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Beautiful Wellington

Who among the multitudes treading day by day the streets of Wellington, descending horrific slopes into its flowing bowl, converging; upon its golden centre from a fringe of green suburbs—who doing these unique and awful things pauses amidst the rapture of his pursuits and ponders upon the beauty and the blessing of living in this our Capital City? Few indeed. Not even I. It is during some depressing interruption, in the examination chamber, on the carpet of some juvenile Departmental head, in the course of a desperate introspection in the Psych. Lab., when one feels "a weight of awe not easy to be borne," that one's soul comes to a realisation of the poetry of its environment. Perhaps it even flows into the poetic grooves made familiar to us by the "School Journal"* and apostrophises right and left; to the harbour saying—

"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!" or to the hills—
"Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again.
I hold to you the hands you first beheld
To show they still are free. . . ."

or to the smoky congestion of hovel* and hospice,* tavern* and tabernacle,* bank* and beauty-parlour*—

"Be thankful, thou; for, if unholy deeds
Ravage the world, tranquillity is here!"

Perhaps, and it is more likely, one's work-worn soul is not stirred to such depths.

But oh, wondrous city, whose stucco and roof-iron* and worm worried timbers cannot mar the surroundings never constructed by human architect or dim the colours never compounded of the pigments of commerce! Barrier after barrier of deepened blue or vivid green—snowtops rosy-pink in the evening sun!—waters that change like a maiden's mind, sparkle like a poet's eye, toss like the fortunes of men, lie placid as the feathers of a dove, or flicker like the movies!* Bead after bead in the rosary of beauty, line upon line of loveliness—the mere enumeration of which would merit one hundred per cent, in a Matriculation* essay! Must we be compelled to stop looking around us, before we discover what is there?

Stand in the path of the moonlight on the surface of that glimmering sea on some calm evening and gaze at the hill and harbour lights. Can anything to equal it be seen elsewhere—unless one goes to see? The soul cannot suffer it Without a camera.* The press cannot find sufficient space for the laudations of admiring strangers. But raise your eyes upwards, admiring stranger, and behold between the sea and the stars the lights of the great educational institution* which slumbers peacefully among the habitations of such as can pay appropriate rentals.*

Now amble around the crescent pay where lovers stroll and democracy laves itself. Through the intervening ridges may be seen, blinking from afar through magic casements, the dream palace of Salamanca, home of the happy folk who gild their lives with learning and curl their lips in scorn at gold when it is referred to as "auro." On a height behind and again beyond may be seen page 40 the brothers wireless, the elder, black with age, telling plain things to mariners about craft adjacent; the younger, born only yesterday, telling mysteries things to the marines about craft everywhere; past and present staring across the ether, the yardarm and the aerial. From both vantage points a thrilling view may be obtained of Victoria College.*

An impressive glimpse of this great educational institution may also be obtained from a point midway, which would be somewhere about Courtenay Place.* Now in Courtenay Place is located the Ford depot, where a beautiful new five-seater may be purchased for £78 down and £9 a month for 12 months,* which makes up the total price of £178 plus the wages of waiting. The beauty of this arrangement is that at the end of the 12 months a non-purchaser may purchase from the purchaser for the £78 down alone. Thick as the leaves in Vallombrosa is the Ford in Wellington, thus bringing the enterprising visitor within the immediate vicinity of the great place of learning to which I have already faintly alluded.

Who shall tell of the beauties of Victoria College? Fain would I, but space forbids. One must attend lectures to see them, and Extravaganzas, and social teas, andcetera. Most beautiful of all are its dreams, for it gazes upon Wellington—without awaking.