PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17402, 24 August 1918, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

I)e Quincoy, treating of rhetoric and style, notes the measured pomp of a chap-ter-opening in the Book of Daniel : " Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drajik wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which she father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels. . . . and the long and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.lf the words depicting this orgy move as if marching at a funeral, it is because catastrophe impends; the red light of tragedy is over all. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote over against the candlestick upon the pla-ister of the wall of the king's palace; and' the king saw the part_ of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, eo that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. Potsdam just now is not a Babylon of Inxtiry, nor the war-worn Kaiser an oriental sensualist: nor can we suppose that the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Kaiser's accession was celebrated by a Belshazzar's Feast. But in other points a parallel holds. For aught we know, the German people may still be drugged with lies. But the men at the top, the Satanic hierarchy that hedges the Kaiser about-, assuredly they are not deceived. America is coming in as a flood; and America will be the decisive factor. The Kaiser sees the writing on the wall. Whether the joints of _ his loins have been loosed, whether his knees have smote one against pie other, is a guess; nobody knows. It is _ enough—and of this we may be certain—that a ohill has stricken him to the heart.

"Optimist" we know, and " pessimist" we know, but what is a "pessoptimist" ? The pessoptimist is not a blend, a compromise, the mean between two extremes. as the word might suggestnothing of the kind, say the American editors who have discovered or invented him. Then ■what is he ? Listen to him and learn. An American _ patriot, keen for winning the war, this is how he talks about it — I ace they are determined to enforce conscription in Ireland, and the Irish are getting ready to fight. It's en-

couragmg. And thero are the Clyde engineers threatening- to go out on strike again if something isn't done about their beer. It s good news.

Hero at Home, in Washington, the spirit of partisanship is running amuck, tho headlines say, and the aviation programme has got mixed up with tho Congressional elections. That isn't half bad.

On the other hand, here's Kaiser Bill crowing over the 6pirit of perfect unity and co-operation that animates his beloved taxpayers. And it's true too. So much the worse for Bill. When I _am down in £he mouth about tho situation there on the front, it cheers me up to read about Ireland! and the engineers on the Clvde, and party fights at Washington. It shows wo are not going to lose the war.

The paradox thus stated, he proceeds to explain If the British Government were afraid of losing' the war. they* wouldn't push their quarrel with the Irish. If the Clyde shipbuilders were really afraid of the Kaiser, they wouldn't be thinking of their beer so hard. And in Washington if they expected the German navy, to sail up the Potomac, they wouldn't be laying wires for the elections in November. I rely on the instincts of the average man; and when I read a particularly depressing communique from France, I look out all over the Allied world and I see things a good deal as they used to be. If the German people stands like one man behind Kaiser Bill, it's because the German people is_ scared to death. If we go on scrapping among ourselves, it shows a gratifying state of confidence.

We see the principle. And with surprise we reoognise an old acquaintance. King Harry was a pessoptimist on the nKxrniosr of Agincourt:— ' Oloucester, 'tis tra© that we aro in groat danger, The greater therefore should our courage be. . . . Thero is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observiagly distil it out.

For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers, "Which is both, healthful and good husbandry: Besides, they are our outward consciences, And preachers to us all, admonishing That w© should dross u& fairly for our end. Thus may we gathor honey from the -weed, And make a moral of tho devil himself.

This wisdom if sound should bo applicable locally. The Dunedin Harbour Board, a meritorious public body to which we are more indebted than we know, has been exercised in mind over a busted boiler. Discussing intermittently for weeks together tho antecedents and consequents of the calamity, its when, where, how, and why. With equal lucidity tihis matter might have been discussed by the Women's Christian Temperance Union or a committee of the Y.M.C.A., —and to greater profit, 6ince either of the two would h-ave decided straight off that for a busted boiler or a boiler that won't boil without threatening to bust the one and only remedy is a new one; whereas to hatch out that conclusion cost the Harbour Board a long and painful incubation. Meanwhile, with boiler on the brain, dazed and bewildered, the Board is posted by the City Council as a, defaulter in other'matters :

The Mayor said councillors must know of tho offer made by tho Council to the Harbour Board of a considerable sum of money towards completing the reclamation of Lake Logan. The Board had several times been asked to reply to the offer; but it had ignored the request. _ Tho residents in the locality should stir up the Harbour Board to reply to that letter, audi thus do a good work for the city. _ The Council had done everything in its power to assist the residents to have tho work satisfactorily completed. Cr Scott said tlje lake had been left in a more unsatisfactory condition than ever before.

Cr Bradley said a muddle had resulted from the reclamation of Lake Logan. It was a disgrace to civiEsaticrn.

Nevertheless there is some soul of goodness in tilings evil, would men ofoservrngly distil it out. But to distil it out of the rotting and festering reclamation called Lake Logan "would need a forty-power pessoptimist.

