CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 14097, 26 June 1906, Page 6

CURRENT TOPICS.

Tho banquet .of the THn miracle Royal Academy this year of words. was rendered specially notable by reason of an elaborate apologue, which Mr Rudyard / Kipling delivered in responding to the toast of “ Literature.” The intention of tho speech was to indicate “the gulf that separates even the least of those who do a tiling worthy to bo written about from even the best of those who have written a thing mostly to be talked about.” Mr Kipling commenced with a parable:— There is an ancient legend which tolls us that when tho first man achieved the first noble deed he wished to explain to his tribe what ho had done, but as scon as ho began to speak he was smitten with dumbness. He lacked words, and eat down. Then arose—according bo the story—a “masterless ” . man who had taken no part in action, had no special virtues, and was “ afflicted ” with the magic of the necessary words. Ho spoke. He explained tho action to tho tribe in such a fashion that we are assured that the words “ became alive, and walked up and down in the hearts of all hia hearers.” Thereupon the tribe, seeing that the words were alive, and fearing that the man with the words might j be telling untrue words bo their oluldron, arose and killed him. But later they saw that tho magio was in the words, and not in the man.

The world, commented Mr Kipling, had progressed far since the time of that early example of destructive criticism, but it had still failed to find a substitute for the man with the necessary words as the final record of achievement. It was for this reason, he contended, that literature had always stood a little outside the law, as the one calling that was granted no protection. “ For instance,” continued Mr Kipling, “if, as occasionally happens, a bad operation, or a manufacturer of food makes had food, criticism of their action is by law, and custom confined to comparatively narrow limits. But if a man makes a had book there is no limit to the criticism that may be directed against it, and that is perfectly as it should bo. . . . When the question is of words—words that may become living and walk up and down in the hearts of the hearers—it is then that this world of ours, which is disposed to take an interest in the future, feels instinctively that it is better that a thousand innocent people should be punished rather than ,that one guilty one should escape, carrying that which is an untrue tale of his tribe.”

Mr Kipling developed this thesis a little further, in order to explain • what literature really is.

what is MTEBATUKE ?

The record of a tribe, h© said, was its enduring literature. A thousand excellent strenuous words might leave the hearers cold, while a bare half hundred words, breathed by some man in his agony generations ago, could still lead whole nations into captivity. It was a miracle that happened seldom, but every masterless man with the words was hoping that it would happen in his case. The man with the words should w'ait upon the man of achievement, but every word that was written should bo tested to the uttermost. There .was no room for pity, mercy, or respect ■when the record of the tribe had to ho written. And when it was written, and tested, and found true, it was literature, and in duo time it would bo appreciated as tho expression of its age. An age, said Mr Kipling, very truly, did not always appreciate the merits of the record that purported to represent it. “ The trouble is that we expect just a little more out of a thing than wo put into it,” he suggested, “ and it only gives just one’s bare deceits.” This point, again, was illustrated by a story from a land whore tho magic of words is “ peculiar, potent and far-reaching.” Tho rain doctors had been implored to make rain, but when tho rain came it was patchy and uncertain. And so the tribe went to the rain doctors, being very angry, and they said, “ What have you been doing?” And the rain doctors said, “We have been paying your proper wages. Supposing you tell us what you have been doing lately 1” And the tribe said, “Oh, our head men have been running about hunting jackals, and our little people have been chasing grasshoppers! What has that to do with your rain-making?” “It has everything to do with it,” said the rain doctors. “Just as long as your head men run about bunting jackals, and just os long as your little people chase grasshoppers, just so long will the raiu fall in this manner.” All sorts of meanings have been read into this speech, and it is certainly being “tested” by tho critics .with sufficient thoroughness to please even the author.

“next noon.”

'With a hurdy-gurdy grinding a raucous and never-ending version of

“Blue Bell” opposite the portals of his place of business, a man is prone to develop quite an emphatic sympathy with what has been aptly described as “ fcho scourge of modern civilisation, ‘ next door.’ ” This particular phase of local horror was the subject matter of a curious case in Air .Justice Jelf’s Court, in London, recently. Rarely

have the •dark doings of “ next door” been so thoroughly exposed as they were in this action. “Next door” in this case had armed 1 itself with a powerful and savage gramophone. This instrument, which its owner proudly described as “the best and loudest of its kind, and its tone is sweet, and it cost £20,” habitually began to play each evening, and continued till the early hours of the morning, for the defendant, “ being of a cheerful temperament, was fond of entertaining.” Entreaties and prayers from the other side of tho party-wall were not successful, and so an action was brought with a view to a discontinuance of tho nuisance. The gramophone itself was a principal witness, and was asked to play “ Bedelia ” in tho court-room, which it did, with much gusto and noise. Unfortunately the case was settled in the end without the Judge being called upon to express an opinion. But it was noticeable, nevertheless, for the high line of constitutional principle taken by one of his Majesty’s counsel in the cross-examination of tho plaintiff. He inquired with irony whether the plaintiff “ had hoard of this being a free country, and of every man’s house being his castle.” He also wanted to know if “these principles applied at Littlehampton,” the scene of the prosecution. Commenting upon this characteristic legal attitude, tho “ Daily News” thinks it ought to bo interesting to the learned gentleman occupying chambers adjoining those of this eminent counsel to know if he would have no objections to raise if, during one of his consultations, one of them should indulge in pistol-practice across the room and a rehearsal of “ Tho Girl I left Behind Me,” with the full strength of his fife and drum band. The question might be asked pertinently enough even in Christchurch.