IN THE OPEN AIR.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXX, Issue 11132, 15 February 1930, Page 9

IN THE OPEN AIR.

WHAT A JOY IT IS! (Specially written for the Gisborne Times by Frederick Stubbs, ‘ F.R.G.S.) “Just to bo out-of-doors, so still, so green 1 With unbreatlied a : r. illimitable, clean ; With soft, sweet scent of happy growing things, The leaves soft Jluttcr, sound ol sudden wings. The far faint hills, the water wide be t ween.” Yes, just to be out-of-doors, in any decent- kind of weather; in the open air, with nothing between us and the sky, with no walls around to obstruct our vision or intercept the warm rays of the. sun and the cool, refreshing breeze: the sweet sights and sounds of Nature all around us. What a joy it is! At this season of the year thousands of citydwellers are making for the country or the seaside. How good it is to feel the soft winds caressing your cheek; to listen to the gentle murmuring of the brook; to watch the white waves as the toss and break upon the shorq; to pass along a path scented wtili orange blossom, or to walk through a grove of eucalyptus trees; to sit beneath tho spreading branches of a tree and listen to the song of birds. When I lived in New Zealand I delighted to take a wall: in the fields when the gorse was in bloom. How beauiful it is, lion sweet its perfume! I recognise that most of it must be destroyed to make room for human food, but leave a hedge-row of it here and there to brighten and sweeten the country. It makes a good hedge, and when fully grown a useful firewood. In the garden of my English home I "had about an eighth of an acre of golden daffodils, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Many years have passed j since then, but still occasionally, as j with Wordsworth— I

“They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude: And then my heart witn pleasure fills And dances with the d.iffjdils.” MOUNTAIN ALT. Very different- are tlm sights and sounds of the mountains. Of sounds, indeed, there are few except flic occasional thunder of an avalanche as it- descends into the valley. Bui the sights! The vast walls of rock: the myriad acres of dazzling white; the snowy peaks piercing the very heavens and not infrequently appearing far beyond the clouds. And on the lower slopes a wilderness of w:M flowers! And tho mountain air! What invigoration ! It has often been likened to a draught of champagne. I think it better, .as its effects are certainly more lasting than that agreeable hut expensive stimulant. In my youth—not now, I am sorry to say— I have been so intoxicated with the stimulating qualities of mountain air that I simply could not walk, hut had to leap and run in an ecstasy of physical delight and exuberant well-being. T remember a Scottish writer—-I think it was Hugh Miller—narrating a similar experience. I am afraid it is not often experienced in the confined air and dust of cities, but the climber knows it, so does the swimmer. CITY LIFE. Speaking ot cities, it is no doubt owing to the fact that most ot us are shut up during many hours between four walls, that makes the open air so sweet, fust as the fact of sickness makes the blessing of health to he appreciated. 1 put it paradoxically, but if there were no misery in the world, would there he so much happiness? And even when we might he out iu the fresh air, many of us voluntarily shut ourselves up in stuffy rooms packed with perspiring humanity, pervaded by unpleasant odours, all breathing our earboiiiu acid and other noxious gases. Bali! How much better the, open air! NECESSARY TO HEALTH. Perfect health needs constant contact with: the wind and tins rain, the sun and the sea. It is the out-door life that creates physical vigour and courage. The saying of the Duke of Wellington that the battle of Waterloo was avoii -on tliei cricket fields of Eton Is largely though not wholly true, for most of lii.s brave men bad never even heard of Eton and seldom had time to play a. game-of cricket. But they had at least lived and worked in the open air. - Members of the City Imperial Volunteers on their return from the Great. War declared that the return to London soon reduced the sense - of physical- vigour they had acquired by the most comfortless country life in the world. It is well known that Agriculture is the healthiest of occupations. • Open-air life tires tlie body , but does not exhaust the nervous -system. ■ That dread disease tuberculosis is cured by living tuglit and- day- in the fresh air. ■ • •

“God of the open ..air, these are the things I prize - . Shadows *of. clouds that SAviftly ■ pass,. And .after .showers.- ..-••• Tlie smell of flowers

And of the good brown "earth,. And host, of ally along the way s friendship and mirth.”