CURRENT EVENTS LEADERS' THOUGHTS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 75, 30 March 1914, Page 10

CURRENT EVENTS LEADERS' THOUGHTS

SPEECHES OF TIIE WEEK. WHAT. IS STYLE? (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 11th February. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Professor of English Literature at Cambridge :—: — "Seeing that in human discourse eu much must ever depend on who speaks and to whom, in what mood, and upon what occasion, and seeing that literature must needs take account ot' all manner of writers, audiences, moods, occasions, I hold it as a sin ayainst the light to put up warnings against any word that comes lo us in the fair way of use and wont, as 'wire,' for instance, for a telegiani, even as suiely as we should warn • iii hybrids of deliberate pedantic impostors, such as 'anti-body' and 'picturodmme.' It is better to err on the &ide of iiherty than on the side of the censor ; since by the manumitting of new words new blood is infused into a tongue of which our first pride should be that it is ilexible, aihe, and capable of responding to new demands. The first and last secrets of a good style consist in thinking with the heart a-s, well as with the liead. To express ourselves is a ve>y small part ot the business as compared with impressing ourselves, the aim of the* whole process being to peisuade, to communicate thoughts or emotions. What am I urging? That stylo- in writ ing is much the same thing as good manners in other human intercourse? Well, why not? 1 am not just advising for your worldly advantage only, but for your artistic salvation. The world, England and Scotland especially, enjoys, demands, pays for preaching. Mr. Hall Came and.- Miss Corelli are preaching, dinning their personalities in volume after volume. Even Stevenson — beloved master—condescended to be the Shorter Catechist in the end, and was popular as 1 who would have knelt to tie Stevenson's shoe latchet am standing here preaching, preaching. So far as Handel stood above Mendelssohn, so far stands the great masculine objective writers above all who appeal to us by sentiment or private emotion. Mention of other great masculine objective writers brings me to my last word : Steep yourselves in them; habitually bring all to the test of them. '' \ THE GERMAN FUTURE. The Kaiser, on the centenaiy of 1813 : "To my delight. I was able to jomc extent to be a personal witness of the national enthusiasm with which tbe heroic deeds of our fathers and the hap-pily-achieved unity of the German stocks were honoured by young and old in .tile north and south of the Fatherland. Bai> the German nation did not slop there. In with its princes, it at tbe same time showed that it is determined, like its fathers, fo make every necessary sacrifice for the protection of the Fatherland and the strength oi its) defensive forces, to maintain the position which it has won with difficulty amoi'g the civilised nations of the earth. W.ir 1 , confidence thot these patriotic sentimenm wilt ever be cherished and cultivated in German hearts, ii& an iDa'ienabl<? ittheritance of Hie great time, 1 "gladly give expression to the hope that tho Lord God w<"ll lurther lead the Gemma countries along peaceful paths to prosperous development." THE DANGERS OK A LIBRARY. Viscount Moi-lcy, at Manchester University . "Are there more than half a dozen species of the genus reader? Perhaps a short half-dozen. There is, of course, at the top the professional reader, who seeks f>'esh knowledge and the fruits of fresh research. There is the professional reader at the lower end of the scale, who seeks in old books for material for the mechanical manufacture of nev. (Laughter.) Then there is th« listless, idl« reader, who takes a book as a sort of pleasant sedative, like the smoking of tobacco. Then there are those, men and women who read, if you go to the loot of them, on the principle that your own mind is theatre enough for yoirvself. On that- principle they read bettings books stimulate curiosity, feed, multiply, and enlarge the whole range and compass of your interests, and raise a man to the highest level in the general cultivation of his own age. A great library is a warning, a rebuke, a. lesson to those unlucky people whose minds are constitutionally unable to hold more than one idea at a time. A great library is, or ought to be, a check on that frightful impulse which belongs to the old Adam of rushing to take angry sides at iive minutes' notice on the most important and delicate questions tJiat may happen to be raised i.i the morning or evening newspaper. Tin's is no opportunity for trying to take yon on an academic voyage. So, with niy cordial thanks and wa'-m appreciation, and much refreshed by so agreeable, a royage, I will find niy way bark to Bacon's 'wholesome arid wpjl-bottomed contemplations' — on tha Naval Estimates." (Laughter and cheers.) , A DEAN ON SOCIALISM. The Dean of St. Paul's, at Sion College : — We live in the midst of a Babel of voices and a great deal of manufactured opinion. Probably three people out of four, if asked to name the strongesi mental spiritual current of the present day, would confidently say it is the current which is carrying" us towards sosial reform or Socialism. It is only very loose talk to speak of State Socialism being an immediate danger. I doubt, indeed, whether Socialism ever does take much hold of the public mind in England, except when it is understood as a machine for expropriating landlords and capitalists. One can fancy that after a miserable experience of anarchism this country might choose to throw itself in the power of a strong man. There is no price which a people will not pay to- get rid of a continuance of sheer anarchy. The Socialist'movement has been anti-organic all along. In my opinion, the purely individualistic | ideal of the fullest and happiest, richest, and pleasantest life for everybody is the driving force of tho Labour movement. The spiritual current on which the Labour movement and other revolutionary agitations- float, and which is miscalled Socialism, is really an individualistic ideal. Another spiritual current, or, rather, a pair of contrary currents, is what I should call the mechanical and the organic. As for the anti-intellectual and anti-scientific superstitions side of the movement. I distrust them profoundly, and I wish I could say that religious bodies discountenance them more than they do. It will be a misfortune if the valuable lessons of science taught during the List hundred years should be threatened by a I'ccrudescenco of the earlier beliefs in the law of nature, \vliicb is not uniform, and which is liable at any time to be broken. If I were asked whether this revolt against natural science is to be regarded as deep and stiong, I am inclined to say it is not so."