PORTRAIT of ENGLAND

Cue (NZERS), Issue 34, 31 October 1945, Page 20

PORTRAIT of ENGLAND

The English Countryside

There is no countryside like the English countryside for those who have learned to love it; its firm yet gentle lines of hill and dale, its ordered confusion of features, its deer parks and downland, its castles and stately houses, its hamlets and old churches, its farms and ricks and great barns and ancient trees, its pools and ponds and shining threads of rivers, its flower-starred hedgerows, its orchards and woodland patches, its village greens and kindly inns. Other countrysides have their pleasant aspects, but none such ' variety, none that shine so steadfastly throughout the year. H. G. Wells, 1910.

Light Blue and True Blue

God! 1 will pack, and take a train, And get me to England once again! For England’s the one land, I know, Where men with splendid hearts may go ; And Cambridgeshire, of all England, The. shire for men who- understand; And of that district I prefer The lovely hamlet Graiichester. . . For Cambridge people rarely smile, Being urban, squat, and packed with guile. They love the Good; they worship Truth; They laugh uproariously in youth; (And when they get to feeling old, They up and shoot themselves, I’m told). —Rupert Brooke: "The Old Vicarage, Granchestcr."

A White Christmas in England

The snow is everywhere. The shrubs are weighed down by masses of it; the terrace is knee-deep in it; the plaster Apollo is more than kneedeep in it and is furnished with a surplice and wig, like a half-blown Bishop. The distant country looks the very ghost of a landscape; the white-walled cottages seem part and parcel of the snow-drifts around them— that take every variety of form, and are swept by the wind into faery wreaths and fantastic caves. The old mill-wheel is locked fast, and gemmed with giant icicles its slippery stairs are more slippery than ever, the grey church tower has grown from grey to white; nothing looks black except the swarms of rooks that, dot the snowy holds. Cuthbert Bede, 1853.

Mad Dog an Englishman

First Clown: He that is mad, and sent into England. Hamlet: Ay, marry; why was he sent Inta England? First Clown: Why, because he -was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, f tis no great ma tter there. Hamlet: Why? First Clown: 'Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad (l s' he. —Shakespeare: Hamlet.

Brighton by the Sea

In 'Steyne Gardens, Brighton, the lodging houses are among the most frequented in that city of lodging—houses. These mansions have bow-windows in front, bulging out with gentle prominences, and ornamented with neat verandas, from which you can behold the tide of humankind as it flows up and down the Steyne, and that blue ocean over which Britannia is said to rule, stretching brightly away eastward and westwardlt is the fashion to run down George the Fourth, but what myriads of Londoners ought to thank him for inventing Brighton ! One of the best physicians dur city has ever known is kind, cheerful, merry Doctor Brighton. Hail thou purveyor of shrimpsand honest prescriber of (South Down mutton! There is no mutton so good as Brighton mutton; no- flys so pleasant as Brighton Ays, nor any cliffs so pleasant to ride on; no shops so beautiful to look at as the Brighton gimcrack shops, and the fruit shops, and the market. —William Make peace Thackeray, 1853.