PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11642, 27 January 1900, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

Since the war news improved—and it lias been improving for a week past—we have naturally grown less anxious and have recovered nerve.. Any day, however, we may relapse. A serious qheck to General Buller, postponing indefinitely the salvation of Ladysmith, would send us all down to zero again, And yet it ought not to do so. I have just been reading in the Spectator of December 9 an article on *.The Public and the War"---A nervesteaclying Article, ■ tonic and sedative in one. Tho war, says the Spectator, is being fought under a microscope. Correspondents by.the half-dozen are present in all camps. The smallest movement is reported as soon as made. Above all every death, almost every wound, is reported at once, often with hospital details, and a passion of pity is excited for individual sufferings sHcli as almost blinds men to the necessity of risking them. Skirmishes are described as battles, petty defeats as disasters, ordinary1 movements as stupendous efforts, and unavoidable losses as shocking destruction of human life—as if a war could be waged without slaughter, or as if a preventable epidemic would not slay ten times as many as a war. As a matter of fact, continues tho Spectator—-from which I am quoting almost verbally—the war as yet Ims not been a very sanguinary one. We lost more men at "Albuera, or the Alma, or Ohillianwa.llah, than have yet been killed and 'wounded in this entire campaign,, while in comparison <nth the battles of the beginning of the century we can scarcely be said, if we exclude prisoners, to have sustained any losses at all, Ten times, twenty times, as many,, die in an outbui'st of influenza, We have a wrong notion about the war, an exaggerated conception of its losses, reverses, checks, delays, and all this comes of our seeing it "undei' a microscope."

This:microscope, giving to all events in South' Africa a false, magnitude and putting them out of scale with all events cl«etfljare', is, of course, the {rfoSE—tliß press with Its network of news agencies to whioh we look for a column of war telegrams eVofy morning. The press no doubt has a great deal to answer for.

In the Wrtrs of the )jegiiiiiiti<; of tho century people heard from sources nlot'd or less official, llie totltl loss in killed Atid wounded was Known, but details, except as regarded very great personages, struggled home slowly. The people judged results its historians do, instead of judging them, as at present, like members of a family party who have suddenly heard of ft calamity befalling their own kinsfolk. There Wm very little opportunity of criticising military operations, The generals Were free to pursue their Own plans and do the best they could with tho means available.

"To-diiy all this is changed," says the article I am quoting. " Our generals fight under showers of detailed criticism and hear the shouts of the people almost as clearly os the roar of the. batteries." Which lnust be very bad for the generals, and equally bad for the War. There is no remedy that I know of. This is oiie of those ills that can't be wired and must bo endured. It is part of the price that we pay for government by the people and freedom of the press, t am not for abridging this freedom, and, indeed, the' press is not the worst offender. Look, for example, at the amazing indiscretion of Lord Durham's attack oil General Gatacre. We shall have to put up With such indiscretions, and with their consequences, and yet beat the Boers, In spite of nil. Pending that consninm.itlnh devoutly to bn wished, wo may just as well 'keep our heads and steady our nerves. The things that fl'icrhtell us "are mtiinly bogies born of our own exaggerations.

Certain wise and prurient people, aghast at the length to which we are • pushing patriotism and other public virtues, are preaching to us the duty of not being righteous over much. We" are making ton many sacrifices, giving too .much money, sending to the Transvaal too many men. We are intoxicated, hysterical, off our balance, no longer compos mentis, and .■shall be doing ourselves a mischief. All right !—■ for my part I take the risk. So frith tlie rest of us. We don't feel any the poorer for our money gifte, and we are not afraid of being any the worse for the enthusiasm with which we are bestowing them. Personally I had rather be mad that way, and intoxicated, and hysterical, mid hon compos, and off thy balance, than be cool, and cairn, and calculating, with the wise and prudent. We are better men and women for the fervours and excitelnents that have gone to the raising of our Otago £10,000 for the "absent-minded beggar." In such a cause a Floral Fete is spiritually elevating, and a Brougll matinee becomes v means of grace. As for the men We arc sending to the Avar, we send only those Who are eager to go, and of them/not all. t)o we not refuse more than We accept? 'J'he pride we feel as New Zealanders in seeing the patriotic ardent' of our youth, and in being ourselves able to do something and suffer something for the TCmpire, is a new experience, and worth all it costs. It adds a cubit to' our moral stuture. There is a good deal to drt yetj iind will be even after the British flag is hoisted at Pretoria. Tommy .Atkins—to quote the Spec tator again—will not be adequately provided for till he has " the best genera], the lightest rifle, the heaviest artillery, and the most- mobile transport ever yet seen in the world, whose destiny has 'so. often been decided by his willingness to die." The colonies will have sonic hand in that; they- have established their right by their sacrifices, in the Transvaal, For" the preseil(. s then, we shall do well to keep our enthusiasms.

