OCCASIONAL JOTTINGS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXII, Issue 9597, 8 February 1910, Page 5

OCCASIONAL JOTTINGS.

(By "Nicodemus.")

A clergyman, while in Mastertou recently, ventured the assertion that there were no back seats iv heaven. I confess, quite frankly, that, not beiug addicted to long journeys, I do uot know whether there are or not. But it does seem to me a somewhat hazardous statement to make. How doos the reverend gentlemau kuow there are any seats at all in heaven? Aud how does he know they are all front seats. Just imagine, geutle reader, demure little you and meek little me seated primly among a great long row of first-class saiuts. It would have to be a very long row, because if there were a second and third row there would at once be back seats. But perhaps the row will only be a very small one after all. Eh i

I do hope I shall not be accused of irreverence. - Nothing is further from my thoughts. But people do say such funny things at times. And between you aud me, friend the reader and ouly confidant, that matter of the seats lias heen causiug me some inward perturbation. You see, if the work of the clergy, past, ami present, has met with the success to which its aim is entitled, there ought to be a fairly large demaud for seats in the Great Beyond. I have been trying to estimate how mauy good souls there might reasouably be accounted caudidates for seats, and how mauy hundred miles a row of all trout seats would extend. But my brain reels uuder the uuwouted task, aud so, like tho little duckling that was tired of life, I give it up. Ido hope, though, that tho seats will be comfortable.

A writer in au exchauge has made the suggestion that the Government should be urged to construct a road up Mouut Hector in order to facilitate the ascent of Alpine tourists. Nosy, I had always supposed that the. fascination of Alpine climbing lay in the difficulty of the asceut; that the more difficulty aud peril eucouutered in scaling a giddy height, the more pleasure tho intrepid mountaineer derived from having successfully asceuded it. I had thought of mouutaiueering always as a very strenuous exercise aud one .hat demanded a bodily condition that can best be described as fit. I had thought, too, that it occasionally required a little nerve. Bnt it appears that I have been mistaken. Henceforth Alpine climbers will not require to be armed with alpenstocks aud tied together with stout ropes; they will iustead dross themselves in their bravest, arm themselves with a plentiful supply of cigarettes, and so stroll, casually, to the top of our dizziest heights.

Tiie remark was made by oue of the managers of the Technical School at a recent meeting that we ought to cultivate the beautiful. That remark, coming from a shrewd, practical business man, pleases me. It shows that he has got a soul above the mere acquisitiou of wealth. Ido not deny that under the present dispensation of things a modicum of wealth is a very essential possession. As a matter of fact it is almost indispensable. I do most emphatically deny, though, that the mere acquisition of wealth should be the sole aim aud object of our lives. If it is, there will bo" very little real and lasting enjoyment in life for auy of us, and at the cud we shall have lived a life that is barren of any permanent results for good. And we certainly shall not have made tho world a place more beautiful in which to live.

The cultivation of a love of the beautiful should not be a matter of extreme difficulty. True, we may not have the time or the opportuuity to study gems of art by Rembrandt, Da Vinci or Velasquez. And if we did, we might not have the knowledge that would help us to a proper appreciation of these great masters. But we nave gems of beauty all rouud us; every tree, every flower, aud every stone has a beauty of its own, and is in itself a masterpiece, the which we pass by, unappreciative and unseeing. Aud that brings me to the question of art. Our art schools are doing a great and valuable work in training the young people to a proper study of form aud colour. It is a study that is never wasted. It places within their reach the means of extracting an enjoyment out of life that could never be'theirs without, Aud who will say that he or she is not a better man or woman who has cultivated a feeling of reverence for the beautiful aud the true.

Unfortunately, mauy of our youug people, the girls especially, go the wrong way to work to learn anythiug about art "that is worth learning at all. Iv fact, they often learn much that is harmful "as far as a proper appreciation of art goes. They wish to make a beautiful picture before they are able to draw a straight line with any degree of certainty. And so they go to a so-called teacher of painting—usually a lady—aud there, with a courage that is born of ignorance, commence straightway to paint flowers from questionable studies. The results are dismal enough in all conscience, for in tho majority of cases the very rudiments of drawing aud colouriug alike have been entirely ignored. And then oue is taken in by a fond mother to admire her daughter's paintings ! Paintings, forsooth. The name is sacrilege.

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