The Jeweller's Window

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30739, 1 May 1965, Page 5

The Jeweller's Window

IN THE DARK

(Specialli/ written for “The

Press” by

ARNOLD WALL)

“ft E -BARBARISA- *• TION,” invented by Herbert Spencer, the great Victorian philosopher, never caught on and is not included in ordinary dictionaries. Writing in 1902, while the Boer War was still in progress, he drew attention to the tendency for civilisation, as represented in England, to relapse into barbarism. As he expresses it, “there has been going on during the last 50 years a recrudescence of barbaric ambitions, ideas and sentiments and an increasing culture of bloodthirst.” Before trying to put his reasons for this belief into a nutshell (no easy task) let me say that 1 think he was right in the main, but not in some of the details. Well, his reasons may be

summed up in these few words: militarism rampant, the jingo verses of Kipling; officers’ training corps in schools; bloodthirsty military idiom of Salvation Army; exaltation of brute force in athleticism; inordinate amount of space devoted to “sport" in the press especially to that “most brutalising of sports—football”; the revival of pugilism; the process of re-barbarisation aided by literature, journalism and art: popularity of war books. Jane’s “Fighting Ships” etc; honours given for physical prowess: entailment of individual liberty in politics, especially as exemplified in the United States: “boss" system not yet so far developed in England.

How far are these comments seen to be justified by the events of the last 60 years? Well, obviously the two world wars, which Spencer could not possibly foresee, would tend to excuse or to justify the militarism of the late Victorians.

The bloodthirsty idiom of the Salvation Army does not seem quite so primitive and vulgar when we consider the admirable social work done by this body, which, again, Spencer could not foresee. The undue emphasis on sports and sportsmen is even more remarkable now than in Spencer’s time. It shocked him to read of thousands looking on at football and cricket matches; what would he think now?

New symptoms of decay in national character have appeared since 1902, clear signs of the trend towards barbarism.

I need only mention the torrents of bawdy fiction going into Britain from the United States; the output of similar books in Britain on a smaller scale; the advent of strip-tease shows —the term itself damns our “civilisation”; the tentative “topless” venture; the “yellow press”: the “loss of face” by all religions and the increasing general laxity of morals and manners. I asked an eminent Australian geneticist if he did not think that we are heading for a new Dark Age. He replied: “We are in it now.” Choose How I have been asked more than once to explain the curious Yorkshire expression “choose how.” I can illustrate its use by two quotations from a novel by Phyllis Bentley. A mill-owner, after viewing a machine offered to him for sale, says, “I think I shall buy it, choose how.” An employee hurrying to work while feeling very ill, says, “I shall be late now, choose how.” The meaning is, you see, much the same as with “anyhow.” But this is not at all clear to the reader or hearer from any other district. Now, generally, when an expression of this kind is used, it is possible to see at once how the words can be used in that idiomatic way. For instance, “he told me straight out” is perfectly clear, so is “he succeeded first go off.” You understand the words and you perceive how they can be used in that way. But, iii the case of "choose 'how” you don’t do either unless you are a Yorkshireman. I do find it hard to see exactly how “choose,” in this idiom, comes to be used for “any”; I suppose “any” may be thought to imply choice. "You may take any one you like”; “have you any preference?” That is as clear an explanation as I can offer. Though I come of Yorkshire and Derbyshire stock I have never lived long in the north of England and the local speech is only known through the conversation of various relations at odd times, so this is the best I can do “choose how." Wimborne There are places in which you seem to breathe the real air of antiquity: the crypt of Durham Cathedral with the tomb of the Venerable Bede, the tomb of the Emperor Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle for instance. One of these is Wimborne Minster in Dorset where some of the West-Saxon kings lie. I have vivid memories of this little sanctuary which I visited in 1892 or thereabouts on a clear cold winter’s day.

Apart from the feel of great and venerable age. I was deeply interested in two things there. The first was the array of ancient folios chained to the shelves in the library as in other old cathedrals and monastic libraries. The other was the little accident which befell one of these volumes and the way in which the damage was made good. Matthew Prior (1664-1721), a famous writer of light verse in his time, was bom and bred in Wimborne. When quite young he was reading one of the great folios of the Bible by candle light. He dozed off, the candle fell on the page and before he could do anything to help it had burnt roundish holes in the pages each one a little smaller than the one above it through several pages. He set to work with great skill and patience, cut pieces of paper to fit the successive holes, gummed them into place and then, from a copy of the Bible, filled in the text on both sides of the paper with a close imitation of the old print so that the amendment was hardly perceptible. There was a good conscientious young man, but history does not tell whether he did this work voluntarily and willingly or was bullied into it by an irate librarian. It is exactly 300 years since Prior’s birth so that his handiwork has stood the test of time.