WHERE NEW ZEALANDERS DIFFER

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 339, 21 January 1937, Page 2

WHERE NEW ZEALANDERS DIFFER

CONTRAST WITH OLD-WORLD ENGLAND. BEAUTY OF NATURE COMPENSATES FOR THAT OF ARTS.

English boys, born in beautiful houses and growing up with old pictures and furniture about them, cannot realise the sensations of a New Zealander in his twenties, coming to England for the first time from the raw countries of the south, writes Hector Bolitho, in his "Older People.” Fine Houses.” There are few fine horses in New Zealand and little furniture which is not merely adequate and gimcrack. The landscape is as beautiful as any in the world and its contrasts are exciting. Oranges, peaches and sweet grapes ripen in the valleys of the northern island at the same time as the impish school boys at the south are making snow-men on the slopes of the hills. Some of the farm land is gentle and subdued as Sussex, with some fences and pools of wild poppies in the hollows. But there are mountains rising 9000 feet from the undulating plains, with flame and lava in their throats. Trees are abundant. The hills are gay with broom and honeysuckle and the wild orchids and ferns make a carpet beneath the silent arches of the forest. There is so much beauty that few New Zealanders have any wish to turn from the hills and valleys to find pleasure in pictures, sculpture, music and architecture. Aesthetic Adventures. The people of the new country,

with their active, everyday life, have no great need for aesthetic adventures. An art gallery, a literary society and a lending library satisfy any craving for “the quiet air of delightful studies” which may be stirred when the work ot the day Is ended. Sometimes, however, there is a changeling in the brood. A shy brat is thrown upon the little, matter-of-fact world, to grow up wondering why he does not fit into the colonial mosaic. The English boy may ’ sit beside Tennyson and see: Across my garden! and the thicket stirs, The foundation pulses high in sunnier jets, The blackcap warbles, and the turtle purrs, iThe starling claps' his tiny castanets. Still round her forehead wheels the woodland dove And scatters on her throat the sparks ot dew, Broaden the glowing isles of vernal blue. For the colonial youngster who has not yet come to England, the poets . and painters have lived in a world ot which he may do no more than dream. He is confused when he looks out toward the colonial sawmills and the butter factories, trying to obliterate them and to imagine the English scene. He is not allowed to know Constable’s London from

Hampstead Heath, nor the statue ot Charles the First in Trafalgar Square, nor the stateliness and elegance of great country houses, like Blickling and Petworth. . . . When the awkward colonial does comes to England, after years of frusttation and hunger, his sensations and delight are something of which the English boy may not even be allowed to dream. No Regrets. ' If I could live my life over again. I would not demand many changes from what has already happened to me. I would not change the plan which kept me away from England j for so long, because, coining home in | my twenties, I have not failed to look upon almost every day I have lived here as a privilege I barely deserve.