PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21052, 14 June 1930, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

Tiers la reason >in the doctrine—bitterly propounded by Shakespearian tragic actors—that the world may be divided into two classes t the strong who can stand tragedy, and the weak who can’t. Probably for this reason Shakespearo’s tragedies have long been off the boards. A tragic stage before an empty house presents a double tragedy. Tragedy is too gloomy for modern tired brains and weary nerves, for minds running short of moral stamina and stern self-mastery. Men in this degenerate state seek their distractions in pleasant things! in plays and novels with pleasant endings that steep the senses in forgetfulness. And they plaintively cry;—

I would It were bedtime, Hal, and all well. Yet tragedy, and the representation of unpleasant things teach their own exclusive lessons. Old-time tragedy, dealing poetically with disorders of the will, set out to purify and brace the mind by inducing the curative emotions of sympathy and fear—sympathy with the woes of the distraught hero, and fear lest the ' spectator’s own unworthinesa merit a like fate. But all tragedy is not stage drama. Nor need tragedy always present a Trojan Priam witnessing the murder of his fifty eons, or a Greek Medea slaughtering her infant children.' It may be of a humbler kind and descend to the everyday commonplace—an unpleasant fact to be‘faced, or the warning of a disaster to come. Be it great or be it small, a tragedy in fact or a tragedy in prospect, each of us reacts to it in his own way—some with sympathy, some with fear, some with both, and some with neither. And in every .case it divides us up inexorably into the weak and the strong., The Premier’s announcement of financial stringency is a tragedy in embryo, a test of which the gods are watching the issue. Said Mr Forbes:—.•

This year will end in a shortage of n } l^ 3onS- • • The railways can no longer meet their interest bill of a million and a-quarter. . . . We' must cut our coat according to our cloth, both privately and nationally. . . . Accordingly, 1 appeal to the people to view the matter from a national standpoint and support the Government in carrying out an unpleasant duty. Some will tighten their belts, gird up their loins, set their teeth, and be as Ajax defying the lightning. Some will continue to be graceful Omars reclining under their rose trees with wine pot and. scroll of poetry. Some again will cry, Nous sommes trahia,” will demand some traitor’s head, and will claim privileges and exemptions. " Hands off education 1 ” have cried the educationists. The motorists are following suit, as probably other* will do in the near future. 0 temporal 0 mores 1

