MY OLD SCOTCH FRIEND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14473, 16 March 1909, Page 2

MY OLD SCOTCH FRIEND

Hy H. J. A. Ho has never read a novel, has never '"en to'tlie theatre, and is, of course, hopelessly behind the times, Ho much so Unit it is surprising to find how much (ilit'ild of tlietn lie is. For matters move in circles,' and that which i.s hailed today as being " new" has been considered, tried, and east aside time after time ivitl;in the hi-lory of human life. Omar Khayyam's Heeling bird of Time wing; its steady, irresistible course and blinirs the day appointed ior the resurrection oi thirds." And, dragging their withered fates i'ovt'i to the world with her-; a little ImbMiin..', there a little patching and tlio appliaiion of tlio delicate rou.o of mod?™ phraseology, these old, laded thoughts o: men cciiturK.s <lead jia-s again through Ilia stjgcs of scenes nut unknown to iheni, Hke tlio scam skeletons ai:d mazv spirits departed actors liu'ering in the luotligl.ls of publicity. How dim year oil dim year lias piled till the vista ftretchcs into dusty inform inability since Solomon cried, " 'the tiling that hat'li been. it. is that which shall be; and that which is done ici that which shall bo done; at;d there is no now tiling under the sun.'' And how many icons of ages of humanity and tho thoughts of humanity were behind him! As indicated, my old friend finds the obi tilings to be new, and the allegedly new to he familiarly old. Ills mind U a very storehouse of garnered wifdom—tlio giaiu is igw:l, sound, and of high quality; well selected, with no interior samples amongst it. It represents the cultivation of many and va.ricd tields; lie has attended well to the lotation of crops, has experimented in varied soils and under all climatic conditions, and by carei'ul attention and studious husbandry has been uniformly siicce.'tiful in obtaining much choice and well-selected piotluto. lie is exceptionally well read in the .more solid fields of literature. Someone hari said—l think it was Robert Louis Stevenson—that Scotchmen delight in tlie cracking oi metaphysical' nuk ily old trieild does. He lia.s more than a casual acquaintance with metaphysics tir.d theology, and I have heard him engaging in deep debato oil abstnic-e (niostions. His acquired knowledge from tha-e fields is illuminated by a native ivit and shrewdness which render his treatment and disposition of tlio .subject under discussion tlie more interesting, attractive, and comprehensible. If apparently cornered on soma scholastic point his innate, honest, sound common sense invariably finds ;i loophole of escape, and not infrequently by its quiet iwgleet of the foibles o"t' verbosity and sheer cutting to tho core of a question leaves him triumphant over those who, bv educational standards, should have had little difficulty .in establishing their propositions. J?or, be it wniemberod, this man is the ]iro<luct of no scholastic school. He w entirely selftaught except in so far as he is indebted to his Scottish dominie for certain rude elements of learning. Observation and wide, and practical acquaintance with affairs have been his ehiet means of education, improved as they have consistently been by the devotion of all his spare, time to the further acquisition of knowledge upon points ill which he was interested. Without being a in-?i'e dabbler, he has touched upon most subjects! Arter a busy practical lite, be has devoted the move abundant leisure of his later years to tins purpose, and as a result of such pursuits is iVell versed in manv scientiiic matters. Yet with his learning lie has a graceful tact and docs not push arguments to the bitter extreme against opponents in cases where such au etfoi't to convince would leave the person so assaulted in the position of '' he who is convinced aigainst bis will is nneuuvinced still." Katlier does he on those occasions when he finds au impossibility of conversion, without I'ielding in any way his own standing or admitting iiis error, which latter is invariably non-existent, simply with ready tact and admirable skill lead the conversation to other ami less controveisial channels. I remember well ono such instance, when I was an interested speetatoi. He possesses ail old and esteemed friend, who has led. an active »nd a practical life, but whose abilities and skill in argument or controversy are not limy cominensm'ate with his obstinacy, which is, as is not unusual with people when the evening- of life conies tinoii llieni, of a somewhat pugnacious order. This friend posseted many meritorious qualities, which were, however, to some extent- marred by his extreme unreasonableness ami j-etusal to acknowledge correction in debate. On the occasion to which I refer the conversation had somehow drifted oil to astronomy and the motions of the heavenly bodies, and on this topic thn friend gifted with the obstinate nature had asserted that tlio orbit of the earth was a strict circle, as -he had seen it so atlinncd in a certain astronomical book and proved in the said book by au elaborate diaigram. Now there was au opportunity for two courses ol action on the part of my wise old friend. Of course, lie took the right one. Ho did not argue the point, to do which would have involved them both in an endless controversy, since the one was rigid and could not in consistency admit error, while tlie other was wrong and would not by nature admit his fallibility. My friend did not point out, as lie might reasonably have done, that the language of tho hook and the diagram accompanying it might have been misread as referring to the earth, and might simply have had reference to a hypothetical condition of things were the influence of certain of the planetary bodies non-existent and there were in operation only certain elementary influences. What- lie did do was at once the wisest and the best thing to do: he simply ignored the controversial opening and, with consummate skill, lna.'iCßiivrfid the eonversatibn into less dangerous paths. The realm of poetry has not been neglected by lpy friend in his extensive reading. He believes that all the things worth saying have already been said in verse and rhyme, and has accordingly but little acquaintance with, or sympathy for, modern {wets. It is, I admit, eomewhat. conservative ground to take up, and I could have wished he was on this point on a soinfivhat. hroadier basis. But still there is some justification for his attitude. His argument may bo that when a man has a thorough knowledge oi the classics of poetry, then it is time for liiin :.<> com,j to the modern versifiers, or, as he calls them, "rhymers," in contradistinction to his conception of the " poet." The great names in poesy are familiar to him as household words. I well remember one particular evening when 1 received a revelation concerning the extent of his learning on this point. We had been at the house of a mutual irie-nd, and, leaving together, wended our homeward way, The conversation commenced with poetry, and a remark of mine as to the beauty of .Milton's passage on the falling of eventide drew forth to my rrreat delight the quotation in cxleneo. ' From this opening we passed to other authors. I say "we," but it really should be "he," for I found tlmt, bavin,,' once opened this flood-gate of a well-stored memory it. was no easy tliing to check it« flow, even had I d'jsircd such a course, which I was indeed very far from wishing. From his quotation from Milton in " Paradise Lost" he passed to .Milton in " Paradise Regained," and from Book IV recited with the most subtle of sympathetic intonation am! due appreciation of dramatic effect parts of the scene of temptation between Satan and our Lord ft was a perfect revelation to me—the difference between the written word and the spoken word. His art was not art—is was nature; plain, original, unadorned without any artificial grandiloquence. There was no pretence of elocution—l make bold to say an "elocutionary" treatment of that passage would be sheer murder,—but every word was distinct mid clearly enunciated, mid conveyed the meaning oi' the poet, which is what " elocution " often fails to do. He had no audisnco—a friend listened, —and in a manner perfectly unrestrained lie accorded his various quotations that .sympathetic treatment without which they bad better l)i> let'l undone. Shakespeare. Dante—his ! delineation of Canto VII of his Purgatory | I will never forget,—Byron, whose ' rythmic roll of metre afiorded .him full scope tor liig resonant voice, with a few