Under fee same category may bo brought the threatened stoppage of oracoal. Since coal is eesential to industries, traffic, commerce, the domestic hearth, a prime necessary of life, the New Zealand miners, munerically a handful, are aWe to take the whole community by t&e throat. Not actually have they done this; they aTe only threatening, and a threat is nothing—a playful fingering of the national weasand, a hint thai they can throttle us when they please. But the hint is not merely unpleasant; it is Jawless ;it is treasonable. Men are m gaol for lea>. " Coal is the key to victory," Marshal Foch telegraphs from Che battle front m tihe West; —"Miners of Britain, help me!" From across the Atlantic, ] v York echoes this appeal:— Behind the man behind tho gun is the quota of anthracite and bituminous that keeps him going-. This is a war of mechanical power as -well as of brains, and practically oil our modern mechanical power pots its vim from the bottled sunlight that sparkles in the black diamonds. Kvcry placn wo havo that can put out coal is on the firing lino to-day. The swarthy lads with the picks andi tho funny little lamps on their hats—they're in the trenches too. If you want to know ■tfhnt our national strength will bo next winter, watch the figures as to coal output. If you can raise it, that's your clear duty. In New Zealand the same things holds. To stop our coal sirpply is to prolong the war, to multiply deaths, to help the Hun It may not come to that; if it does, the Government and the courts must do their dwtj).

Replying to some well-meaning simpletons who 'would enforce prohibition of alcoholic drinks upon the University of Oxford, Professor Sir Walter Raleigh said, amongst other wise things, this :— A certain amount of freedom to go' wrong is essential in a university, where men are learning, not to obey but to choose. Rem aca tefcigit;—neatly, as with, the point of a neetlic, he touches the governing fact for every man—" a certain amount ot freedom to go wrong." in. the university life, not less than at Oxford " men are learning, not to obey, but to choose." i'rom tne very start, in the Garden of i£<den itself as the story comes to us, there was a certain a-mount of freedom to go wrong, lo the mechanical moralists who would put humanity in irons and enforce goodness by the magistrate and the constable Professor Raleigh gives the unanswerable answer—to go Tight men must, the freedom to go wrong. The Efficiency Board recommended prohibition as a war measure, for economy's cake, adding that they did not touch on moral considerations. \Yisc men. Good citizens everywhere would be for prohibition, or any other needful sacrifice, as a war measure; but our friends of the old prohibition camp are not content t-o leave it at that. They will bring in their " moral considerations," assuring its that when the war is over and our four-and-a-half millions paid as compensation gone irrecoverably, we shall love prohibition for its own sake. Which I take leave to doubt. The whole history of the world and of Christianity lis asra'insfc it. Meanwhile let me commend for general note Professor Raleigh's closing words (Daily limes, August 21) — Thousands of men whoso habits you censure have already died for the people and country. Virtually all have fought. vVhy is it, that when the greatest mystery of the Christian religion comes alive again before our r;-es'.~ so many of the authorised teachers of Christianity do _ not soo or understand it, but retire f,o the timid security of a prohibitive and negative virtue? Your petition is an insult to the men who have saved you and are saving you.

Dear Civis," —Apropos of your ?Su lmente on aGr °planes and branch, Why do the young ladies of Dunedin allude to a certain part of their frames as their boo-sum? The Concise Oxford not authorise it. I remember heaririLc a lady sir.g a part song on this tender subject in the following terms: —" 0 come to my boo —. O come to my boo—. O come to my boo-sum, my own stricken deer 1" Certainly not; boo ! Another curious pronunciation is _ grievious" for grievous. Why this interpolated iota? <! Aprile," for April, pronounced with the i long is also strange; as strange as the habit that I\ew Zealandors have of sounding the shire part of the English counties as if it, was the principal part of the word. I know a pupil teacher who always pronounced mauve as " morve," but_ that may be a personal ecceni, rlCl j y '« and not usua '- I have also heard mountaneous " for mountainous, but only oncc or .twicc. (t Trespasses ** in the Lord's Prayer, with the accent on the second instead of the first syllable is quite common in Sundav schools.

From of old this column has served as a kind of exchange for philological cariosities and literary marine stores. The letter given above is strictly in order. So is <i commnnication from <inother correspondent who presents mo with the verb "to obligate," gleaned from an American correspondence school advertisement. 'Please explain, without obligating me" says an inquirer. At one time "to obligate was English; thus Churchill, an 18th century poet :

That's yotrr true plan—to obligate Tho present ministers of state. "But"—say the authorities—"the use of this word, though still common in Scotland, Ireland, and America., is almost entirely confined to the vulgar and illiterate." That settles "to obligate." Then a further question :

Did. you ever provoke a wager as to whether it is " preventative or DrevenConceivably as in '"supposititions the redundant syllable may have been mtroduccd by one who stuttered. " -Preventitive" and " preventative" are both to be ruled out; "preventive" is the word. Here, in the most delicate way in the world, let me hint that when writing down abstract nouns in " tion" and " tive" an elementary knowledge of the Latin conjugations is useful'—a, preservative of the right, a preventive erf tihe wrong. The word "supposititious," often ignorantly used for " suppositional," is right as it stands; its meaning, fraudulently substituted, spurious. So much in the meantime for words, words, words a subject of interest inexhaustible. After all, it is by our words that we shall be justified, and by our words that we shall be condemned. Cms.