PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15986, 31 January 1914, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

" Who owns all this!" asks (he Mail with the lied Tie, ranging hungry eyes over the sum of lliing.s that mass themselves in a great mart of trade—Sydney, for example, -the roaring streets, the shops, tlio warehouse.*, the shipping. And then lit gi-cs lii.s way to a meeting <j|' the Australian Workers' L'nion and says:

" Comrades, what we want is control' ot the Government, the military, and the police." This much but no more the Sydney cable gives us; tile Man with the Red Tie had uttered once for all the Tiling that Is, and if he uttered anything else it wasn't worth reporting. A word more would sjioil it. Gradually we shall learn to define the situation in his terms. Kverywhere men who wear red ties have a controversy with the Government, the military, and the 'police. And since on their side the Government, the military, and the police have something to say for themselves, we reach —what do we reach? Letters three do form its name; —the condition at which we arrive is WAR. in New Zealand it was war when a Red Tie army closed the ports and arrested our whole external commerce. Blockade, by an enemy's fleet could have done no more. In South Africa, it is war, a fact painfully emphasised (for the other side) by the imminence of an anti-Red-Tie army of 60,000 burghers, each with a Mauser rifle and ready to shoot.

When at the ba.r of the world's opinion South Africa and the high doings thence reported comc up for judgment, the controlling fact will get due acknowledgment. From Mr Keir Ilardie and Mr Ramsay Macdonnld, lifting up hands of horror at " the Russianizing of our institutions," it gets no acknowledgment at all. But there is another tribunal; there arc more intelligent jurymen. The controlling fact in the South African situation is the existence of those same 60,C00 rille-handlini; burghers* It is unfortunate for the Brethren of the Red Tie that Brother Boor, with his experience of Rooineks, dislikes the colour. But that is not the least of it. A man with a stake in the country, hidebound by prejudices traditional, historical, inveterate, he is impervious to oratory from the Socialist stuni'p and totally unpersuadeable. The political economy of a burgher (South African Dutch) with a farm to lose is of the simplest. " What's mine is mine," says he, adjusting a cartridge; contest the proposition, and your choice lies between

" Hands Up " and perforation by a softnosed Mauser bullet. The Premier, General Botha, is a burgher in grain; neither he nor the other burghers around him in the Ministry and in Parliament are men to be humbugged by phrases—" industrial dispute,'' " liberty of the subject,'' " freedom of speech." " rights of citizenship." When government, order, authority, the ilag, the verv existence of society are attacked, it is WAR. Recognising this, Boer and British perforce stand side by side.

The crisis has brought, the English and the Dutch' into remnrknblo sym-

pathy, this being r-.trikingly illustrated

bv the public meetings and fraternisations during the mobilisations.

Quite clear is it that in South Africa the Red Tie propaganda has struck a snag.

Dear "Civis," —I have read with interest in recent columns of Passing Notes one or two letters concerning Madame Blavatsky, co-founder with Colonel Olcott of the Theosc.phical Society. I enclose two friendly pen pictures of her by those who knew her well, which I send you to put beside the two of the other class already useti by you in Passing Notes.—l am, etc., A MEMJSISK OF THE TIIEOSOrniCAJ, Society.

Of Madame Blavatsky, Mr G. R. S. Mead, . tnu well-known writer and tlitouJphiist, writes: —"She remains our sphinx, our mystery, our deariy loved Old Lady. 'Sue was not a teacher in any ordinary sense, lor she had no idea ot teaching in any orderly or systematic fashion; indeed, she detested the very idea of being considered a spiritual or ethical teaclicir, cried out loudly against it, protested she was the least fitted ,of all to be called to such an office. No, she was better than that, better than any formal instructor, for she was, as it were, a natural fire at wliioh to light up enthusiasm for the greater life of tho world, a marvellous incentive to make one gmj) on to tho problems of sell-knowing, a wonderful inspirer of longings for return, a true singer of the songs of home; all this sho was at times, while at times she intensified confusion. It is some 13 years since 11.P.8. departed from her pain -racked ; body, and yet somehow or other with each year my affectionate remembrance of her docs but inorease, and I ever look back to her and her work for inspiration to revive the feeling of. greatness and largc-heartcdnes6, ami that fresh atmosphere of freedom from conventionality which meant springtime and growth and a bursting of bonds, and a flowing of sap, and tho removing of mountains as the young shoots buret from their tiny mustard seeds and shook the earth heaps from their shoulders. It was the virile life in her, the breadth of view, the quick adaptability, the absence of prudery and pietism, the camaraderie, the camplife as it wore of those earlier days, that made the blood circulate in the veins, and the muscles tense for strenuous hardship and advance into regions ever more and more unknown."

