PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21734, 27 August 1932, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

It is debatable whether, in the domain of national characteristics, racial inheritance plays the all-important part which is credited to it, and whether its influence has been greater than geographical and material environment. The old theory of the interdependence of all human and terrestrial things has wide implications. It establishes a close connection between nature and the individual, between the geography of a nation and its commerce, between its industries and its legal systems, between its landscapes and its art, between its climate and its emotions, between its plains, mountains, forests, lakes, and soil, and the psychology, intellect, and literature which these inspire. The flatness of Dutch landscapes produces the stolidity of the Dutchman and the quiet, still* life of so much Dutch painting. The gloom of the Russian forests has coloured with pessimism the Russian novel. And we may assume tha* what makes an Englishman an Englishman and a Scot a Scot is much more the, sea-ringed insularity of Britain f han anything inherited from the polyglot population now inhabiting the British Isles. Time is not only a great healer —it is the greatest manufaet’ - 'he world has ever known. And when external things pour into the human mind through every bodily sense for thousands of years, the quiet hands of Time may easily build a structure as impressive as any left behind by those old racial factors—of which, after all, we know so little.

In the more easily changeable parts of nature the influence of matter on mind may act in the opposite direction—as is implied in a description of the English countryside by a couple of “ world-wanderers ” in a book just published: 1

When we reached Hampshire we were fascinated with the splendour of the English rural scene, which nothing in the world can equal in its way. It has a quiet fullness of form that fully satisfies the eye. Those massed and magnificent trees are spaced round, the bush fields like our potbellied Georgian ancestors round the port table. They have the dignified : serenity of a social ceremony. It is strange how closely landscapes resemble their makers. There is the Spanish landscape, hot, arid, starved, yet hiding rich stores of oily wood or succulent almond. In the German landscape there is something autocratic, humble, and utilitarian at once. In France the landscape is economical and parsimonious despite its richness; compare its starved elms with our paunched oaks. English landscape is a squire’s landscape. It has been shaped by those comfortable people whom we call —in our pride of lineage and slight disdain of aristocracy—the upper middle class. Ours is essentially a sleek, self-contented, opulent landscape. England is all a splendid pastoral symphony of green with a hundred diverse movements. Some future sociologist may apply the theory to New Zealand and to New Zealanders. His would be an unenviable job. For we are a multum in parvo, and to establish a unity from our bewildering diversity would be a task meriting a Nobel Prize. Our landscape borrows from everywhere. We have Norwegian fiords, Italian and Swiss lakes, alpine glaciers, German Marienbads and Karlsbads, English lanes and woods and trout streams, a Yellowstone Park, and a thermal region, impenetrable forests, and unexplored mountains, peaceful cowmeadows smiling up at slumbering volcanoes, sub-tropical heat and sub-ant-arctic cold. In this inexhaustible diversity, can any unity of influence be observed?

Those masculine cynics who affirm that “ woman's true sphere is the home ” do not realise the cruelty of their cynicism. The home is a dangerous place, with death lurking-round every corner, and converting innocent kitchen utensils into instruments of destruction. In Eng land alone not a day passes but three women meet their death simply by “ falling about ”in their homes. So says Miss Margaret Bondfield, Minister (or Ministra) in the late Labour Government, to a section of the National Safety Congress held recently in London; — Nearly 1800 English •women a year meet their deaths by falling about in their homes. Of these, 800 are killed by falling downstairs, the others by falling over buckets and broomhandles. Many of these home accidents are caused through constructional difficulties in connection with the house. . . , Preventable deaths

should cause as much horror as the

slaughter of war. The picture drawn by Miss Bondfield's unlying statistics is incomplete. The colours should be much blacker. We should add to her few hundred notifiable domestic deaths the many thousands of women who through faulty house construction die lingeringly from the many weary and unnecessary miles they tramp per day from kitchen range to kitchen table or scullery sink, or the many heavy and unnecessary tons they lift per day because sinks are placed too low and shelves too high. Modern inventiveness is but slowly penetrating into the kitchen. And even when it has got there, it is as a voice crying in a wilderness. Every architect and housebuilder should be compelled to servo for a year in a kitchen.

