THE CHARM OF NATURE

Hokitika Guardian, 4 June 1930, Page 2

THE CHARM OF NATURE

It is possible to go to an historic old place and find its bare truth in the hard outline of tower and rock hut it is possible also to find an inner'expression. the verv soul, and to learn that

: t lias a realism which turdies a deeper consrion. mess. The historian records facts a"d the poet adds the gleam, tlm one beholding the work of time and the man and the other sensing on influence and a wiaardly, the one keeps our feet firm upon solid ground and the other lifts us to the clouds. Therein do we fi?ul ilie charms of green vales and sweeping uplands, by rid op and fell and gorge, by lake and hill, bv sleonv woodlands and silent glades and by rivers to whose falls melodious birds sing madrigals.’ This clia'an constitutes the ‘true realism,’ and brings with it a subtle, elusive, inexplicable somethin'?—on emanation, an ossoci.at ion. a haunting memory—which we team genius huh nr the spirit of place. It reveals to us, as it were, the dryad in the grove o.nd the naiad in tin' stream : we hear the horns of elHaiul lointly blowing, and imagine a flesh of fairv-wiws amid the leaves.”— Vp . Cuming Walters in his hook “The Charm of banco.dure.”