PEOPLE TALKED ABOUT

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIV, Issue 18, 6 May 1905, Page 2

PEOPLE TALKED ABOUT

Nelson College. In thia issue we reproduce two photographs of the prefects and the senior eleven of Nelson College. In all the large secondary schools of the colony a great deal of responsibility devolves upon the prefects. Only in rare eases is tfie power of corporal castigation conceded to them; but their personal influence, and in many cases their physical prowess, enable them to exert a wholesome influence over the little corporate body of their school. “Those who trust us, educate us,” says George Eliot, and there is no doubt that the confidence reposed in the college prefects tends to mature and develop their natures. It is their duty to inculcate a spirit of whole-souled patriotism in their school, to set an example of high-minded allegiance to their alma mater, and generally to do all that lies in their power to sweeten the moral atmosphere of the college. The senior eleven represented in the accompanying protograph had the honour of worsting the Nelson adult elevens in the contest for the senior cricket championship. The eleven has had the benefit of being coached by Mr. C. H. Broad, a well-known ex-Otago cricketer.

Swiubourne. Tn the columns of the London “Daily .Mail,” Harold Begbie writes thus of "the greatest living poet,” Swinburne: Swinburne has sung no single song to the dawn of that wider science which is destined to unlock the mystery of con seiousness and time. He has uttered no word which tells us that he is even aware of this portentous tide in the affairs of science. It is for him as though "Humna Perconality” had not been writ ten.

The personality of the poet accounts for this mystery. He has lived for nearly thirty years under the same roof as. and in tin? daily companionship of his "best and dearest friend,” the man who may justly call himself a pioneer of our modern spiritual science; and yet ho has been wholly untouched by the "renascence of wonder.” The truth is that Swinburne, with all his brilliant intellectuality, is not an original thinker. And he is not an original thinker b cause he is fulfilled in the most extraordinary manner with the joyous and purely’ sen suous spirit of boyhood. Herein lies the mvstery and the secret.

I think he is the happiest creature under Heaven. It is amazing to sit with him and listen to him. One feels breathless under tliet ceaseless rapture of his contentment. The tall forehead is clear like a summer sky: the violet eyes overflow with twinkling laughter; the lips, visible under mou«taeh ■ and

beard of fading gold, bubble over with banter and quick merriment. He interrupts for a jest the reading of a poem: he remembers in the midst of political talk a swim in some mountain locked lake, or the supper at an inn aft r a famous walk on a moonlit coast. Tie is quick with his words, speaking in a high and feminine voice, and he is irresistible in his sudden and eager appeals

to one’s sympathies. One could no more be vexed with him than with a favourite bird. But he forces upon the mind the miracle of personality, and leaves owe dumbfounded. He is entirely without curiosity. He experiences not the smallest desire in the world to seek out the mysteries of existence. Darwin has spoken the last word. Creation is explained. God has passed away forever out of our cosmogony. We shall die. but our children will inherit. Ours to enjoy the beautiful world, to make it better and freer for our children, and never to think of ultimate mysteries. Why should we?

That a mind so extraordinarily endowed can accept such a position—which tactily implies a finality in science —and can rest his ardent soul in a creed so comfortless, barren, and untenable, is a miracle which will surely strike the future critics of the poems, and interest for long ages to come the careful student of genius. But the very miracle is the key to the personality. Swinburne is a boy, the eternal child of our labouring day's. Nothing can make him blase, or dull the edge of his appetite for pure enjoyment. He lives every second of his life—fully, resolutely. merrily, and blithelv.

Hans Christian Andersen. A hundred years ago last month there was born the man who more than any other has given Denmark glory in the world of art. She has had great men. in every walk of life, but the only one whose fame has reached the four corners of the earth is Hans Christian Anderson, the story-telling son of the poor cobbler of Odense. His hundred and fifty fairy tales are forever, as human historygoes. His relation to children in real life was really' very slight, much as Je has meant to millions of them. When a sculptor represented him surrounded bylistening children, he objected that anybody who knew him was aware that he could never have told fates with a pack of young Copenhageners clambering on his knees and shoulders. “Children alone can not represent me,” he exclaimed. Perhaps his most warm and constant love was for flowers. “If 1 were to stick a peg into the ground.” he said. "I believe it would grow." His craze for the theatre was so intense that when he was eight or ten years old he played truant to see the drama, and when he was too old to go he sat in his ehair and murmured, “Now the curtain is about to rise.” His love of life lies under what endears him to the world. “Oh.” he exclaimed, old, half unconscious, and about to die. “how happy I am. How beautiful is the world.” And ordinary people talk wistfully of “killing time!”