FLOTSAM

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1832, 17 April 1907, Page 42

FLOT SAM

NOTES ON THIS AND THAT. “Nonconformist Conscience,” a phrase which seems to have come into the • language to stay, cannot very well be regarded by Nonconformists as exactly libellous—seeing that it connotes merely excess of a good thing. Tn this * colony it has no personal significance whatever, none of us being either Conformists or Nonconformists. The oonvsbience of. the Nonconformist from time immemorial was supposed to be -the most. sensitive thing about him, and he was thought to obtrude it With offensive insistence whenever he wished to make himself more than 'Usually obstructive or disagreeable. In ,a word, the “Nonconformist Conscience” is nothing more than virtuous excess. It is a disease, however, a morbid phenomenon to be classified with the itches or cacoethes, being frequently found, for instance, in combination with the cacoethes and not unfrequently with the cacoethes loquendi, the platform .species. The most distinguished victim of this -combination of scabies at the present time is Mr William Thomas Stead, familiarly and affectionately known as “that good man Stead.” If you were to take the press opinions as to who was the most distinguished j journalist of The later part of the 19th century, nine out of every ten would / ’probably give their voice for W. T. Stead; the most distinguished, and likewise the most notorious, for he has the defects of his qualities lias “that good ;man Stead.” He is a virtuous man is Stead ; yet is his goodness not '•■of that faultily faultless kind which Tenders the “Nonconformist Con/mienee,” ..in its higher manifestations, so splendidly null. He does not consider it necessary, for instance, to spoil a good ; story by a servile adherence to the v .; letter,, a moral facility,which his readers necessarily'find to their advantage and their taste. Individuals may occasionally, object, but, after all, the body politic is the important tiling, not the individual.

Mr'Stead has been telling a good r story lately about the Imperial Chanvon Buelow, who had, so , - says Mr Stead, declared, in conversa- • tion. with ithe “good man,” that the speediest -way of securing the peace of Europe Was to hang twelve of the >most influential editors, beginning With the editor of “Koelnische Zeitung” and proceeding next to the editor of The “Times.” There is much to be - said for this view, -which is a trifle too obvious perhaps to sound original, and there is no :reason in the na- • 4/Ure of things why Prince Buelow should.'not entertain it. Indeed, he probably ■ does. All things, however, That are lawful are not expedient, and such witticisms are perilous for Chancellors. The editor of the “Koelnische Zeitung” -stands under a twofold con--demnation. If his political philosophy -endangers the peace of Europe, the construction of his sentences affects its comfort and peace of mind. I -know 'his periods well, and can easily understand why Prince von Buelow might be content to see him dangle from the end of a yard-arm. But the necessary editor of the “Times”! Surely hanging does not .seem The apropriate quietus for so fulminant a ipersonage. To be shivered ‘with liis< own thunderbolts were surely , 5a -fitter.riddance. All of which -.speculation is beside The point, since it appears that the German Chancellor •.publicly disavows the witticism. Mr as a matter of fact, was roman--cing, >as the Nonconformist ConWcienee sometimes permits itself to do. Mr Stead himself is the father of the bon mob, which -is a pity. It would have come gracefully from the Chancellor of the German Elmpire to the editor *of the' “Review of Reviews.”

Does anyone nowadays read his Aesop? No, no-one does. Yet is there •anything within the range of what is called classical that is more delightJ'ful? -Especially if you get the edition •with -Bewick’s woodcuts—a rare case -df: admirable adjustment between letterpress and illustration. What per-fectly-Tounded • Tittle animal idylls "litre those 'T&il-pieces—-such a world of irustre inflation in The strut of This Turkey-cock, such an ingenuous asiniinity in That "donkey, such a<n arch turn •of Irish lfumour in the ! curl of that , _ Tail! I should really like to know whether there is anybody in this sapient generation who does really any longer care for these frivolities. When T come to think of it, I retract; that judgment about the ideal adaptation of cut to text. The fact is that letterpress and illustration are sever,allv too good to be inside the same . q(jver§ ; >each requires your special attention to the exclusion of the other, so. , that .you are—that is, I ' am—like the donkey .equidistant from two , ■ bpttles •. of hay. However,, I have no , do.ul}fc '.that the. donkey, for all the J logical completeness of his dilemma, .contrived to sample both bottles. So Jlo 1, -And; so you, with Bewick’s Aesop.

