A Story of the Future

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 4, 26 January 1910, Page 62

A Story of the Future

THE brief life of London’s lilac and lavender was over. Spring had made her display of fresh colour and breathed such mild days that one again committed the ancient and perennial error- of imagining Spring was Summer. And then Spring abruptly disillusionised with sudden cold winds and grey rains in the lilac and apple trees with their perished bloom, those who had so erred. Then came my breakdown. The State visiting physician advised me to go to a professor of psychotherapeutics, though he himself really diagnosed niy case well enough; I was suffering from suppressed instanity brought on by work without pay, by worry and strain. 1 told the visiting physician that 1 could do as much for myself as the professor could do, could easily suggest to myself that after all everything was all right, that the 'money would come in, that my own life and the life of the Universe wire not so far wrong after all; for I am old-fashioned in one or two things, and one of my old-fashioned dislikes is the dislike of hypnotic suggestion; I hate, the thought of another one influencing me. But really what 1 wanted was change, open spaces, rest. Still I kept on working. And then suddenly one morning, after a sleepless night, I realised that I must get out of London; I could no longer suppress the insanity. To go away or to go mad—l recognised indeed that these were the alternatives when 1 looked up the time-table, not even then wholly decided that I must go, but looking it up subconsciously almost, saying: “No, 1 shall not give in yet," and yet feeling that the very sight of the time-table with its many beautiful names of Other Places was a book of balm. I saw that an airship left Euston at 10 am., but noticing a small italic letter by the side of that entry I looked to the foot of the page to discover its significance. “Except Saturday." 1 read' there. “What does that mean?” I wondered. •Does that mean that an airship goes north at 10 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday,’ Wednesday. Thursday, Friday, but not tn Saturday? Or does it mean ” and then I saw another footnote regarding another ship, “Saturdays only," which helped me to understand. “This,” I thought, “is bad; very bad. I must go.” For I knew that I should not have much difficulty in understanding s', time-talde. My brain had refused, struck work. "If I cannot understand a time-table I cannot hope to understand anything,” said I. “Allons!" 11. Going up in the elevator to the Lowlevel depot, which, as you know, is the depot for north-bound ships, I east from me ail my worry. A rush of joy came into my heart. Three hours and a half Lvter I would be at home. There are even larks in the fields around my sister's home, as it lies under * little-travelled field of heaven. We love larks now more than ever, now that they are disappearing from our countrysides. The elevator purred upward, halted, the doors slid aside, and we stepped out on the north platform. Higher still, not directly above, though parallel, were the south platforms; and looking up to them we saw those who awaited their ships there, leaning on the balustrades looking down on us, tiny little spindly figures etched on the sky at the summit of the soaring depot. Our forefathers knew little of such sights. The Forth Bridge. I suppose, was, pictorially, the nearest approach to these stations of our day. 1 thought how perhaps some of those away up there envied us, young iiien perhaps going off to African appointments. For a stop has been put to tile frequent trips home that so many African employees were wont to indulge in; ami there seems some sense in tho reason for that change; though we have done so much toward annihilating distance we must not be effete; we must still practise endurance. Perhaps in this virtuous and noble idea is the explanation for the sudden breakdown of so many workers; for a virtue may become • vice. They work on anti on, and inKtead of, as one might think, being happwr in Lleoir exile* Umui were our fore-