John Rus'kin beillg dead, newspapers everywhere arc hurrying tip 'with the Wreaths they have made ready against his burying. On such occasions 'seldom is an editor Caught at disadvantage, The Lotidon Times, it is believed, prepares tibituarles months in advance-, and keeps them pigeon-holed, grimly Waiting. How else, when a public irian dies, could ill p. news of his death and half a page of biography and Criticism, neatly and afccnrntslv" done* be given to the public in one and the juiiiie issue? Every distinguished person likely to require an In Mehroriain notice ill 'Hie Times kilows that Ins dossier is prepared and tleods only the finishing toilcll of a date. Harriet Martiiieau, being hel-self a press contributor, prepared hei1 aivi! • possibly lier more distinguished brothel1, who died last; week, did the same. It is a proper thiiig to dfij if Only to escape being praised for the wrong things, as just how Ruskin is being praised in all newspapers for what is called his" "style.'1 -Personally I art ready to praise Riisliih for all things that ever he-, did,, and for the way in which he did them ; I like him When he is right. T like him when he is wrona;" either wrty and all ways he is for ever delightful. Ruskin. can't be too Ruskiuiail for me. I accept him wholesale ; necessarily therefore I accept his style, or styles—for he had more than iiiie. Blit I don't forget that the style for which he is inos't praised, that. of his " Modem Painters," " Stones of Venice," and " Seven, Lamps," Eiiskiii himself, in later days and riper judgment,, condemned as detestable, abjiired and abandoned, tte says: —

I Vffls obliged to write too young, When I khe\v only lialf-truths, mid wns eager to set them forlH by what I thought iflne words, People used to call me a good writer then; now they Pfy, I can t write .41 all; llecatisf, for ihatahcii, if I thlhk Ahjbody'n lioiiie is OH fire, I Only saj-, ' Sit-, your house is on fire"; whereas formerly I used to say, " Sir, the abode in Which you probably passed tho delightful days of your youth is in a state of inflaimnatioii"; and everybody used to like the effect of the two p a in " prbbabJy passed," and of ths iwo as iri delightful days."

On this question of style, in short, Ruslcm, 30 years ago, had reached the sound belief that ho style at all is the only stylo worth having.- Through what lieartsearchihgs lie passed in surrendering scarlet and pipe-clay, kilt and busby, for plain khaki we may ieai'il frohi his preface to "Sesame and Lilies." , " Iking now 51 y§nfs of age," he wrttle, " aiici little likely to change ifty mind hereafter on any ifflporfa.M Subject of rhouffht (exop.pt il»-qu<rh infirmity of age). I.Wish to hub'.Uh a eollnected series of such parts of.iriy works bis How seem to mo right, and likely t6 be of penHaiieht use." I'TOceeditig {hereupon to select fthd .reject-, Ive first dismissed most of What he fttul Written about religion ; "I hail been educated ill the doctrines of a BnrroW se/et, he says', " aild had Vend history ns ObllfiWely as'sectn'vians ilecessavily mftSl." NeXl came the nueslion of style. In his parlier books there" were some

things,'■;lie eaj'B, .--that' might still be of value; yet they too must go." And why? Because written in a style he could no longer endure—" disfigured by affected language, partly through the desire to be' thought a fine writer"; partly again because he had deliberately imitated the 16th century' style of the "judicious Hooker, for whom he. had a particular liking. .And so, he concludes:— "' . " For. these reasons I shall reprint in this series- scarcely' anything out of the first and. second volumes of "Modern Painters," and shall omit much of,the "Seven Lamps" and 11 Stories of Venice." . Unhappily, it'is just these three books that are pitched on when it is a question of lauding and honouring poor .Buskin's " style " ! There are . still people, it appears, who like-the effect of the two p's in "probably passed" and of the two d's in "delightful days." These people should read their Buskin with a little more care. t The things they praise him for lie was ashamed 01. Style, fofsooth!—before all things let us have simplicity and clearness. You desire to be forcible?—pathetic?A-humorous?. The condition precedent is—simplicity and clearness. And, as for the ".inevitable word," about which there is so much canting— the inevitable word which the muddled writer inevitably misses—let there be clearness and the word is found. I could show how'; but, as I am not paid for professorial lectures on English, I "will leave the

inquirer about style to. discover for him-

The letter of " English Reader")" reviving the end-of-the-century question, is somewhat belated, but it comes from afar, and is perhaps entitled to a time allowance. Moreover, I should be 'sorry to discourage the .English public from resorting to Passing Notes for instruction and amusement, if they luive a mind to. I make room therefore for " English Reader's" epistle, and even carry complacency so far as to overlook the unforgivable .sin of his having written it on both sides of the paper. ' • Emu of the Century Again. Dear Civis,—What length of time was thero between B.C. 1 and a.d. 1 ? Of course there is a mistake of snrne four yc&rs; but we may neglect this ancl assume that no mistake exists. Was the last day of v.c. 1 the New Year's Eve of A r>, 1? Or was there a year or more between the two? I don't consider your explanation ot the question ns to when the 20th century logins by any means the clearest possible. T)oct not a mistaken idea arise in people's minds from the use of the letters n.c, and A.o, ? People know that B.C. means before Christ, and I am sure most people, though they really know better, itlwuyfi think of a.d. ita meanm>r "after our Wd," instead of "in the year o[ our Lord." If then "101)0 a.d." means "in the 1900 th vepr of our Lord" it is perfectly evident that tintil wo get out of that yeni- we do not gel into the 20th-century. An EkGubh Reader.. The sii^cst-ion t-hot there may have been a gap of unknown dimensions between b.c. 1 and a.d. 1 is new. and probably original. Tt is just as well that it did not reach ns before we grit the end-of-the-rentnry dispjife_ shut down, or my friends the Noodles, every one of them, Mould hare claimed to have his say unon it. I gather from replies to correspondents, as in the Dnilv Times, .that some peonle ni'e still in I doubt as to where.wo are nlirnnnloptically. I Possibly "English Reader's" elucidation of j the matter may bp of service to them. It ! must. be. a painful.'tiling .not to be sura j what age of the world one is living in. I Civis.