke through the bronze and browning trees; scarlet the carpets we walk on, and golden sunlight dappling that carpet under our feet, through the thinning branches of the trees. Here’s a walnut cracked on the tree healthily and well; a hazelnut in the ripest perfection, and all the earth giving her harvest, her richness and beauty to the sons and daughters of men. Is there one among us who has no eye for the beauty around? Ah, sad, sad is he, and starved of .joys that are as utter as they are inexplicable. We do not know WHY the red and brown and yellow charm us by their beauty, but we know they DO. Is there a sadness that steals over us at the fall of the leaf? Or is it that we do not see deeply and clearly enough past the leaf-shedding to the activity behind which promises more beauty and bounty in the spring? Listen and look well, Starlets, past the sadness of the falling leaf to the greater truth of promise of new and abundant life. There are those, too, who read these pages in the autumn of their lives, when the furrows lie deeply etched on foreheads that grapple no longer with the questions of everyday, and to them also we say that after autumn, ’tis surely spring again, new and true and radiant! Special greetings to all our friends in the autumn pages of their earth-story. Autumn jewels! And priceless among them the awakening home interest that centres round a blazing hearth and happy fireside evening chatter. Let’s not forget this gem, Starlets, the memories of which remain lon§ after the fires are forgotten. So, the opal of the wood smoke to young Starlets, who reach as the smoke does, onward and upward; the gold of all the trees to those who are in the thick of the fight, and the amber of all the rest to those who feel the autumn winds sighing over the pages that are past. Joy and wealth and autumn jewels to you all. Sharing in its beauty,—