SPRING!

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 771, 18 September 1929, Page 8

SPRING!

r pODAY being the anniversary o£ Se tember IS. 1763. it is undoubted]* appropriate that I should write abor, spring. This. I think, is a fairly safe begin, ning. Should anyone actually reriem! ber September IS. 1763. and be saf ticiently meau-souled and ntetuoroi bolised as to write to the papers con tradieting me. I shall simply tell him" that, be is a miserable old man and that I hate him just as much as ],e hates me. It's only his word, against mine. In any case, supposing Id o admit that I haven't the faintest idea what happened on September IS, 175* I can't see that it's any good reason why I shouldn't write about spring i £ 1 want to. So there. Spring, j Competent observers declare tha' spring is here. At least, that fellow in the tram this morning did. And I’ve never had cause to doubt the veracity of any of his statements except that one about the old lady and ;h e !archdeacon. The usual thing at this time of L h* j year is for someone to write to the papers saying that the first primrose ; had been found. 1 have often won-

derecl at this. If they have found it* why don't they shut up and keep the thing? The next time that someone does this I shall write and claim it. Only then 1 suppose they'd expect a reward. “Springtime," says a physician, "is the time for us to try and let ourselves go.” Excellent, but suppose we're doing six months for maltreating a canary or a politician or something

L*T co * And then £iare are the wild flowers. They can’t let* thwm selves go. Perhaps that’s why they’re wild. Sam said he trod on a Crocus once, and it was wild as anything. But then. Sam thinks that a Crocus is a kind of frog. “Soak in the spring sunlight,” says the doctor. “Absorb the violet rays.” Sam says that he tried this only yesterday. He waited all day for the sunlight, and then found that he'd forgotten to bring a violet. Sam says that in any case he’d have preferred the rays from a spring onion. “Get out in the air.” says the medical enthusiast. “Frivol and stretch yourself. Blow the dust from your eyes, the grit from between your teeth, the soot and streptococci from your lungs and larynx.” Sam says that he was able to blow a fair amount of grit from between his teeth and by squinting downwards and carefully parting his moustache, he even managed to blow into his left eye. Being delicate-minded, he disregarded the part about the soot and streptococci, but when he started to frivol and stretch himself, it took him half an hour to explain to the policeman what he was doing, and another half an hour for the policeman to break the traffic block and get it moving again. Spring has many things to answer for. This article is one of them. Among others may be mentioned spring poets. Quite respectable people suddenly go berserk and write poems about daffodils and lambs ami sunbeams and love. They’re sorry af'er* wards, but it’s too late then. . . . All of which just goes to show you. As W. Shakespeare wrote for was it Dean Inge?): Tfrre's to the gloriovs time of i/*~ar When birds nrr on the icing And hisrets from their holes pnp out. And spring mui spring and. Spring. “What is it. mother?” “Spring, my child!”