Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1925)

18 Picture s and Pictvrep oer JANUARY 1925 Klimnfe <J&T W.-A.miJicsjiisort c Profundis — Out of the Depths — that labels my case all right. For I was dead, till I learned to live, and blind till f got my sight. A humble, simple, ord'nary man like hundreds of others you see Turning Life's treadmill and moaning complaint : " Nothing ever happens to me !" Nothing did. Romance knew me not, and adventure passed me by Born in a rut to live in a rut, I guessed in .a rut I'd die. The same old round in the same old way treading the same old trail I'd have sold my soul to escape the grind, but I hadn't a soul for sale. No soul of my own. I was roped and I tied like a steer on branding-day. Slave of routine I carried on in the same old footling way. The same old office, the same old work with never a change of scene, To town each day on the eight-eleven, and home on the six-fifteen. me. I & Recreations? No good to knew for I'd tried all sorts. I wanted taking out of myself, and who gives a hang for sports? Back of my mind I'd a fixed idea, a glimmering dream of Romance, That though my life was a dreary death I could live if I got the chance. But nothing happened. I never knew the madness of clinging lips, Nor the ocean lure that brings a vision of down to the sea in ships. The call of the open spaces came to others but not to me, And never a novel could guide my steps to the slopes of Arcady. But who can fathom the riddle Life, or the way that Fortune works? I have found the way to my land of dreams where the Unexpected lurks. I have dodged the clutch of the Commonplace, I have slipped through the Magic Door, I have purchased a passport to Fairyland— and the price was two-andfour ! A red-plush seat in a darkened hall where a man may sprawl at his ease, Whilst mystic music floats through the gloom like siren melodies. A splash of light on a black-edged screen ; vague, shadowy forms that weave A magic carpet to carry you off to the Isles of Make-Believe. A magic carpet that shows you the world as one long Arabian Night, And makes you Caliph of land and sea — a king in your own free right. Not Selkirk vaunting his majesty or that lonely desert isle, Had half the pride that belongs to me when I bask in the screen's glad smile. Re-incarnation is rot you think? But there's something in it to me. I have trekked and traversed the whole wide world in the wake of a soul set free. I have followed my soul to the glorious goal where Achievement holds the bays The things I have seen will inspire my life to the end of my worldly days. I have braved the horrors of old Cape Horn with a ranting, rollicking crew, On a ship that threatened to go to bits with every wind that blew. I have travelled West with the pioneers on the Trail of 'Forty-nine. I settled the hash of a Kaffir gang in the depths of a diamond mine. I have fought the wiles of a Southern vamp I have won the smiles of a queen, And billed as the " Reason Why Girls Leave Home," in melodrama I've been. I have crossed the Main on a Pirate ship on the track of Treasure Trove I have lived in fantasies stranger far than De Quincy or Poe e'er wove. I have loved and lost. I have loved and won — and passed through my life heart-whole ! Pauper, genius and millionaire — I have figured in every role. I have followed Fortune in Southern Seas, I have bathed in the Blue Lagoon, I have crossed the land of Eternal Ice by the light of a frozen moon. You may sneer at the films, you may jeer at the films, but the screen's my greatest friend, And I know full well that the bond will last till I come to my journey's end There is nothing a man can ask of Life that the screen will fail to give. I'll follow my fate with a smile on my lips Thank God ! I have learned to live ! \y '/ ^Zz \^^K