THE FICTION OF THE SIMPLE LIFE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10011, 6 April 1910, Page 4

THE FICTION OF THE SIMPLE LIFE.

Dissatisfaction with the existing; society.or customs or mode of life in which their lot is cast leads many persons to desire some change which seems ideal in prospect, but does not always come up to epectation. Restless or imaginative natures, bored by a life of dull routine and prosaic comfort, or by the conventionalities of society, long to escape for a time to idyllic simplicity and freedom. The sated diner-out tries the "simple life" in a country cottage, or hires a gipsy van and becorr.es for the nonce a nomad, striking bis tent each morning, and pitching it each night where vagrant fancy leads him. The rich man escapes from his vast and burdensome establishment, and the never-ending round of political or social engagements, to lead the life of primitive man as a hunter of big game or explorer of new ground in distant corner of the earth; while he of humbler means packs a scanty kit upon a bicycle, or in the stern of a rowing boat, u * \ wanders about his native land free and happy for the time. The desire for change and escape from normal routine drives them afield until the reaction comes and the charms of the domestic hearth and of settled life reassert them- J < selves, as with 99 out of 100 is sure to be the case. Now and then, it is true, we hear of some exceptional individual who, in the spirit of the early Christian hermits, prefers permanent isolation from the world and the solitude of his own thoughts. But such persons are out of harmoiiy with their time; they, are oddities or cranks, and few of those who in prose or poetry proe-laim the charms of the simple life will accept it as a permanent solution of the problems ' of existence. For very rarely is such a departure from the habits and custo . s of v-rdinary life found to be in 11

jractice quite all lhat fancy painted j it. The "flaunting town" has at- j tractions which the country lacks; j and among the causes of that town- j wards migration which is depleting 1 the countryside not only of the (a- j bouring class, but of many above ! them whose means are limited, may perhaps be reckoned a gradual disillusionment with traditional con- | ceptions of the simple country life, and of its innate superiority to that of th ' town. We ket p those deals of sirv/pKcity; we cannot, in an age of evii-i.icreasiug hu.ry and luxury aft'orJ to part with them But they are becoming, we must admi\ more and more fictitious, out of harmony with trie inevitable tendencies of twentieth century life.