This financial thunderbolt of the Premier, hurled with dramatic suddennees from a sky made clear and blue by previous gentle zephyrs, has stirred the imagination of New Zealand' in different degrees and in divers ways. In soine quarters the imaginative faculty has been excited to soaring metaphor. Only thus could the press and choke of feelmg be released. Says Mr Shirtcliffe.'of Wellington!— It is no use our hiding our heads in the sands of indifference, and thinkin£ that by eo doing we shall escape ■ stress thr6atenCd St ° m ° f financial Expressive phrasing and praiseworthy sentiment. But as a figure of speech it might be better. Is this quite what the ostrich does in a desert sand storm t Neither a sand storm nor a small boy would spare a man in that position. Again, the motorists, through the lips ol their spokesman, express stronger feelings in weaker metaphor «*■*• win ,th (. S k* ® ow ? ,0 shrewdly from Wellington I can foresee an attempt to brine the money of the motorists under the control 6} the Public Works department. . . ; The motorists have come to be regarded ■as : the golden scapegoat for the Government, the counties, the municipalities, and now is the time to call a halt. "J n ” this kite I foresee 1 Why m ? In a kite itself you can sec nothing but paper and indications of framework. n From the flying ” of a kite much more becomes apparent—the hand and purpose of the flyer. But let that pass. The “ scapegoat ” metaphor shows that the biblical knowledge of the motorists needs overhauling. It is knocking badly. In Leviticuf the Jexdsh atonement rites are thus ordered And. Aaron shall cast lots upon two goats, one lot tor the Lord, and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron , Til P re ® ent the goat upon which the lot fell ■ for the Lord, and offer him i. t ?5 n ?^ er j n P* But the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be set alive before the Lord to make atonement for him, to send him away tor Azazel into the ‘wilderness. This “ escape goat ” escapes. His i fellow goat is the one sacrificed. The ; motorists have got hold of the wrong ! goat. According to some commentators, I Azazel means Satan, The motorist goat therefore escapes all unscathed into the wilderness—and goes to the Devil 1 Finally, has any motorist ever attempted the none too easy task of “calling a halt” to a runaway goat? Belief in the steady progress of i humanity is quite modern. The ancients las a rule thought' otherwise. In the i days of Homer and Hesiod men were I convinced that the world was in natural decay. While Homer wrote to inspire | the imagination, Hesiod wrote to improve the mind, and Hesiod’s division of world history into five ages has therefore more to it than a mere poetic phantasy. His Golden Age was simple, patriarchal, blissfully communistic! Abandoning this gold standard the world next slipped into the Silver Age ■ voluptuous and godless. Then into I of Bronze, violent, lawless, warlike. The fourth .was the Heroic Age when the decline from ideals of gold to those of mere silver and bronze filled men s minds with aspirations towards earlier and better things. But the Tran Age followed—and gone from the earth were Justice, piety, and truth. Naturally this was old Hesiod’s own time. Ovid, following on much later, smoothed and quickened the descent by omitting the Hemic Age. Later still, prosaic archeological moderns have spoken of the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, basing their unpoetical chronology on materials used for cookmg food and making war. Guided by these precedents, and ignoring arched, logical pitfalls, we too may view the , progress of modern humanity as a series of ages-an Age of Wood/an Age of Charcoal, an Age of Coal, an Age of OH. and an Age of Water. Present civilisation is built on water, is thinkwater, is working at water, and is frequently standing in water. Recent events make us wonder whether a civilisation based on water is more secure than a house built on sand. Jacobs warning to hl s sons is also a warning to us;— Unstable as water, thou shalt not succeed. At Arapuni and at Waipori things seem to be moving, though not in the way desired. Man in his secular conflict with Nature has mighty odds against k™* Bte fi with loaded dice. And Nature’s laws are hid in night.” Her return blow may be catastrophic. Chassez le nature!, il revient au galop.

The weekly Rugby tournaments of the football season give rise to stray reflections. And international Rugby no less. A contest between two great aides is inspiring. But much more inspiring is the necessity of ransacking the city for football grounds to accpmmodate the

hundreds of players. Inspiring again is the brilliant play, the skill and speed of champions. But more Inspiring is the unapplauded player who plays only for love of the game. Waterloo and the playing fields of Eton and the Flag Tie match at CarisbrookT No. Waterloo and the village green and the schoolboy with improvised stumps and imagined goal-posts. Says Chesterton, paradoxically but truly:— The real historic strength of Eng land, physical and moral, has never had anything to do with athletic specialisation, but has been rather hindered by it. , , . In the Waterloo period there was a general rough-and-tumble athleticism among average Englishmen. It was a thing of the soul. It came out of laughter, religion, and the spirit of the place, . , As long as the game was a game everybody wanted to Join in it. When it becomes an art, everybody wants to look at it. Is all well with our football ? . The " lacrimae rerum ” of the poets are not absent even here, Greatest of all its evils is the deification of the referee. He has become a deity with sole guardianship of conscience, and his whistle has become the pen of the recording _ angel. What this deity does not see is therefore not a sin or a crime! If his whistle does n»t blow, the recording angel makes no note and no sin has been committed! I have seen an international player at Carisbrook stealing ahead of his mark when the referee had turned his hack, and looking With puzzled amazement at the epectatora who yelled at him. To him " no whistle ” meant no rule broken. A moral courage sufficient to face thousands of protesting onlookers is no substitute for the still small .voice of conscience. In a northern intercolonial match a year ago a visiting footballer, lying in the scrum, heard the opposing captain ordering, Don't kick him.” The visitor at the e ? UI 8 dinner quoted this as an ©sample of fine sportsmanship. Quite the contrary. It pulled aaide the curtain and revealed ugly practices. New Zealanders make their football a god. " Thou shalt have none other god before Me.” But do they worship him as a god, or as a more graven image T

