CONCERNING POPULAR EXCITEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15730, 3 October 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)

CONCERNING POPULAR EXCITEMENT.

BY FRANK MORTON. I j !

I don't know definitely much about the psychology of emotion, and all that sort of thing; but I have always taken a keen interest in what (for want of a better phrase) I may call the phenomena of human excitement. Whenever men lose their heads they disclose their inner natures. I have seen strong bad men in. the sudden throes of what the followers of John Wesley call conviction of sin, oach somehow feeling his own soul to be the universe, each crying aloud to see his soul lie shuddering on the palm of God, helpless beneath the unfathomable Eyes: and that I take to be very good discipline for your strong bad man. I have seen weak good men oddly excited by the idea that they were desperate, wild fellows seeing life and daring judgment. I have studied the strangely varied voices of crowds in torment; and once, when I heard the savage muted snarl of an angry Chinese horde at Canton, I realised what sort of sound it is that steals for ever hopeless from the. mouth of Hell, and I think I grew five years older in five minutes. The excitement of mobs is very interesting to watch, none the less so because at times it makes one shrink and quiver. No beast among men so bad that no spirit of the Divine remains unquenched in him; but the enraged crowd-beast is without conscience or any visible lurking virtue. That is why the essential idea of democracy is so noble and fine. If you get ten decent fellows together and

excite them, the result will be a headstrong, howling foolishness. Get a hundred thousand decent fellows together and excite them, as at a general election, and the result (naturally) will be good governwent. Democratic sentiment is the most wonderful thing in the world. It fur : nishes the distracting incoherent music to which individual specialists work as best they may. But we needn't bother about all that now. Nor shall I say much about patriotic excitement, of which we have heard and seen much lately. The deep stream of patriotism, as we are now learning, runs clear and still, whereas the shallow kind merely bubbles like a brook on a stony bottom. The stream runs deep this time—so deep that men are cleansing their dreams and faiths in it, and the world of British men and women grows wiser and more honest every day.

When a man is calm God's light chines in him and makes him doubt his wisdom ; but when excited he will stutter and yelp, calling on all creation to admire his sanity. You must be calm before you can utter oracles, as Thoreau tells us somewhere; but the excited man howls in derision of the idea. Much depends on the quality of the excitement. A bitter frenzy is a leaping poison; but the excitement of an apparently senseless gaiety has often a sweetening influence. It is the most natural and wholesome of all excitements that finds vent in honest laughter. The excitement of ravenous sentimentalism or a calculated pathos is, on the other hand, incalculably debasing. Any cheap flood of tears speedily drowns self-respect- When Igoto a pictureshow and get a catch in my throat, I know that the immediate need of two or three grains of calomel is indicated. Half of your crawling pessimism is a sickness of the stomach, and the cynic's misanthropy is only pessimism squirming on a height of fever. All excitement is a form of fever, and excited talk is cf necessity delirious. Whatever fad a man nourishes he speedily becomes excited about it, and whoever takes his clamours seriously does the race a manifest injustice. The fadj dist responds to every lure of opportunity, so that if you once let yourself go j in that perilous way you may at any ' moment find yourself leading- a like movement for the prohibition of saucepans or thermometers. New Zealanders as a whole are not excited easily. That is a good thing. Excitements should be avoided. Anger is not an excitement; it is a passion, often nobly instrumental to noble ends. Joy is not an excitement it is a virtue, responsive to the glows of morning. These things are natural to the normal man. All adventitious excitements are abnormal. We have reason to be happy because the abnormal excitements New Zealanders seek are for the most part harmless. Dunedin gets excited about orthodoxy and football, Christchurch about society and chorus-girls, Wellington about politics -and afternoon-tea, Auckland about picture-shows and the conversion of the Jews. Excite six men, and they will presently want to hit something. Excite six women, and they will all talk volubly at or.ve, and enjoy the occasion vastly. However parsimonious an undertaker may be, an epidemic will sometimes excite him to the point of buying beer for perfect strangers. Excite the average perfect stranger "and he will occasionally drink with an undertaker and think nothing of it. Excite an earnest teetotaller, and he will tell you about the great dinners lie has had. I have noticed that repeatedly. Nine rigid teetotallers out of ten suffer from biliousness or dyspepsia. The exceptions to this rule are nursemaids, porkbutchers, and Catholic priests. Crowds are invariably excited, and wise men prefer to keep out of them for that reason. I know men who will j shrieK and swear when they are in a ! crowd, though at all other times their ! language is such as even a, politician j could listen to without distaste. But ' even crowds differ from each other in frenzy. A Dunedin crowd-unit will, sav : "Where are you shovin'?" In Christchurch the verbal embroidery will increase the form of question from four words to ten ; in Wellington ten words will swell to twenty; in Auckland there will be so much profane embellishment that the actual question will be absolutely incoherent. This is all because talking ertails less physical exertion than any other form of amusement. Avoid excitement. It leads one to humiliating excesses. Men of moderate incomes and average constitutions can seldom afford it for any length of time. It is prolific of awkward situations. It doesn't pay, n