INDEPENDENCE. (From the Australasian)

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 152, 29 April 1873, Page 3

INDEPENDENCE. (From the Australasian)

"jHrn the first moinenf when the nurse binds th<> infant's hrsSivO the last, when affection wipes the dews of approaching |jath, man is dependent on man." So wrote- one who cultivated, both physically and mentally, the independence he prized beyond even the genius ho controlled, and who accepted the stern lessons of the experience whoso surging w lives he manfully breasted Walter Scott will never be accused, or even buspcct<d of flimsy seniinent or deficient self-reliance. This mutual depende'nee of man on man can be well illustrated, proudod that the haughty and impatient of the young and favoured will suppress their scorn. I say, before a crown enn be earned, two separate minds must promptly act. Either may have done his duty : without the concurrent action ot the other he must perish. I cannot eat my com : the baker must well what lie hat. prepared, or I must starve ; and I must bring m> coin to him, or the earth must be his bed, and the gnue his home. This mutual dependence aiises immediately from freedom. The despot can command ; the free require persuasion or conviction. Insiduous is the old-world argument of " higher motives than interest or utihtj , loyaltj ," &c. In direct proportion to man's progress in true freedom is, and will ever be, his exaction of clear proofs that to act thus or thus is to his real and permanent interest, or to leave matters alone, as the case may be. To discipline and regulate emotions not merely pleasurable but ennobling (as domestic love and friendship) is proved to be my interest, therefore I will set myself to do it. To note existing wants, modes, and tastes ; to postpone yearning charity or generous impulses ; to deny yourself the gratification of refined tnst«, &c ; all this, and more, is hard to do, and without vivid conception of the proofs of its necessity to our permanent welfare, present and I^p ire, will never be* so much as attempted. It is acquired oy stern experience, not natural in man. The child talcs for granted that his brother will yield to his whims, and that the coveted sweetmeat will bo his own without motive or equivalent. Slowly ho learns that indulgences can be earned, not commanded. What state of being can surpass the early feeling of selfconscioua individuality in a young man of geniua and impulses ? As he stands erect and buoyant, the whole landscape by him surveyed, bounded only by the visible horizon, is his. ".Sens roll to waft me, suns to light me rise." He will go forth, and will confer benefit by assorting power. Whenever lie finds practical men erring, he will set them right by citing books ; when he finds the weak lamenting, he can console them by citing poetry. He will tell rulers how to govern, and workmen how to obey. A syllogism in one hand, a sentiment in the other, what power can withstand him ? He will seal the truth with martyrdom, and speak from his tomb to future ages. Such is the mournful tale of history, condensed, varied, and adorned by gemus. Byron never redeemed his flippancy with a finer touch of teeling ,than when heMeclarcd that he found " Don Quixote to be of all books the saddest " The first lessson given to our imaginary enthusiast is, that the laws of nature must be studied with docility, then enlisted with skill and vigour. Crusoe had not strength to drag his boat to the water ; ho dug a canal from the water to the boat. Byron corrected a smart gentleman who talked of directly crossing the Hellespont m cuerpo, — 14 You might as -well attempt to fly over it." How, then, did Byron and Ekenhead ? They chose a point upwards meeting the tide, and swimming diagonally, reached Abydos by the resultant force combined of their strokes at right angles to the tide and the downward force of the current, that but for their cool vigour, and judicious choice of a point that secured them a diagonal of sufficient length, would have swept them rapidly onward past their goal. Byron had a boat parallel with him, and on the side of Abydo«. Thus man learns to profit by time, tide, season, tun, and wind — learns his dependence and corelation with Nature and her laws —and loams to smile at many of his youthful dreams as at one who should leap from a lofty tower to scale the moon. But the laws of Nature are not only fixed and constant, but demonstrable, recurring, trustworthy, and manifest. 4 'Old experience doth attain to something like prophetic strain." To learn them repays trouble, to use them is power beyond our dreams. No faith like the faith of philosophic induction. Our explorer passes on to the world of human life, buys (often at full market price) the knowledge of the absolute necessity of the co-operation of beings wayward, fitful, piiesionate, and short-sighted, even as himself, and again retreats upon his inward consciousness to take stock of his various magnets of attraction. Mere merit is not enough, however indispensable. " I have pipe<l, and ye have not danced," is the early bitter lesson received by saddened genius. Noble appeals, genuine emotions, are sometimes misplaced, the scalpel or the histouri fail to cleave the quarry, pierce the rock, or fell the tree. The wave will not hear the cry of the agonised father, nor the surge of busy commeice turn aside for suffering merit. He learns that man's co-operation must be secured by forces more permanent, more trustworthy, and more truly perennial than sympathy, admiration, ideality, or even affection. He learns that man, dependent on man, ranst Bell what man will buy, must speak what man will listen to, must write what man will read. ' ' Fit audienc, though few," may be the privilege of angels ; the pence of the million is the pabulum of personal independence, and of present well-being and leisure and culture, and of that power of beniticcncc without which man is but a cripple and a slave. Thus arises a somewhat complex idea. I must seek personal independence by securing co-operation. Co-operation cannot be secured without some degree of honest compromise—of willingness to believe that in matters essentially tentative and experimental my neighbour has his chance of being as near to truth as myself ; also of much discretion and reticence, of honest respect for his crotchets winch I have no intention to adopt. Courtesy is his right Life is too short for much argument. Controversy, however incidental— or, if you will, however inevitable — geneially amends neither party, but spoils both ; therefore, by every honest means, gentleness, forbearance, judicious silence, and timely yielding, we should hourly do something towards the securing of that personal independence longer-lived than youth, manhood, and even geniua ; without which, according to "Juniu*," " no man can be happy, or even honest." The young inquirer, with whom I sympathise, will perhaps not allow this curt decree of a writer no bitter and onesided to pats unchallenged. He demands analytical proof. Not to multiply similies, I recur to the surging tide. Can you breast it direct ? For how long ? Pluck you can, I grant, display, but certain death you incur. The man who rites day after day doubtful of the unearned meal, harassed by vulgar importunities for claims he owns to bo just, hankering after comforts he sees enjoyod by the worthless, spiritbroken by the insults of tho coarse and low-minded, and by the self-mistru»t arising from accumulated failures — tho man, I lay, who sees in every other a judge harsh and prejudiced, or perhaps an executioner, has need of a mind superhuman in its poise, if treacherous naturo within do not join the •Dphistries of temptation in the shifting deceitful atmosphere of political intrigue, or commercial monopoly, or of the finesse that can (and often does) profit by tho dishonesty it ignores. To keep the whiteness of your »oul amid so much pollution were indeed a grand feat — a superhuman ; but I fear it is by attempting tho superhuman we fall lower than ] man. Why thus oppress virtue by enlisting all nature j against her ? What to a starving man is even the Decalogue, when a vote, a leading article, a signature to audited accounts, a " forgetting" of a document, or an imperfect remembrance of " that handwriting, sir," in court can purchase for a loved daughter permanent liberation from base drudgery and from contingent dishonour ? The possession of a small iudepondence gives fair play to every virtue — the absence of it makes every good quality a combatant at a i disadvantage. And, as tho longer the swimmer remains in tho wido waste of waters the more do his vital heat and energies wane and waste, so do these recurring trials in life's wide relentless ocean fall every day upon a weakened spirit, I therefore endorse the stern dictum of " Junius." Strange paradox! "I am then, to compromise during youth in order to assert myself in old ago ; to bo reticent and discreet to-day, thnt I may be able to speak out my mind to-morrow without lois ; and to let error pass unchallenged now, in order that I may blow it to the winds hereafter, when my logic will be aided by my reputed banker's account, my rhetoric unchallenged when set ofF by a good dinner, and my crotchets revered when buttered by my rentroll?" A query at which youthful enthusiasm need not blush. Yes, I answer. Choose the lesser c\il, O Telemachus! Discretion is but nominal where there is no choice ; and the dependent pauper, goaded by " elegant desires " and by grinding want, is even as the wealthy traveller before the rifle of the bushranger. He mint yield nil, all. No Iml measures will suffice now. Everywhere, he who gi\es, or pay*, or buys is the master — the other must obo\. The barrister ought not to take less than the fixed fee— he thereforo wrongs his brethren. But — starvation is a sad wild benst to fight. " Had I," he sorrow ingly m\ s, " bc«n more reticent in former years, more silent when silence was certainly blameless, the enemy would now be lew strong, the conflict less painful, the victory less doubtful." Do men value not jour reasoning because you are poor? Then be silent, and" say with Disraeli, "The day will come when they shall." Let error pass to-day unchallenged, for your weak blow is even as the ipear of old I'rntm against joung Pyrrhus— the day will come when you will see frnnyoiir tower of independence »n intellect, fine and powerful us your own, prostituted to its support, contrary to inward reason and conscience, overmattered and demlened by grinding poverty. And if the laziness of man docs sometimes exact proof that he who proleases to be nue for others has been, in routb, a " I'neiid to

