POETICAL LAWYER'S CLERK.

Waikato Times, Volume 2656, Issue 2656, 20 July 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

POETICAL LAWYER'S CLERK.

From a letter of application for employineut ndflreMMid lo ft Dunedin firm of solicitors lam permitted lo make the truly elegant extracts given below. The applicant dates his letter from Sydney, where, as lie sets forth in detail, ho has had five billets in the space of two years and a half. At the New South Wales Savings Bank ho was required to " wo;k all day long without food," the exigim'ies of the service not oven permitting even a midday sandwich, it would seem : —so he left it, he says —" the strain being rather too much for my constitution." Ho now yearns for employment in New / .'aland " as its climate is more conducive to vigorous health and does not tax the energies half so much as the climate of New South Wales.' Then, without further prelude, ho launches into the following astonishing poetic flight I have proved that it is quite possible to be cloyed with sunshine. Tho metallic glare of a too bright sun may become intolerable to eyes that first opened on less bright but more expressive skies, and have grown familiar with the changeful mood of climes that possess far wider range of delicate gradations and subtler chances of colour. It

is not easy to find mental sustenance or inspiration in a clime where all is fortis. simo or pianissimo, without delicate shading of half tone—a limited gamut with many chords left out, and those mostly that have the power to chasten or subdue, or to move as with a touch of fire. This climate is unchanging as enduring. Autumn lays no fiery finger on the leaves ; winter passes on the other side with averted gaze ; the winds of departing spriiior scatter no showers of white blossoms like drifted snow ; and crowned summer is merely a cruel despot who wields a fiery sceptre. . . The evervarying phenomena of a greyer clime, full of the frequent raincloud and the yellow leaf, the tender influence of poetic twilight and dewy eve—both unknown here—cannot be foregone without artistic loss, and a climate devoid of them tends to harden tha perceptions and impair the sensibility to many of the more delicate qualities of the northern temperament." A good ollice style for a lawyer's clerk, is it not ? A "shorthand writer" he calls himself. His hand may be i-hort but his

sentiments are loni; ; much about tho " mighty ravishment of spring" " the pathos of fading autumn," and " the shifting incidents of this our life" I have been compelled to omit. His letter is printed in the nebulous and ghostly characters of the typewriter, which machine, along with its poetic temperament and artistic sympathies, ho proposes to place at his employer's service, " thereby saving you unnecessary expense." But it would bo cruel to cage such a skylark in a lawyer's ollice. Does no member of Parliament want a private secretary to write his speeches ? Is there any thought of appointing a stipendiary poet to tho Exhibition ? Failing these chances I cm hardly recommend this child of Nature to migrate to what lie calls ■' the bracing and tempestuous climate of tho far South."