"HERE'S TO LIFE"
Sir,-Your reviewer’s comments on Mr. H. Hayward’s book, Here’s to Life, are unfavourable and from one side. May I be permitted to offer comments that are favourable and from the other side? I am not a Rationalist as Mr. Hayward is, but am a Roman Catholic. But we are mutual friends and Nature lovers. "Nature calls me and consoles" me, just as it does him. After reading his book, I wrote to Mr. Hayward to say how impressed I was and edified-and that I should like to write my own autobiography in similar vein. I can assure Mr. Hayward that he has no reason to apologise for his "disordered thoughts" and for their "almost incredible lack of arrangement." to use the
reviewer's expressions concerning them. Nature, in her methods, exhibits the same disorder and lack of arrangement. There are no straight lines-a hill here, a valley there — and beyond, a plain with a river wriggling along and scattered among them, are trees, flowers, birds and beasts and so forth. Yet all this disordered variety blends together to form a harmonious whole that delights the nature lover. So it is with Mr. Hayward’s book. The great variety of the episodes therein related, and their very detachment and disorderliness, constitute the charm of the book, and give an insight into the character and individuality of Mr., Hayward himself, and make his book a true autobiography. Is not variety the spice of life? A biography, written by some distinguished author, even if he knew Mr. Hayward well, would be, so to speak, "second-hahd," for it would lack the per-
sonal touch.-
THOMAS A. F.
STONE.
B.E., A.M.I.M.E. (Auckland),
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19450223.2.13.6
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 296, 23 February 1945, Page 5
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278"HERE'S TO LIFE" New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 296, 23 February 1945, Page 5
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