himself," why reject a useful weapon, in itself desirable, and ranking among mluo's choice and lasting rewards. Discreet to-day, independent to-morrow — for without independence ercn honesty is but short-lived. Art thou, then, O skirmishing lreu l.mue, independent ? Dost thou not practise much rrtuunue, und look iorward to a paradise of free thought ami word .J. J Frankly 1 own yes— both. Is there such a thing as a journalist in tlio sense of> " Azamat Batnk, 1 ' whom 1 heieby waunh thank lor stimulated reflection and for noble provocation J 1 doubt. To watch and follow, seeming to leud ; to guide with tact; to embody in clear logical eloquence floating ideas slowly crystallising in the public mind j how to break the fill of the tottering edifice, or discourage tho over-rash destruction^ ; how to dash down the crumbling column, having the clear plan of the amended vista, to give discipline to energy, and method to impulse — these, and pursuits with these harmonious, distinguish the British journalist, rather than | dcs idies, aud all that. Abovo all, he preserve* independence j by preserving public confidence ; he tun rors the manners, ho blazons the wants, and condenses the spirit of the day ; and thus advancing with the public, he admonishes according to the principles be lias received from it— he finds in its liberty and independence the best pledge and security of his j own. I

Mr C. Thorne, of London, in a recent letter to the Society of Art is Journal, thus refers to his efforts to get the phormiuin libre spun into cloth or socking : — " Until I met Mr Forbes niv efforts to get the phormium fibre ipun were unsuccessful, for although many gave me favourable opinions of the usefu'nees of the fibre for rope and twine, they nearly all oxpirsscd opinions as to its never being adapted to textile purposes. The sucking or wool-pack is perhaps the most interesting is tho New Zealand colonists, as it ea\v of production, and does not require any special alteration m existing niachtnery Learning Made Luelj. — Pupil (saying his lesson): Kauta secat mare. Nauta, the sailor, went, cuts, mare, the sea. — Preceptor : Cuts the sea ! How does the sailor cut the sea ? Pujjil : Got hick of it, gives it up. (Grins) -Preceptor: Good boy. Model Autonomy. — France, it is said, desire 1 more stable form of Go\ eminent. Does she ? Then let her adopt that of her Jockey Club. — I'unch,