Says Mrs Annie Besant, who knew her well"What H. P. Blavatsky was tho work! may some day know. She was of heroic stature, and smaller 6ouls instinctively resented her strength, her titanic nature. Unconventional, 'careless of appearanoes, frank to unwisdom —as the world estimates wisdom, —too honest •to calculate against the dishonesty of others, she laid herself open to continual criticism and misunderstanding. Full of intellectual strength and with extraordinary knowledge, sho was humble as a little child. Brave to recklessness, she was pitiful and tender. Passionately indignant when accused of sins she loathed, she was generous and forgiving to a repentant foe. She had a hundred splendid virtues, and a few petty failings. Slav the Master she served with unfaltering courage, with unwavering devotion! send back to us again 'the Brother you know as 11.P.8., but we—otherwise.' "

Wishing to be fair, I make a place for these Blavatskv panegyrics, the more readily that it is the dead season, not to say the silly season. Hardly yet are we suffering a recovery from the jaunting and junketing of the holidays. Nothing stirs in dominion politics ; Bible-in-School" is "tranced or rusticating; now if ever comes to the theosophist a chance of parading in newspaper sunlight his dingy idols. Madamie BlavatsJ<y is a, dingy idol —read any non-theosophist account "of her; Gautama, the father and founder, is another. Not easily do you hold in respect an ascetic who starts with a harem of 84.000 _ wives, attains to a good oJd and dies of an indigestion. Fog is the atmosphere of the theosophist; he or she —he is usually a she—moves about in a mist that dims all outlines. As Mr Mead cited above, juris it in his last sentence— and it louldn't he better put—theosophist advance is " into iv<;ions ovor more arid more unknown." Knowledge is ignorance ; the further on you get", the further you are be-hind. ]ri happy conformity Mrs Besarit closes with a sentence that defies sane analysis : " May the Master she served . . . send back to us again 'the Brother you knew as H. P. 8., but we—otherwise.' On the principle that he's are .she's and she's are he's we may accept Madame Blavatsky as "th'ie Brother but the .'ipoonded "we—otherwise " is abracadabra—a theosophist mystery.

Dear "Civis,''—The wardis "Ariam" and "Aryan."' the one meaning a. particular kind of heretic, the other a family of languages, have in use the same pronounciation. both sounding like the syllables "-ariaai" in "sectarian." Hence the words when spoken are not distiwiuisha.lile. Why should it be so? As '"Arian" is derived fro.m the proper name Areios—tho letter "i" representing the diphthong "ei"—lt seems clear that "Arum" should have the accent on the second syllable, not on the first.

You know too much, yet hardly enough. Turn ii]) your Lewis and Short, not to mention your Liddell and Scott, and Jen'rn that. the name of the fourth century lirresiarcli who begat the Avian tribe was spelt sometimes Areios, sometimes Arius, sometimes Arrius, and that the guantilj oi

tho letter " i " in forms two and three is doubtful, may be long or short Jit discretion. So where are you? Anyhow, as 1 everlastingly insist, we are not, in bondage to rules and precedents drawn from other languages, whether ancient or inodel'ii. . With lis, usage settles everything,—English is master in its own house. By the way. there is another name that should be laken into account—that of the llreek banjoist who, when tossed overboard by sailors who perhaps didn't like his music, rode ashore on the back of a dolphin tiiat had been charmed by it,— Arion to wit. At one time in Uunedin we had a musical society that called Ltself the Arion Club, and 1 had to teach its members how to pronounce the name :

Antepenult do not tarry on,

Raving Arion ; Not though vowel-sound you vary on,

Saying Arion. Permit let. the accent lie on,

Say Arion

'111 at made it clear beyond possibility of mistake.

I have here a correspondent whose method in attempting to represent graphically a vowel-sound is not that of rhyming, but another nearly as good.

Dear " Civis,'

I—ln1 —In one of your Pass-

ing -Notes yon were asked concerning the pronunciation of the word " the," whioh you gave, 1 believe, in the correct way. I have hf\a.rd it pronounced differently, and that by a femalo school teacher. I have had arguments with her about the word. She tells the children, when hearing their lessons, to pronounce the word as though it spelt "tha." with the sound of the "a" broad and short, as it would bo nro-

nounced if the letter "a" were put

between my initials, which are—D.M. If he put it that way to the lady teacher, naturally she would declare the argument closed.

