Social Moods.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 422, 26 May 1904, Page 2

Social Moods.

£( ;TO BE COEBEGT. j ;.\, *1 ' i. ■ • ■ < .'gj^^H^THE^.it is my fault or mis-. 'jSfflffi^-fortune,'l don't know; but I kave never bees able to undo* Btand the Scotch use 08 'Bhall' and •will." I am merely English, and it seems to me reasonable to say ' I Bhall (meaning the future) be delighted to help you.' If I ha"d not beem referring to the future I ehonld have said * I am delighted to help yon.' But under no circumstances would it have occurred to me to say*"' I will be delighted to help you.' Like you ' I shall be glad to hear—or rather see—next month what you have to say to this/ Of course you have heard of the story (at the Scotchman's expense) of the Scot who when drowning cried out ' I will drown, nobody shall save me.'. Is this an exaggeration of the Scotch method P Please enlighten me.

Ton object to the sentence 'Nobody knows but you and I.* If you observe carefully you will bcs I was trying to distinguish—perhaps rather too subtly—between the use of 'l' and 'me' in connecwith 'but.' It is generally a help, I think, to put is the words which are understood but not expressed Eos instance in the sentence ' Nobody knows but yoa and I,' it really means * Nobody knows but you know and I know.' This clearly proves that 'me' would be wrong, because we could not say ' Nobody knows but you know and me knows. This method holds good too in 'Who was. there?' 'Nobody but I.' It would be correct to say ' Nobody but I was there,' we can't say 'me was there. But is 'Whom did he see P' 'Nobody but me.' 'Me' must be right because we can't say ■he saw nobody but I'; we can't say 'he Baw I.' Have I made this any clearer P

You ask me for a few words on the use of 'were' and 'was.' 'Was' is the singular, •were* the plural. - For instance 'was' is used with I, thou, and he, she, or it; and 'were' with we, ye or you, sad they. Is this clear P

■Woman' is a difficult subject to attack ob half a sheet of paper, but apait from this you don't use the words in their right 860895. Ycm begin with ' Woman is made up of love.' Now, she isn't. She is made up o.f etc., etc. You might have s%id ' Woman's chief quality .is Love,' for it is certainly not her only .Quality. Let me quote you what an old • Hiido'o writer has said about the qualities of ' Woman,' and then you will see how you fait short of imagination, style, and thought. : * ''ln the beginning, when Twashtri came to the creation of woman, he found /that he had exhausted his materials in the making of man, and that no solid elements were left. In this dilemma, after profound meditation, he did as follows : He took the rotundity of the moon, and the curves of creepers, and the clinging of tendrils,, and the trembling of grass, and the slenderness of the reed, and the bloom of flowers, and the lightness of leaves, and the tapering of the elephant's trunk, and the glances of deer, 'and the clustering of rows of bees, and the joyous gaiety of sunbeams, and the weeping of clouds, and the fickleness of the winds, and the timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the peacock, and the softness of the parrot's bosom, and the hardness of adamant, and the sweetness of honey, and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of fire, and the coldness of snow, and tne chattering of jays, and the cooing of the cuckoo, and the hypocrisy of the crane, and the fidelity of the drake; and compounding all these together, be made woman, and gave h'er to man. But after one week man came to him and said: 'Lord, this creature that you have given me makes my life miserable. She chatters incessantly, and teases me beyond endurance, never leaving me alose; and she requires incessant attention, and takes all my time up, and cries about nothing, and is always idle : and so I have come to give her back again, as I cannot live with her.' So Twashbri said: 'Very well' 5 and took her back. Then, after another week, man came agaia to him, and said: ' Lord, I find that my life is very lonely since I gave you back that creature. I remember how she used to dance and sing to me, and look at me out of the cerner of her eye, and play with me, and cling to me; and her laughter was music, and she was beautiful to look at, and soft to touch; so give her back to me again.' So Twashtri said: 'Very well'; and gave her back again. Then, after only three days, man came back to him again, and said: * Lord, I know not how it is; but after all, I have come to the conclusion that she is more of a trouble than a pleasure to me ; so please" tale her back again.' But Twashtri. said: 'Out on you!' Be off ! I will have no more of this. You must manage"how you can.' Then man said: ' But'l cannot live with her.' And Twashtri replied: 'Neither can you live without ,her.' And he turned his back on man and went on with hia work. Then man said: ' What is to be done P for I cannot lire either with or without her.'

Another example of incorrect wording is ' Her sweetness lifts the cloud from his brow.' Now 'Bweßtneßß' does not 'lift' anything/ 'Sweetness' may cause the cloud to he lifted, bat in itself it lifts nothing. ■ All these things have to be thought out carefully. Tou put the following in quotation mirks, 'Far and from the uttermost coast is the price of fcer.'