ACCIDENTAL CHARMS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1026, 16 January 1911, Page 6

ACCIDENTAL CHARMS.

EFFORT AND RESULT. NOTICED-IN THE STREETS, >' V. (By J.Q.X.) '• . ATany *of the people Svho talk about town-panning ;.mako;a v great "mistake. They forget that some ot tho happiest effects in existing towns have resulted from tho absence of plans. No great business thoroughfaro in. New Zealand is so pieas&nt to the eye or so full of potential sites for noblo and picturesque Duilcl'ings a£ Lambton Quay. The early; set'tlers who built along the crooked beach between' tho cliffy aud tho tido did not dream'that they were marking out the course .of the . principal street of a capi- • tal. ' Had they known what they were about, .they would have that their duty to us who wcro to come after them was* to treat tho beach pretty much as the Government has at last'treated the routo of the Hutt Road and raihvay. Is •it not '.written, among the first principles of fawn-planning that, whnteverVth© contour of tl)e ground, main thoroughfares must be direct and wide? The pioneers, in their short-sightedness, did'not see that they wero causing posterity to wast'e its , asphalt, wood-blocks; side-walk slabs, tramway plartt, . §hQe : leather, electric wires, gas • and water mains, _ : petrol, ; and all parts of all kinds of ye- : hicles.'. They did not know that they | were squandering • U* advance the precious time of Gpvernors, Judges, Bishops, etatesmen, business men, • workers, and "unborn millions." • Our crooked street lays a great and incalculable tax upon the community, hut it . gives us something in return. Not the aesthetically conscious . only, but citizens'of all sorts take pleasure 111 the winding way. Singularly frugal and prosaic, like me, are those who habitually take the short cut by Featherston Street.In another part of early Wellington there was a swamp. "How convenient, said tho surveyors; "it shall ho a basin for shipping." So they marked off a straight courso for a canal, with a road on each 6ide from their imagined dock to the waters' of. PortyNicholson. We ,pay for their mistaker~ : The wasteful roaring of tho cars around tho four corners which they must pass to get from Kent Terrace to Adelaide Road vexes the economic souls of city councillors, but the • passenger sees our most popular 'recreation ground and a strip of land which an awakening municipality is; making comely with gar-, den and greensward. ■ . , , Let us welcomo aesthete effort, but let us not forget .the casualncss of beauty. We were asked the . other day to be indignant at the ''vandalism" which allowed the cityward faco of the Tinakori Hills to bo scarred with quarries. I. looked at them from across , the inner harbour, in an hour When sunshine, shadow, and haze mado one of those quarTies the -most beautiful spot on the whole 6lope. The/nakedness of the rock-cut-, tings on our suburban roads has'often been exclaimed against, but I have a memory picture of one that was' darkened by long exposure and lay at tho time in shadow, whilo • the sun just , touched the yellow hawkwoed blooms that grew .'in the> crannies. To my momentary glance it was a sky of softly dark infinity. and burning constellations. . ■ ' j 'Street lamps are for utility, shop lights J* for business, coloured tram-car lights for 1 information;' street paving is for conveni\ence, and- rain (according to Tennyson) •is a useful - trouble. 'But when all theso/ ooine together,. upon a dark night, the street floors are. gleaming mirrors, and' Courtenay,Place'is Fairyland. : Beauty, driven away .by the destruction of- the busb on our hills, comes back in other guise. The sun. declining - beyondKarori, and leaving tho hither slopes in formless, shade, glances along the edges' of the grass-grown spurs until they show like lines of soft green light.' Seeing this, I condone the .vandalism of .the piotieer?. ......... A. lady in a green cloak walked the street. She had dressed herself with • a proper care for offect; A navvy with ■ a very: large Ted;beard overtook, her. To •me, passing, red beard and green cloak iapppared fot« r an, instant as ,an artistic •whole, picjuarit 'and notf unplcasin^.' The Ftudied costume, product of many skilledfingers and.busy- brains, counted for. no more than tho hairy tangle which had merely been allowed io grow. '

A butcher's boy, ono' fine morning, put on a brand-new, coat of ftartlinp bine aurl. flrnve. alon!» ;Thorndon Quay. -I saw, hi l ! hack two hundred yards away,, and that little human spot of -colour in the vista of the irregular shadow-crossed street, though I know, not what association of ideas, transported tho whole scone,, in a twinkling of dear illusion, to an old, nameless, half-foreign city' where something romantic.-was about to happen. ■ Tbat trick' of individual fantasy .was not, .1 -think,. unaffected by those unseen energies which, in all our work and play, net with ,us to make,beauty, where'we, perhaps,. intended,' something- else. .. Thou canst not wavo thy staff in- air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it, carves tho. bow. of beauty thero • And tho ripples in rhymes the oar forsake. Build a plain brick wall. Ljave it, ind come back after raaiiy years. Grass has grown about its foot, and little plants in .its crevices.. Grey patches,of dwarf lichen and green cushions of to it. The uniform ' crude .red of the bricks themselves has.been variously niellowed. The harsh lines and angles are modified-as'to become almost graceAnd the purpose of it all? 'let a poet answer: - - Beauty, the vision whereunto, with pahtings, from afar, , inrough. sound and odour,, form and hue And mind and clay, and worm and star,' A'S?'.] Aching goal, now backward hurled ■ lojls the indomitable world. ''