fathers, who endured a deal in alien lands, are less so. Always aware that they can, if they will, flee away very quickly, they put off more resolutely the desire for holidays, often quixotically reject opportunities to relax, and do not leave their work till Nature, which is not yet wholly under our power, settles their affairs for them either with crushing, or, as in my case here in London, kindly finality. Musing so, I looked away from the high station, for tho ■brilliant blue beyond it dazzled my eyes. I looked down—and saw smokeless London below us, vaist and terrible, dry as Hell. An antiquated Zep was drifting half way down from girder to girder of the south station, with mechanics testing bolts and stays. Intent on watching them, and seeing their Zep bobbing here and there like a cork in water, the northbound was upon us before I expected. Its musical horn buzzed. It drifted to the platform. We took our seats. HI. How delightful it is to travel short distances—'because of the people one meets; though I should have relished the talk of those of my fellow passengers who sat near me more had I not been so painfully run down. The most hideous thoughts of disaster came to me. The emergency parachutes hung above us, one to each seat; but you know how, if one puts a hand near his parachute ■trapeze, the glances of his fellow’ passengers drift in his direction pityingly. It is so difficult to get away from Nature, so difficult to get away from tho catdike, dog-like dislike of being laughed at! Really we were safe enough of course; but I may as well honestly acknowledge my fears. I seemed unable to prevent a hundred spasmodic imaginations, alii of disaster, leaping in my over-wrought mind. Though I had travelled north and south in Britain, and though I had, not seldom, gone far afield also beyond our shores, looking down on the thin rim of soundless foam remind the utmost Aran Isles or the Isles of the Hebrides, seeing Britain fade on many a quiet evening, seeing tihe lights of the many cities glimmer away as we journeyed off where were only stars and the scattered lamps of monoplanes, aeroplanes, and arships, frequently though I had journeyed through the sky to-day I journeyed in a ceaseless tensity of nerves. It seemed •ridiculous. I had often enough slept like a child in the swinging hammocks of the trans-Atlantics; now, on this short trip, 1 was quite unihinged. I imagined all sorts of catastrophes. I imagined a thunderstorm, though, the air was clear, coming and ripping the gas bags, smashing the motors. I imagined what might happen if the motor .broke down. At the speed we went I pictured us all being slung a hundred yards out of the ship at the jerk—no chance to get the emergency motor going! Actually we wero perfectly safe, but—l gasped at my deranged imaginings. Beside me sat a Progressive, the fruit of a long tine of scientific and poetic aneestoi’s. I noticed that he did not smile when one of those hideous wakefantasies, more terrible than nighmares made me jerk in my seat. He had the new courtesy of the Progressives. There seemed to be always a New Courtesy. T.iie “Naturals" tried to break it down in their natural resentment of progress, but. as we know, it is the strong who can 'be tended; the weak are always ponderous when they try to be strong. He turned to me and said kindly; “You seem overwrought.” “Yes,” I said. “I have been working too hard.” “You should think of the future generations,” he said, “if you have no pity for yo-urseif.” “I have 'been thinking too much of the present,” I said. He nodded courteously. “Yes,” he said; “one is apt to forget the distant .vision in the fascination of the present,” and then he seemed to muse a space. I was glad to meet this person, because I saw what he was—one of the new people. They have, as you know, art so far been childless; but they are of very long life, living thrice as long as tho “short-arms” or “Naturals.” Records show also that those of this type born a couple of centuries ago lived only about

twice the average length; so there is no saying what this type may ultimately attain. Like all the Progressives, this person's mere presence moved me, filled me with a curious blending of longing, half-sad, ■half-glad longing; and also, not fear of Heath, but regret that one must die. I said to him quite candidly: “I always like to meet a Progressive. You have an air, you Progressives, that does one good. One wants to watch you. Y’ou seem to have discovered some secret.” “Yet we call ourselves ‘lmperfects’,” he replied. “I suppose that we call ourselves so is one sign of hope that wo are really Progressives; that, and the hatred of us among the females of the Naturals.” I should have liked to draw him into further talik, he but whetted my- appetite, but made me feel that I might hear something from him in answer to the cry of longing in me that his presence awoke—and then he was gone. He left us at Agricola, the border town. There was a female of the Naturals on boa>rd who sat glaring at him strangely. I had noticed her face suffused with blood, her lips protruding oddly as if they filled with blood, a brutish look growing on her as she looked at him; and after he had gone she said: “There goes another of these lettuceeaters.” I am greatly’ interested in all phrases of the various orders, and wondered why she labelled him so, was curious as to the derivation. “Why do you call him so?” I asked. “Because he is,” said she. “I mean the derivation,” I asked. “Why- lettuce-eater ?” “O, it is the word for suelh as he,” said she; “that is why. I hate them. They think they are perfect.” .1 left it at that. After leaving Agricola, named, like so many new places, after a great histone figure, we swept through the border valleys, flying How. And high over us, now and bhen, shot, whirring, the south-ward-bounds. It was here that I saw a most beautiful sight. This part of 'the Great North Road is subject to sudden fogs; and, in case of collisions in the high void, nets ha-ve been stretched for miles along the hills, stretched in three layers, to give every chance for tihe breaking of any chance falls of 'wrecked aeronauts, come .to grief in the mists. On this journey there w’ere no mists. Rain had recently fallen and the sun had broken through again; and as we swept evenly along a valley, a hill towering above us, we came close to the ground at the hill's base and then shot up, not lark-fasihion, but skimiming up on an incline level iwith the grade of the hill. The rain had wet the gauzy nets, and as we skimmed thus up-hill one could see the whole brown and green hillside covered with a silver gauze. For a brief space, as we rose like a waterbird rising from a lake, we could look up the long slope between tihe nets. That wet, green, shining hill, with the silver gauze over it, seen briefly as we shot u.p to the crest, was the joy of tihe journey. I forgot all about derivation of class phrases, forgot even the belligerent air of the Natural, forgot everything but the beauty and magic of life—forgot for a space my nervous “funk” of t>his journey. After alll there is beauty in our