Pain may frequently be relieved by the application of a counter-irritant. The pain of our anxiety regarding our household water supply has been stilled by an astute City Council with its warnings about Waipori, Yet cleanliness is nearer to godliness even than light and power, and shortage in the domestic reaen oirs would spell disaster even more surely. It was not always so. Nations in the past rose to greatness unaffected by hygienic demands now regarded as not less necessary than breathing. The Romans tad luxurious bathe, both public and private, and as their Empire declined they became cleaner. To the rude barbarians of exuberant strength and vigour who poured like a flood on the Roman world, such luxuries were unknown, and the Dark Ages that ensued were the Unwashed Ages. Even in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries cleanliness received little attention. In Spain ths bath was forbidden as a heathen abomination. Queen Marguerite of Navarre washed herself at the oftenest once a week, and then only her hands. Louis XIV of r ranee, le Grand Monarque, never washed himself. After his death a bathing tub was found i n the Versailles gardens used as a fountain. y<> one hafl known what it was meant ■ for, and the whole palace contained not a single bath. Gibbon tells of an old nun who', at the celebration of her seventy years period in her convent,, boasted that she had not once washed her body, but only the tips of her fingers on days when she was to receive the sacrament. In the sixteenth century a Spanish lady of high rank wrote to her daughter cautioning her not to give way too much In the way of ablutions:— It is permissible, and even desirable, my dear daughter, to wash the face once or even twice a week. To do so is said to be cooling and refreshing, and is less questionably deat times for removing marks or stains. But to wash more often than once in every four days would expose yourself to the evil tongue of the malicious, who would say you were making yourself attractive to men. From a Hawke’s Bay correspondent: Dear Civia,—Another earnest seeker after knowledge. An argument has arisen concerning the date at which the seasons (irrespective of the weather ) begin. One faction maintains that these are as follows: Spring,—September 21 to December 21. Summer.—December 21 to March ! 21. Autumn.—March 21 to June 21. Winter. —June 21 to September 21. The opposing faction takes the following view:— Spring,—August 1 to October 31. Summer.—November 1 to January 31. , Autumn.—February 1 to April 80. Winter.—May 1 to July 31. On consulting certain pamphlets and books 1 have found it stated that either is correct. Will you please give me .your version on the subject? Also, why May Day is held in Britain. The following may interest you. A certain class which I taught were asked to complete a few proverbs, eg-: 1. A rolling stone ... 2. One man’s meat . . . 3. People who live in glae* houses ... Here are the best of the howlers i—- -- A rolling stone never stops till it gets to the bottom. 2. One man’s meat is never enough for two. (A Maori boy’s answer). ■ 3. People who live in glass houses are always hot stuff. Within its own sphere, and for. its own special purpose, each of the above views is correct. One is astronomical, the other is popular. One depends on the annual circumsolar motion of the earth, the other on questions of seed time and harvest, and on the various natural phenomena of plant and animal life. The fact that the astronomical spring differs from the popular is unfortunate, but natural. What is convenient in one sphere would be inconvenient in the other. In no other way could the astronomer symmetrically divide up the ecliptic or earth s orbit but into four approximately equal quadrants, with sections at the equinoxes and solstices. But mankind, living dose to the laud, and vitally interested in sowing time and reaping time and with increase of crops and flocks and herds, has chronologised his year without reference to astronomy. In fact, our language is at fault. We have one word for two quite different meanings. And all the troubles arising from this oft-recurring debate would be removed if the astronomer would cease using a term that does not at all belong to him. “ Season ” is a farmer’s word, meaning “sowing-time,” and has etimologically nothing to do with astronomy. Let the scientist manufacture his own tools, and not filch from hard-handed toilers “ what isn’t his’n.” My correspondent’s query on the subject of " May Day ” will he dealt with next week. Cma.