War and Clowns

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 294, 18 October 1922, Page 7

War and Clowns

Suppose.; a gentleman,: living In a suburban house, with his garden separated only by a fruit wall from his next door neighbour's, and he had called mc to consult with him on the furnishing of his drawiug-rboaa. I begin looking- about mc. I find the walls rather bare; I think such and such a pap<3r might be desirable—perhaps a little fresco here and there on the ceiling, a damaslc curtain or so at the windows. "Ah," says my employer, "damask curtains, indeed! ThaVs all very fine, but you know I can't afford that kind of .thing just now!" "Yet the world credits yo\i «--vth a splendid income!" , ''Ah, yes," says my fr?end ( "but dp you know, sit pie sent I am obliged Vo spend it nearly all in steel traps?" "Steel traps! For ■whom?" "Why foor that fell j'-v on other side of the wall, know; •we're very good friends., capital friends; but we are obliged to keep our traps ast on both sides of the ■wall; we could not possibly keep on friendly terms without them and our spring guns.. The worst of it is, we are both very clever fellows enough; and there's never a day passes that we don't find out a new trap, or a new gun-barrel, or something." A highly comic state of affairs for two private gentlemen! But for IWO nar.ions, it sfisins i o mc not wholly comic. Bedlam would be comic, perhaps, if tliere were only one madman in it; and your Christmas pantomime is comic when there is only one clown in it; but when the whole world turns clowns, and paints itself with its own heart's blood instead of verm'lion. it is something else than comic,'l think. —John Ruskin.