modernity, as much beauty as there mart have been in the days w’hen steamship* went' down the channel, not occasionally, as now, but when at night the sea- highway- was dotted with red and green of their side-lights and tb* yellow of tho many mast-head Sights, and their phosphorescent wakes churned out behind in the star-glow. One reads poems of railway stations of the old days and feels a half regret for the vanished magic of life. But science and poetry and beauty are always with us. If it had not been for my nervy condition I would not have done what I did. As we sailed away past Tinto and came in sight of Edinburgh, and sa.w the Forth beyond, and the Lomonds of Fife, and the Law beyond Dundee, and tho Grampians marching into the blue NorWest, I felt such a sense of being come ■home again that I could hardly- contain myself. And when I saw my sister’s house lying in the northern fold of Pentlands, now on our port bow, 1 suddenly had a thought that if one went down now with a parachute, the wind on our quarter would carry me fairly near the garden. Before I well knew what I was doing, 1 laid hand to the parachutecord, slipped the elastic ring over my wrist, thrust back the sliding wind-glass —and leapt! Down I went with a rush like a stone. Often enough I had practised the dropping from the State balloons provided for the purpose of practice in such descents by all who care; but, as I leapt out, 1 bethought me of the notice over our heads: "The Parachutes are for use only in emergency. Fine for improper use—< £ 10.” “The parachute won’t open!” I thought in horror. The thought was primitive in the extreme, a survival of the nineteenth century ideas, a superstitious idea. Why should it not open merely because I broke the law? One reads in books how in the old days a certain section of the public, if a steamer was . wrecked on Sunday, thought the Deity did it because He was angry at having His day turned into a day of seeing the world and getting fresh air. Then I thought; “It will open, because it is love of home that prompts me.” And then I thought how love of home was now being descried as narrow. Then I thought: “The parachute will open if it is in proper working order; if it is not it won’t,” ending all these ridiculous, swift ideas in platitude. Then the parachute opened. I had gauged, the moment of my leap well, came drifting down into the dear old garden will the Neuter carrying out the tea. “Another cup!” I cried. It looked up, recognised me, and fled, indoors to tell my sister of my arrival. She emerged just as I alighted on the lawn, coming to me over the grass in pale grey aeolienne with her faint frown of welcome. I kissed her on either cheek. “What!” she said. “This effusion bespeaks a lack of mentality.” But I think she liked it nevertheless. Even the Progressives. I suppose, must occasionally “return.” I told her of the state- of my mind—told her about the “Saturdays excepted." “Ah well—you will soon be better here,’’ she said; “rest, and a world of leaves, you know,” quoting from some

poet of old years whose poems are lost, but who livee in single, diseoiwieeted lines. So I had tea in the garden (the delight which has survived so many generations) that afternoon, as I had desired. Just as we finished a mono came down on us like a wasp, ami the officer alighted. I paid the fine with a light heart, for, after all. I had come home at the least ten minutes earlier than I could otherwise have done; and, besides, had I gone into the city I should have had to .pay 2/6 for a loeal mono out to the house. The officer gave me a receipt and wrote niy name in his book. If it were found that I had before broken the regulation regarding using the parachutes I would be sent another account. Of course he did not say so. I knew it, however, knowing the law. Neither did lie ask me if I had before broken the regulation. Our civilisation now gives no opportunity for lies. "My name would be looked up at Webb House—■ .that wa-s all. The officer folded up the parachute, went aboard, zipped away again, and left us in peace in the garden with the blackbirds. FREDERICK NIVEN.