Wanganui Chronicle. and TURAKINA & RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. SATURDAY, 11TH JANUARY, 1868.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 816, 11 January 1868, Page 2

Wanganui Chronicle. and TURAKINA & RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. SATURDAY, 11TH JANUARY, 1868.

In Sir James Mackintosh’s Autobiography we find this curious passage :

I well remember that the perusal of Echard’s Roman History led me into a ridiculous habit from which I shall never be totally free I used to fancy myself Emperor of Constantinople. T distributed offices and provinces amongst my schoolfellows. I loaded my favourites with dignity and power ; and I often made the objects of my dislike feel the weight of my resentment I have no doubt that many a man, surrounded by piles of folios, and apparently engaged in the most profound researches, is in reality often employed in distributing the offices and provinces of the Empire of Constantinople. And there is perhaps no better way of knowing a man thoroughly—his virtues and vices—than by listening to him whilst he is devising what he would do if he were So-and-so. When Captain Bobadil detailed the way in which he would decimate an army, there was no mistake about his being a boasting idiot. When Rabelais wished for good cheer, no work, and a total absence of care, there could be small doubt of his pantigruelian philosophy. And when we take a wider range and endeavour to ascertain the real motive power and undercurrent of feeling in a community or a nation, we shall find certain finger-posts and Araainns- ■■■■n-ay, Dy wmch some general idea of what we seek to know may be ascertained.

The age of chivalry, we are told, is gone —down among the dead men, and with it, of course, much of the poetry ot existence has faded into gloom. We decline to accept the doctrine with unquestioning faitli ; indeed we recalcitrate against it most strongly we have am idea that there are yet little bits of heroism enacted in quiet nooks and corners of the world, but as Coleridge was wont to say “that is neither here nor there,” for there is too much truth in Burke’s grand oration, and we are verily “bread and butter rogues.” Chivalry does not pay and simple manners look too much like poverty. Go-a-head, keep up appearances, even if we should smash or shoot Niagara at last.

Now and again people catch themselves dreaming and wondering at old-world things. Cincinnatus at the plough is one of the romantic traits of ancient history. Even George the Third, one of the weakest of British kings, preserved a reputation from utter corruption by his naturalness as a Berkshire country gentleman; but life now-a-days has grown horribly prosaic even in the prettiest and and most pastoral spots; we would milk our cows by machinery if we could, and there is no lilting at our ewemilking ; monotony hangs over us from first to last. Profit and loss reign supreme, and banish every less monetary or tangible consideration. Wood nymphs that haunted the forest glades and might yet haunt our bush, for it is dense enough, have their revelries broken in upon by the saws and axes of advancing colonisation, which might have a wealth of poetry in it, if we could only see it : this making of the wilderness vocal with human speech and song is grand. But the genius of solitary spots is startled from his repose by the cooey of the settler and the low of cattle ; the labourer plods home in the twilight without a thought of the supernatural. Nature has been disenchanted, and our views about her, if more literally accurate, are confessedly far less interesting and picturesque. What is to be done ? Why, make the best of what remains to us. We should say, but we can only say it under protect, Don’t entirely believe those who tell you all this—who are continually talking of life as being of a commonplace character. It may be so, but not necessarily. We can “make our lives sublime.”