For my own part, I a'm of 'that numerous class of people who profess an excellent heart but a bad memory. Direct quotation is a thing I dare not venture upon, except with tho book before me —Aesop alone excepted. There I think I can stand any examination, nor blench. It is, I suppose, because of my complete and universal sympathy with animals—with mammals and birds, at least. To me nothing on four feet is common or unclean. My comprehensive charity is perhaps not extensive enough to include everything on two feet, but if you add wings, I am with you, even to the sparrows, two of which are sold for a farthing. In this I take after my master, Aesop-—humbly, distantly, reverently, but yet in my degree. What a knowledge did this old hunchback slave possess of his dramatis personae! His Lion has a personality as definite as Henry the Fifth’s; his Fox has all the villanous, subtlety of lago. Yet to enjoy Aesop with the proper sort of enjoyment, one must not approach him in too ysyehqbgical a mood; and, above all, must one avoid that priggish, puritanical, pragmatical habit of extracting some hidden moral or spiritual lesson from a story the sole delight of which is animal; for I am convinced that this pestilent habit robs the world of half its sunshine. If people were only satisfied to take things for what they seem! But no,'they must be poking and rooting with their noses in every simple story for underlying spiritual truths, save the mark! like pigs after truffles.' If you approach your Aesop thus, let me tell you, it is all over with you. You had much better go and read Blair’s sermons, or Harvey’s “Meditations among the Tombs.” Aesop’s Lion, what a. character!! His majesty, or shall we say rather grandiosity, his generosity, his largeness, his smallness upon occasions, his blandness, his grimness, and liis host of other “nesses.” Who could forget those two admirable vignettes, which I believe both occur in the third chapter of the fifth book. One represents the Lion surrounded by his satellites (so admirably hit off by Bewick); the other represents a scene subsequent to the obsequies of the noble animal (Bewick again admirable). The beasts of the field had decided, in recognition of the Lion’s nobility and freehanded munificence, to make him a presentation; as well they might, for

he had bestowed upon every man Jack of them lititle pickings and snug billets which they would have waited for a long time if merit or usefulness had been a sine qua non. There was the Fox, who had been made receivergeneral of State windfalls at a handsome salary, with pickings; and tno Badger, who had received the appointment of assistant Royal bottle-washer; and the Jackal and his numerous family, each provided with a sinecure in the Purveyance Office; and a herd of horny-hoofed horses, mules, asses, and other beasts of burden, for whose peculiar behoof the Lion had enacted a wilderness of special legislation; and a whole army of coons who had been dropped by the Lien into this billet or that, per> manenti or temporary, as opportunity offered. They were not ungrateful these animals, according to their lights. On the contrary, they were feelingly conscious of further fakerchiefc-, to tell the Lion what a very vours in the womb of the future, and so they were met, as the Fox said, in a pathetic speech that moved a simultaneous flutter of handexceptional animal he was, and to present him with a piece of plate and 1000 shekels of silver. The Lion, who was tolerably well paid for being a Lion, did not, strictly speaking, require either gift; but, not to give offence, he accepted both, and rattled the shekels good-naturedly in his trouser, pockets. Not long after this the Lion died—died suddenly, to the universal grief of the animal kingdom. Such keening and wailing as went up from one ond of the forest to the other had jsever been heard before, intimating more plainly than words that the race of lions had come to an end. Crape w as the only wear. Black hangings were at a premium, and, when the supply ■gave out,- the tree-trunks were tastefully painted with lampblack. Some -brute beasts thought such expressions tf grief extravagant and hysterical; but that was 1 an uncharitable thought, for not the smallest jackal of them all but was genuinely moved by the reflection that fragments of liver and other rejecta might not be so plentiful in the post-leonine days as they had been in the golden age. So all the beasts determined, ’ with one consent,. to erect a national memorial to the deceased Lion; all, those who genuinely mourned for the dead beast, and they were many, and those, like the ufocodile, whose tears* were not above suspicion; even those rivals—the elephant, the hippopotamus, the polar bear, the bos domesticus, and the jackass—who had always been con- ? sistently opposed to -the Lion's 'policy, I and had not hesitated to voioe their

opinions in the oonciliabulum of beasts, joined in the demand that a national memorial, more perennial than brass, should be erected to the deceased Boasu. But one wanted this, another wanted that, one would have a graven image of the Lion himself, another, of more frugal mind, desired some beastly institution which should be of service in training the young beasts how to keep an eyr on the main chance.. borne were artistic, some were utilitarian; bub-by far the greater number could not spare the necessary dimes. So the national memorial has not yet been erected, though "Aesop has been dead a good 2000 years and more. MASTIX.