THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18676, 4 October 1922, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND

By Wayfarer. ‘Pussycat, pussycat, where have- you been?’ - runs tho old nursery jingle. '“Pussyfoot, Pussyfoot, why are you here?.’ is the query of the moment in Dunedin, “He bad not come to interfere in New Zealand affairs. What the people of New Zealand did about prohibition was their own affair, not his.” For this relief much thanks. Lots of people (not exclud-ing-prohibitionists) ..had hastily supposed (ho tourist with the feline'nickname to ho animated by a desire to tell us bow to vote in December next. Wo must now assume (hat it is merely by a sort of .happy (or unhappy) accident that his visit coincides with a prohibition campaign. He has just dropped in “prontiscuous-likc,” and has been ingenuously surprised to find that, we are almost on tho eve of a poll on the liquor question. Rumour is proverbially a lying jade, but she speaks truth now and .then by way of agreeable variation. It is not for.me to decide whether tho lady is veracious or inventive mood in declaring that the leading prohibitionists of the dominion, to say nothing of the rank and file, are not a "little disappointed with their renowned visitor. Despite warnings, they were sanguine enough to expect an orator or at least a highly effective and persuasive' speaker; and they have been introduced to a chronicler, not of small beer, but of small statistics and smaller anecdotes. .Rumofir has even gone tho length of asserting that “Mr P.” is not a personal prohibitionist,—in other words, that ho has not thought fit to prohibit himself,—but this must surely have boon one of her daring flights of malicious imagination. . !, ‘ “I was a chorister once.” Rudyard Kipling has recorded, “but somehow they managed to agree to get on without me after a while.” .After a while New Zealand and the world in general will manage to get on without the gentleman of the American vocabulary. Fancy entering Parliament kt the age of ninety-four! The fifth'Viscount Exmouth, who died in August at the age of thirtytwo years, has been succeeded by a cousin who was born when George tho Fourth was King, and now finds himself an hereditary legislator when within six years of his centenary.. Tho new viscount becomes a peer and the senior peer at a stop. He would bo almost justified in complaining that the distinction and the responsibility have arrived a shade too late. He may even be too tired to echo the recent dictum of another member of the House of Lords, Lord Willoughby de Broke; The hereditary principle is the only sound principle on which we can found any successful institution, whether it is a monarchy, a House of Lords, or a pack of foxhounds. Concerning this aristocratic plea a London paper asks, not impertinently; Or a Premiership, or a Poet Laureateship, or a Golfing Championship? (There used (o be, and perhaps still is, a hereditary King's Champion). And docs Lord Willoughby do Broke choose his doctor on this infallible principle? Lord W. de B.’s three illustrations—especially monarchy and foxhounds—may be sound enough, but the suggestion that the hereditary principle is essential to “any successful institution” oversteps the mark. It is many and many a year since Lord John Manners (afterwards Duke of Rutland) wrote in memorably pathetic strain: “Let laws and learning, art and commerce die; .... But leave us still our Old Nobility!” “A figure which filled a prodigious space in modern attention. . . . Amongst all tho millions on this planet I. doubt whether tber e was a more extraordinary man. . . For me ho was always a cataract of human energy. ... I feel as one might if Niagara itself were to cease and vanish.” J. L. Garvin’s special article on “The Real Lord Northcliffe” is a romarkablv viyid and stimulating performance. 'The distinguished editor of the Observer lets himsrif fairly “go” in the abandonment .of admiration, and manages to convey an impression that the Napoleon of Journalism was oven more of a superman ■ than tho world had .supposed. Amid so much passionate eulogy of the man who “seemed himself to be half mankind’s epitome” it is, almost, a relief to be told.' tlmt “his faults), were as big as his qualities.” ” J cannot resist quoting the one 1 unrese; - - '•edlv pleasant and humanistic passage inMr Garvin’s appreciation. His devotion and tenderness to his mother ,w:re both deep and exquisite. A better son never lived than be was. Always this seemed to me the most beautiful thing about him; and yet it was connected with another quality in which he easily surpassed everyone else . X have known. In those precious things, the smaller marks and offices of .friendship, ho was incomparable for happy thought’ and invention. He would find—out-your, pet idiosyncrasy. He would discover what dates in the calendar were dearest to you and yours After intervals long enough to make you suppose that ho must have forgotten such incidental and accidental knowledge—even if yon remembered that he ever had it—there would come tho little souvenir and the winged word. How good that is!

“There appears to have been a deal of indifferent spelling in those days,” remarked old George Dyer, Charles Lamb’s deliciously unsophisticated friend, as ho was looking through a copy of Chaucer’s poems. The, charm of the closing prayer at Lord Northcliffe’s funeral service in Westminster Abbey may bo enhanced by the “indifferent” spoiling preserved from a bvgone age; but the wording itself is singularly touching. 0 Lord, support us all the day long of this troubolous life,, until the shades lengthen, and tho evening comes, and the buisy world is hushed, tho fever of life is over, and our work done. Then, Lord, in Thy mercy, grant na safe lodgeing, a holy rest end peace at tho last, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. It; lias been said that tlhe art of praying—or, rather, of prayer-composing— is a lost gift. By tho way, the Common Round of life is not exclusively concerned with “levities and brevities,” and I hope .that there will not be thought to be anything incongruous in the citation of a beautiful prayer in this column. A fine sonnet from The Times of August 17:The Chief. “A GREAT IMPERIAL PATHFINDER.” The Chief lies dead, but still his work lives on: Tho news is born, tho pages grow complete, Tho myriad hearts of giant presses beat, Though he, the maker and the seer, is gone. The world’s news blooms and withers, and anon Fades, hut now splendours as of Empire meet Where, through the shadows of tho Magic Street, His radiant intuitions blazed and shone. His was the vision, his the truth-to-be, Who saw tho labyrinthine ways as one: His was the task tiiat is but now begun, Who bailed the nation-sisters oversea, Lit by tho light of Truth’s own sacred sun, Bound by the spacious faith of love, yet free. G, Fv H. A. If I have rather ‘‘overdone” Lord Northclifi'e, my excuse must bo found in the extraordinary amount of space devoted to tiie work and personality of “The Chief” in tho latest available London papers. Reverting to tho subject of old age: an English journal asks its readers relevantto The seventy-fourth birthday of that Grand' young man, tho Earl of Balfour'; “How old arc you? “ Are you a septuagenarian of forty, a young fellow of sixty, or an octogenarian of twenty-one? "More and more it is being realised that a man’s age is not the years he,has lived but how ho has lived the years. “ Are you the master or tho slave of your years?” The following stanza from a liquor campaign “poem,” of (sad to say) Scottish origin, may he useful to controversialists on both sides: — Plain water is the best of gifts That God to man doth bring; .. But who am I that I should have The best of everything? Lot Princes revel at tho pump, Peers at the pond make iret, But whisky of the very best Is good enough for mo. Useful, I said, to both parties; for, you sec, Mr Pussyfoot can at least use -the first two liurw, —they would lend themselves to effective declamation, -while the niili-Pussies need not stop short until they have recited the whole eight.