Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 168, 6 October 1927, Page 5

Mundane Musings

Occasional Showers

I had retired upstairs, not because I liked upstairs but simply to avoid the horrors of, a lounge full of disgruntled holiday-makers. Presently I rang for the Boots, who, I presumed, must be human and better company than the empty promenade. Boots appeared and I adjudged him a Crimean veteran. “Can you play patience?” I asked. “Ain’t got no time, guv-nor,” Boots answered. Then lowering his voice, he added: “Besides, we mustn’t make no noise nor tork too loud.” “Why?” I queried. “ ’Cos of Number 16,” he replied. I reflected that my bedroom number was 17. “Next door’s been took ill,” he went on, “sudden-like.” “Seriously?” I asked. “Flickerin’,” he replied, “just flickerin’. Is there anything else, sir?” I said there was nothing else, and Boots withdrew, leaving me to reflect upon the shortness of the human span and the sudden illness of one who might be man, woman or child, venerable patriarch or young and happy bride. My mind darkened as some passages from Elgar’s “Dream” and Strauss’s “Death and Transfiguration” came across it. I went out on the balcony again, and the promenade seemed emptier and the sea duller. It was a wet day. Not wet in the unobtrusive, inland way against and for which, moreover, there are precautions and palliatives. In town, for example, one can spend a showery morning at one’s tailor’s inspecting his new line “for the holidays.” Or one can call on one’s bank manager and discuss the spring fashion in overdrafts. (Note that I used the impersonal form; “one,” I said can call). But a wet day at the seaside is something different. The watery continent has lost its sapphire and now contains nothing but water Yesterday a poet might have called it “Neptune’s steel-blue buckler.” (He wouldn’t, but he might.) To-day It is dingy as an unpolished dish-cover. And even at that I must guess, since it is blotted out, blanketed by rain. From the balcony which makes my bedroom look twice as large as it really is, I behold (1) an empty promenade, (2) ditto bandstand, (3) a derelict pier, (4) a waterchute down which nobody is water-chuting. It occurs to me an abandoned pier, once the repair of lovers, should be repaired or removed; to see it rotting, dropping plank by plank into oblivion, is melancholy almost to synicism. This was unbearable, and l nea downstairs again, still avoiding the lounge and taking refuge in what by courtesy is called the writing-room. In one corner was a bookcase. Hero, perhaps, was solace, and of a certainty pabulum. It contained eight volumes and no more. The first volume was the second part of a French-English dictionary compiled by two Americans over a century ago. I did not feel that this suited my need of the moment The next five volumes were copies of Miss Agnes Weston’s “My Life Among the Bluejackets.” But since I know that admirable book almost by heart, even five copies of it availed me little. I have, I fear, outgrown the sentimental enchantments of “The Opening of a Chestnut Burr.” Last hope was a stout little volume whose binjding and general appearance betokened the ’sixties. It was called “A Casquet of Gems.” I opened it at Eliza Cook’s “Buttercups and Daisies,” and read: And then the only wish I have Is, that the one who raises The turf sod o’er me, plant my grave With buttercups and daisies. The next page brought me to Jane Gilman, an American poetess, whose description of “A Child’s Wish in June” culminated in: I wish, oh, I wish I was yonder cloud That sails about in its misty shroud; Books and work I no more should see, And I’d come and float, dear mother, o’er thee. A third dip in this unlucky bag brought up a poem by Michael Bruce (born 1746, died 1767), of which the last lines were as follow': Far from his friends he strayed recording thus The dear remembrance of his native fields, To cheer the tedious night; while slow disease Prey’d on his pining vitais, and the blasts Of dark December shook - his humble cot. The title of this lugubrious rhyme was “Virtue and Happiness in the Country”! But lam a persistent man and do not give in easily. My fourth attempt to find poetic cheer resulted in: Bone-weary, many-childed, troubletried ! Wife of my bosom, wedded to my soul! Mother of nine that live and two that died! This day drink health from Nature’s mountain bowl. The author I found to be Ebenezer Elliot, and his title “Rural Rambles.” So I decided to chuck poetry -and experiment with a seaside ramble. * * * Hours and hours later I returned, wet through, in the highest spirits, and with a hunter’s thirst for same. Valiantly I rang again for Boots, badehim pull off mine, and order floorwaiters or other valetry to bring such drink as befits a man who has braved spray and spume and squall. Boots did as he was bid, then scratched his head and said: “They’ve took away Number 16.” “Alive or dead?” I asked, indifferently. After all, it was no affair of mine. “ ’Arf and ’art, I should say, sir. But one tiling' is certain,” Boots added emphatically, “Number 16 didn’t leave no tips I” “It is,” I remarked, “an ungenerous world. Cheerio!” ‘ Cheerio, sir,” said Boots, gloomily. Parisian mondaines incline more and more to the choice of one favourite an d fashionable'—colour theme for the whole of their wardrobe. This caprice may not last; but at the moment it is dictating the purchase of some of the smartest toilettes for day, afternoon, and evening wear. A typical example was seen at a dress show this Week, when a wellknown Frenchwoman, whose dress sense is proverbially perfect, made her leit-motif a daffodil-yellow linen jumper frock with an ultra-modish yoke, finely tucked, and white embroidered linen collar and cuffs. This inspired the acquisition of a goldenyellow silk stockinette sports dress, which, in its turn, was followed up by the choice of a yellow taffetas robe-de-style, very picturesque and chic with its elaborately scalloped borders, for evening casino wear. The same idea is translated to the all-green, allmauve, or all-pink wardrobe; lingerie en suite,