CASUAL COMMENTS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19202, 7 January 1928, Page 11

CASUAL COMMENTS.

SAPPERS AND INSPIRERS

(SPECIALLY WBITTZH JTOB IHI PBJ9S.)

[By Leo Fanning.]

It is a merry party—the feast of reason, the flow of soul,, and so on. Joy abounds with ripples, peals, and rumbles of laughter, according to the sex, age, and temperament of the happy folk. Suddenly the air is chill and heavy; bright eyes lose their sparkle; buoyancy subsides in limpness. Mr Bromide has intruded—Mr Bromide of the putty-face, the leaden brow, the lack-lustre eye, and thick, sticky speech. He is a sapper—the deadliest of the bore tribe —and he wilts the assembly as quickly as the summer sun frazzles a fallen rose.

* * * A few years ago, before women's hair, jaz-s, wireless, the "sex appeal,' strong drink, and other trifles, caught so much space in the papers, some of the bigger things had a run in print, and among them was tho subject of positives and negatives (inspirers or sappers or sulphides and bromides) in human types. The discussion went far enough to provoke an American to write a book entitled: "Are You «• Bromide?" (which this commentator has not read). This was a polite way of asking: Are you a leaning tower of poison ? Are you two ton of stodge ? Are you tho inhuman embodiment 01 tho deadly nightshade? Are you an incentive to suicide (or murder) in tfi9 other fellow? The sulphide is. of course, the opposite of the bromide.

All humanity is divided into threeparts —the positives, the- negatives, an<l the neutrals. The positives are comparatively few, the negatives are numerous, and the neutrals are the vast majority. The neutral may become occasionally positive or negative, the positive may lapse now and then into negativeness, but tho. born negative can never ho a positive; once a negative, always a negative. The bromide can no moro be a sulphide than a cow can be a professor of psychology—which is well ror tno cow > and well for the world.

AVhat is a sulphide or positive? This is like asking: What is electricity? What is the sap of plants? What is the irresistible force that overcomes an immovable object? The whole of the world's drive in arts and crafts, in peaco and war, in religion, in all forms of virtue and vice, has come, of course, From tho positives. The greatest patriots and the basest traitors .have been positives, whoso numbers include somo truly terrible persons.

"Magnetic personality," "dynamic man," "radiant energy" —these are current expressions of the sulphide idea. The most sulphidic figure that this commentator has seen was tho late General William Booth, at Christchurch, many years ago. How vivid is that memory! ... It is the Victoria Hall, where the assembly of Salvationists (and some curious sinners) is in some awe of that loan, lithe, eagle-eyed, and eagle-beaked worldshaker, whose flaring red jersey reflects the fire of his faith. The singing has lagged while the General is using soitie of his power to convert a rather tough sinner whom one of the bright lasses has failed to win. Suddenly the keen ear is aware of the weakened voicing. The commander requests the sinner to wait a while, and he springs to the front. His own voice rushes like a high-power current through the congregation; his electric arms raise up that body of people as easily as a steam-crane would lift a child. •He is dancing, too; every fibre of him is in action—and through it all, above it all, are the flashing eyes. Yes, the singing regained its volume and intensity—and the General then looked around for the obdurato sinner, but he had merely sneaked away, and was looking on from an obscure place, whence he could easily take to his heels. He knew that if he had stayed for a second round with the General he would have been booked in for a red jersey.

There are mild, medium, and fullstrength sulphides. The world needs the lull-strength types for big business, but they can be vory disturbing to people near them. For ordinary workaday life the mild or medium positive "is enough. He does not assert himself too much; ho docs not drive too hard; he does not overwhelm you with his restless energy.

The ideal sulphide, socially, is one between the mild and the medium — nover tepid, never tame, but never overdoing the radiant effect. This is the sulphide of charm—natural charm, which is as different from the artificial simulation as a camp-fire is from a brilliant painting of a glowing hearth. There is no hope of getting this charm from a brush or a bottle, a stocking or a garter.

The world's tremendous sulphides have been mostly men, but the majority of the mild aud medium grades are women, whose charm continues to inspire humanity. This is the charm which is the saving grace of the world—but, alas, it is not always exercised ior good. Yet that is the way with all things. No manufacturer ever made revolvers or razors for the express purpose of suicide or murder.

This charm may be partly in speech, partly in silence, and partly in what the French call "I know not what." Some charmers may say very Utile, but they look a lot; they are live listeners. * Their mere presence is refreshing, ;i stimulating tonic.

Men sometimes wonder why one of them—a fellow regarded as ugly, as the Apollo standard goos—seems to be a favourite among women. There is no mystery in this to the women. The man is a sulphide; he has charm. Woman is as naturally attracted to the sulphide man as man is to the sulphide woman. It is a case of the needle and the magnet, the scrap of paper and the electrified amber, the bee and the flower, or other similes which the psychologists or psychometrists can suggest.

The old proverb, -'Birds of a feather flock together/' applies to sulphides but not to bromides. Xo bromide will deliberately sock the eompanv of ailother bromide, but clings as*instinctively to a sulphide as the woolly aphis does to the apple-tree. When you see a bromide woman marrying a bromide you know that he is not her first love; far from it. She has tried for many sulphides, but thev have escaped.

Some sulphides are vexingly inconsistent. The basic sulphide nature is always in them, as gold is in a reef, bur i.- not always visible. Such sulphide- are radiant by lits and starts. nicy are like fires of shavings—beautiful ilnres for a few moments, and then ashes. Some of the better sulphides are like log fires and others like the steady glow of lignite.

Plenty of pseudo-sulphides or mockpositives are about. Some person? who are unlovingly termed "verv positive" are merely noisv bromides, illtempered negatives. 6thera, who are not qaerulona, have a fnasy activity