quaint linos from Chaucov and c\ ' from Pepys, wero (liawn on. His memory was piodigious, That Imlf-hour wall; lengthened to an hour—-1 should have said it was uloiij; a country road —and st'll we wove not home. Nor were we for rome considerable time after, lin l who'd hi* bound by the tick of watch when the eternal thoughts 01 ages wore ringing out? Not!. With respect to political matters, pii'loaophy has entered too diM.-ply in',; the nature of my friend to allow of his being a. keen partisan. He is neither a Ministeiialist nor an Oppositionist: it matters little to him whether the one sidi or the other govern the country, cm.opt in so far as the ultimate goi u o: tlr: people and t>! the country must ncmsarily inten'.-t cm of f(i broad a nature. To all (['.tedious tlint I have beard liim consider h.: bring.-; a dispassionate judgim-nt' and an enlightened cxperM:ci>. Durin;: his I!:.* lie lii',3 taken an interot in political eieiomy of the practical type, ;>ml has v.-;u<;!h\! the ei'fret of uiea.-iiiT . up;:ii i:iii in o: t>in;-i-y nmditions lie know;:, more of political qiTr;;l ions now. 1 v." no doubt, ihan many members of P;:11 imli'ont. In fact, of thie veiy matter, ho e.div.iUed. ho thought he had—nod lie is furthor from being a boaster ihan the majority of men —;uul ascribed it to his long exponents and the study he had been aide to give, the many ([iicst : :!ii:\ ib> went one night recently to a political meeting and lien Icl a candidate for a certain electorate :leliur an address. He gave a most droll account of it. "The man." ho raid. " was talking about co-eperativo woiks. V.ut he dido'!, know anything about co-opera;ion, and I had to put him right rovfiral '.bnes. In fact, 1 was leading up to my subject go carefully that the chairman interrnp-.e:l

me. liut 1 told him to wait a little and I would explain it to him. Ae.d I did, and showed him (the candidate.) what co-opera-tion ii-.'lly meant-, and that what he. was inveighing aguiust was not co-operation, bin the result of mismanagement in one respect. Ami then paper money. They dou't think bow they are going to run it. Where are thov going to g-et the money? There was the hank in the North Island in. I hi: early days: they tried to run a hig note issue, hut thoy couldn't. There was the municipality of Oamarn and the .Siiuthhmd Provincial Council, they issued paper money on themselves and cam? lo ■'rief, and the Government had to step in." And so lie runs on. He has a word against the ne.'.v .-papers, too. "The paper.;." ho says, " don't tackle the questions like they used to. They dilly-dally round, and try to please both sides and every side, instead of going into tho' matter straight." He is a fine old gentleman, is my honoured Scotch friend. I enjoy his acquaintance thoroughly, and find in his clear view of qiie-iiom; the keen insight of a practical mind. He is of a type which any country might bo proud to pe-sess.