Write a critical appreciation on essay The Hyacinth Fields by Helen Waddell
Answers
Answer:
"Nations are affected with physical
and with mental maladies, and if it be
difficult, not to say impossible, to fore-
tell the duration of an epidemic, how
much more impracticable it is to calcu-
late how long a cherished delusion, which
favours a prejudice or an interest, may
be obstinately maintained! We begin,
however, to hope that the illusive pro-
mises of bettering the condition of agri-
culture (meaning thereby to fill the poc-
kets of those connected with land) by
the aid of protecting duties, legislative
provisions and other fictitious expedi-
ents, are rapidly passing away. And it
is singular that they will be most obliter-
ated by the very means taken to prolong
their existence, namely, by the inquiries
instituted in Parliament, for the express
(though not expressed) purpose of creat-
ing artificially high prices, or obtaining
advantages incompatible with the con-
dition and claims of the other orders of
society."
Who wrote the foregoing? A high pro-
tectionist interested in Australian sec-
ondary industry and anxious to defeat
the efforts of the Premiers and wheat-
growers to secure a substantial bonus on
world parity paid from consolidated
revenues? No, it is taken from the "New
Monthly Magazine and Humorist," edited
by "Theodore Hook, Esq.," and published
in 1837.
History has a way of repeating itself
and there have been many variations—
ups and downs—in wheat prices in the
last hundred years. There may possibly
be a return to high prices.
Had I been wounded by aspersions by
an anonymous correspondent signing
himself "Sensible," who dislikes my views
on alcoholic liquor, my mail this week
would have provided balm in plenty. I
was not wounded, but some of the balm
may make amusing reading.
"Anecdotist" writes:—"Dear 'Philos':
That long-drawn mixture of personal
panegyric and dogmatic criticism made
by 'Sensible' (sic) and published in your
column on August 11 amused me con-
siderably. Being a reasonable lover of
beer myself I have always been very much
with you in your gentle censure of beer-
less bigots. To 'Sensible' I would point
out this passage from a brilliant essay
written by Helen Waddell and entitled
'The Hyacinth Fields' and published as
far back as 1918:
Liu Ling, to whom, peaceably
drinking in his pavilion, two neighbours
came to reason of temperance and
judgment; whereupon Liu Ling, hav-
ing provided himself with a fresh
flagon, sat down, and by alternately
sipping and stroking his beard, lulled
himself into that state when, as he
said himself, "eternity seems but a single
Day." So he sat—for Liu Ling has a
pleasant habit of referring to himself as
"an elderly gentleman of my acquaint-
ance"—his ears were beyond the reach
of thunder; he could not have seen a
mountain. Heat and cold existed for
him no more. He knew not even the
workings of his own mind. To him the
affairs of this world appeared but as
if so much duckweed in a river, while the
two philanthropists agitated at his side
like two wasps trying to convert a
a caterpillar.