As a specimen of oiegant English con siden this :

Taking you down inlo the Irangutted saloon of cue of them, Caotnin John M'Lean (otherwise "Hell-fire Jack." though his conversation might have gra.ecd a Sunday school) and pointing to the stretch of table under the skylight, and to the deadly array of cabins that flanked it, would ask with pride, "Isn't she a screamerV"

Where did I find it? In last week's Passing Notes, where else? How do I explain it? I don't explain it; what is more, I am not going to put it straight. I merely offer the detached remark that holidays are holidays, and that to the journalist who chances to see neither "proof" nor "revise" the possibilities are limitless, — anything may happen. For a week now I have had this thorn ill my pillow, I, who am never a quiet sleeper, turning and twisting for a crumpled rose-leaf. But the • hypercritical correspondent who underlines Passing Notes of the previous week in two places, setting in the margin against each a note of exclamation ( !) or typographical shriek, troubles me not a.t all. One place is where " Sacerdos," a Roman Catholic writer I was quoting from the Tablet, speaks of the commandment " Honour thy father and thy mother " as the Fourth; whereas, chuckles the critic, everybody knows that it is the Fifth. Then everybody doesn't know that in the .Roman Catholic arrangement of the Ton Commandments the First and Second count as one, and the number is made up by dividing the Tenth into two. So the Protestant Fifth is the R.C. Fourth, and "Sacerdos" need not be sent hack to his catechism. It. is the critic that should go to school, as we shall see. Having occasion to mention Frederick William, King of Prussia, who spent on the purchase of giants for his regiment of Potsdam guards huge sums which liad been better employed in feeding his half-starved wife and children, I said that those times wre "two centuries and more back." Whereupon an incredulous shriek —( !). But there is nothing wrong. The Frederick William in question was born in 1688; alive to-day, he would he in his 226 th ye>ar. If I must he shrieked at, I prefer that it be for my English.

Christchurch, January 27, 1914.

Dear "Civis," —Do you know anything about permutations and combinations?— Yours truly,

.Nil Sudeditohi Impossibile Est. Oh yes, a little. My autitude for this column iniplies ( a little of everything. But as I can't fie expected to permute and combinate without matter to go on, this inquirer encloses a conspectus of attempts made by the New Zealand press to report a resolution passed in the University Senate: "That the Bowen prize for 1913 be awarded to the candidate whose motto is " —and here the trouble begins. What is the motto? The following are the shots at it recorded so far:

" Nil Mortalibus Ordaum Eut " (Lyttelton Times);

" Nil mortalibus ordutun cnt" (New Zealand Times).

"Nil mortalibus ordnum ent" (Dominion).

"Nil mortalibus orduum cut" (Otago Daily Times).

If without seeming to presume I may offer a suggestion, I should say that the motto must have been the -well-worn Horace tag, "Nil mortalibus ardnum est"; which, freely Englished, seems to say that nothing, is too steep for mortal men. But the sentiment has been negatived by the experience of four highly respectable newspaper offices. Civis.

— Bamboo pens have been in use in ludia for over 1000 years, and are etill often preferred to steel or quill pens. — Less tobacco is consumed in Great Britain in proportion to the inhabitants than in any other civilised country. The Sydney Newsletter says:—" No institution in the special medical line of a reliable and respectable character has been inaugurated with such success for years as that at St. Aubyns, Hunter street (Sydney), for the application of Dr Sherman's method of treatment of hernia or rupture. Thai such an institution was required in Sydney is amply proved by the large number of eases brought to the conductor, Mr A. "VV. Martin —very many of them old and cruelly manipulated cases, which now have been mastered with signal success by this naturally scientific method, which has made the name of Dr Sherman famous everywhere.' The days of quack treatment for this distressing and disabling complaint aro over for ever in Sydney. Mr Martin, the conductor of the institute, is a gentleman well known in New Zealand, and also in Sydney, and he is to be congratulated on the succe&s of a work so humane and needful to the Australian people." It might be suggested that a good heading here in New Zealand for the above extract would be "A prophet has no honour in his own country," particularly seeing that so many persist', in ignoring the facilities at hand; but as a matter of fact scores of people in New Zealand take delight in proclaiming the benefits they have received at Mr Martin's hands, and such being the case, perhaps this one evidence of the high esteem in which the Dr Sherrmn treatment is held in Australia will suffice to remove the last, remnant of doubt whirfi is deterring many from submitting to Ihe only treatment whereby they can hope to get first of all relief and subsequently a permanent cure. Mr A. W. Martin may bo oonsulted at his rooms. Samson's Buildings, Dowling street, Duriedin. daily 10 to 12 noon, 2 to 5 p.m.," Saturdays 10 to 12. A booklet on rupture and its treatment posted free to anyeuffercr. -31/1/14. ■