LETS CHAT ABOUT LONDON

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6667, 21 July 1928, Page 5 (Supplement)

LETS CHAT ABOUT LONDON

Talk of a Water Famine While Rain Is Pouring—British Grand Opera Stars Cant Act—Debutantes And Their First Court —A Monkey Gland Problem: —Gosse and the Emu ,

MiM—-i HAVE come to the conelusion that the only . ‘ reason why there Is LXCSmIw/J nothing new under the KoMlWWs'l bue Is that there is no IgSiMyjfeC sun for anything to be ' new under—lf you get my meaning. For here we are, about to step out of Mafr-if the prophecy of the Great Pyramld-ites comes not true —with .winter still wrapping us in her shroud. Spring has come to us very forlornly this year and has been a long time doing it. There has been none of that lovely bursting of flower and tree, she has come : sOftly. imperceptibly, as 'though she were getting a little bored or over-spphistlcated. the skies have rained down, their sorrows upon'us for the last few , weeks there is, paradoxically, talk of a water famine. Grave anxiety is rife owing to the bathing statistics It appears that people in England are beginning to take the question of the .morning bath: seriously and that the number of people who indulge in this hitherto fantastic pleasure is daily increasing. i, This is looked upon as a ■ grave defection from good old British principles and the Water Boards are starting an anti-bath campaign so that in years to come we shall not have to go thirsty. Cleanliness, they argue, is after all> oply next to godliness and ■ not godliness Itself, therefore it may, ; upon occasion, be dispensed with. engaging* controversies I. have ever ■ known, England is' the second , last place-L should ever have connected with M campaign. . Ireland Is the'iast '>An anti-bath campaign could never occur, there —it would not ■ be heoessary.V Grand Opera,ls with us again. We have bdd goodlsh German season, • after which “Samson and Delilah” _ came like an anti-climax. "Louise” was only, fair and not very well acted —-altogether a not-very-inspiring seathough it has given the people . who .write to the papers an excuse for ■bdrpinig on the old subject .of British artlstst- "Why" they should want Bril' tlsb : artists. when Germans sing so .much better I cannot think. Besides the Germans/can act and the British can not ' There /are some people • who wbiild/ Uke the, Walkyries to be draped like Britannia in red, white and blue; with Seigfried; in the top hat-and spats'and striped trouserings •. of .a ,gentleman who frequents the Royal Exchange, and Brunnhilde in • hunting kit T am not of this number —but I do belong to the increasing mass • of people who feel bitterly ashained that 1 England has no opera. How England can look America and Germany, Austria and France in the face I don’t know—but there, Britannia la very thick-skinned and is not ■ given to self-contempt She has far tod deep a faith Jin herself for that and is content to wag. her trident rather. ’ • than a batom , •• , i.K I have been to the Royal Academy. Oh dear, a wearisome experience. I ' am tired of seeing technically-perfect ladies sitting with studied composure • and feather fans on draped settees or golden spindle-legged/ chairs. I am tired of the neollthics whose paintings have to be looked at upside down to be properly ’ appreciated and of the , paleoltyhics whose,/ apparent ambition is-to be as banal as possible so ' as: to-counteract, the effect made by the nebllthics. Chocolate bos ladies simpered at me as I passed or pouted with a pampered air that ; >vas worse than apy simper. There were vague

landscapes full of things that meant nothing. I'"happened to see a very good picture Before it was sent in to compete with all these dullnesses, and it was so good that I feared it would not be hung, it wasn’t. It would have made all the others look so silly. All except the Sims pictures, which are worth a hundred Royal Academy collections and which, as is natural, only a small handful of people like. However, some members of the handful had sense enough to buy them, and when the Dicksees and Cadogan Cowpers are mouldering under the • yew trees the descendants- of the handful will find their possessions have become fabulously famous. : Sir Edmund Gosse is dead —the hand that never lacked a pen from childhood has now/laid that pen away. It is odd that out of the varied morass of essays, belle-lettres, poems the one thing that stands, out like a tower in the desert is that marvellous book. Father ahd Son,” or. as some still irreverently call it :“G6ose and Gossoon." This was a good book, a mighty book, a tremendous record of childhood and early youth. It was fierce and invigor-

ating and lacked that felihity which afterwards crept intO all his work and took away thpi fresh early bloom. It Is recOrded that only once in his life did Gosse come off worst in a duel of words. He was visiting an exhibition 1 and came suddenly Upon a stuffed emu. Turning to W.. P. Ker he remarked, "H’m—that’s hot my idea of an emu!” And Ker, the ever-ready, 'the ever-apt, said stutterlngly,, “N-no, G-Gosse, but it’s God's idea of an emu.” Great news has come to London—we are all going to be geniuses. Every one of us will suddenly blossom into a poet or a musician in a little while. We: are to . live almost as long, as those fantastic , creatures in Shaw’s “Back to Methuselah.” Of course, it is only the old monkey-gland business again, but with a difference. Not Only, the old made young but the young made perfect. Probably, with sufficient Of the gland in our blood We shall be able to listen in to the spheres as they turn in their places; perhaps w* shall' even fly. It is a happy thought—and yet, and yet, to the reasoning mind, comes the conjecture—how is it, if monkey-glands can do. all this, that we do not find apr i playing soulfully upon the ‘cello, chimpanzees writing fine and frenzied epics that shake'the heart, gorillas swaying in the rhythm of a lovely antique dance? Alack, I know not, unless it be that - they do; indeed do all these things and we are too, too human as -yet to understand, them.-

Last night, driving through the Mall. I passed by. the windows of many gorgeous creatures glittering with more than Oriental—or Occidental —splendour. These were, of course, the befeathered crew who were going, like Heiiny-Penny in the story, to see the King. The cars positively bristled with flowers and stray wisps of tulle blew out like smoke and were dragged back again, teaming ruins, from the rain. As usual an enormous crowd had collected to look at these acolytes of fashion. Once it was only .people from the East End who jour neyed to the Mall to see, what high life was like, but now Bays water and Bloomsbury and Battersea flock there, too, to offer their opinions on gown and feather. I was irresistibly reminded of a flock of gaily-coloured tufted birds when I saw them and expected them to rise and, emitting pee-wit cries, spread wings and fly through the rain to the palace. Jnst beyond the first car in the line was Queen Victoria in white marble, gazing glumly on the scene and wishing, probably, that on wet nights she could sleep in her own old room or that the

authorities would at any rate stop the fountains playing and so relieve her of, some of her watery burden! I was surprised, so regal did she look In spite of the rain, that nope of the debutantes bent a head as she - was slowly driven past the; ' old . Queen. Had I not . had'my foot on ‘the accelerator 1 might have curtsied to her myself for old time’s sake. Yesterday I bought a pound of book —two pounds, .in fact. And as soon as I had bought them I felt ashamed of my purchase. That I should have assisted-in the degredation of any author—horrible! There was a huge weighing machine flnd the books, were being sold at twopence a pound. Their jackets that had once been so bright seemed to become a uniform grey when they were tossed into the weighing, machine. I. feel almost sorry that t now possess Mrs. Merton’s “Society. Manners” and a paper-covered copy of Tom Brown’s Schooldays. To what depths of ignominy have I brought these .dear people as well as a person ,called “Arthur Roebuck,” whose “Sporting Diary” must once have delighted many ,a rape-goingheart. Can I go back and offer to pay more for them? No. for the assistant would surely put the money into his pwp pocket or the poor box. f All I can do for them is to give them Shakespeare’s place on my bookshelf and relegate him to a lower sphere. Surely that will be the amende, honorable? PAMELA TRAVERS.