There is undeniably a romance m place names, and an historical glossary of Dunedin place names is long overdue. Yet, the romance of place names is, after all, merely secondary to the romance attached to all English surnames—their origins, their transformations, their confusions and their aspirations. The philological interest of the study is doubled by the psychological; for even in sur names there is a social hierarchy, and social climbing is not unknown. Thu origins of English surnames—on the authority, of Professor Weekley—are four, and four only; (1) Personal, from a sire or ancestor; (2) local, from a place of residence; (3) occupative, from trade or office; (4) a nickname, from bodily attributes or character. Not till the thirteenth or fourteenth century did surnames become hereditary. Before that time Robert was merely “son of William,” or Robert “of Kent,” or Robert “ the smith,” or Robert “ the stout. Occupative names were the first to become hereditary. For in the days of the mcdiffival trade guilds, with their rigid preference to unionists, these occupativo names were affectionately treasured, rigidly adhered to, and adequately distinctive. Occupative names in modern times take pride of place from the point of view of numbers —at least in England. Says the same authority: Brown, Jones, and Robinson have usurped in popular speech positions properly belonging to Smith, Jones, and Williams. But the high position of Jones and Williams is due to the Welsh, who, replacing a string of Ap’s by a simple genitive in S at a comparatively recent late, have given undue prominence to n few very common names, such as Davies, Evans, etc. If we consider only English names, the triumvirate would be Smith, Taylor, and Brown. That is, two occupative .names and one nickname. The commanding position >f Smith is due to the fact that it was applied to all workers in every kind of metal. The modern Smiths include d-j scendnnts of rflediseval blacksmiths, whitesmiths, bladesmiths, locksmiths, and many others. “ Nasmyth ” is probably for earlier “ Knysmith ” or knife-smith not nail-smith,- which was early supplanted by “ Naylor.” The great company of “ Smiths ” has now, by the vigour of its members, spread far and wide, as well as upwards. Says

a paragraph in a current London weekly:—

The Sraith-Dorriens belong to the famous banking family of Smith, Who wei’e Nottingham people. Their surname has undergone various changes. Thus it has been hyphened by the addition of Abel, Bosanquet, Dorrien, Heckstall and Parkyns. It has been changed into Pauncefote and Carrington, both in the peerage, for the father of Lord Pauncefote, sometime ambassador to America, began life as Robert Smith. Mr Abel Smith recently married the daughter of the Earl of Athlone. Sir Horace SmithDorrien’s cousin called himself Dor-rien-Smith.

Even in the atmosphere of royalty the great old name of Smith cannot hide its occupative origin, and shows no desire to do so. But “ Turner ” has been known to seek a romantic derivation from “La Tour Noire ” —the Black Tower. “ Napier ” sometimes derives itself from the Norman French t “ n’a pier”—“has no equal”; and Napier of Merchiston himself described himself on title pages as the Nonpareil. Yet his ancestor was a servant who looked after the “ napery.” Many Scottish families have yarns connected with their sur-names,—-as is the case with Guthrie:— A Scottish king once landed hungry and weary as the sole survivor of a shipwreck. He approached a woman who was gutting fish, and asked her to prepare one for him. The kindly fishwife at once replied, “I'll gut three.” Whereupon the king, dropping immediately into ryhme, said: Then "gut three” Your name shall be; and he conferred a suitable estate on his benefactress. The length of a name is not always indicative of noble origin. Any person who, like Mr Chucks, refuses “to bow to anything under three syllables ” should think of “Vavasour,” of which Kingsley says: Vavasour was a very , pretty name, and one of those supposed by novelists and young_ ladies to be aristocratic. Why so, is a puzzle; for its plain meaning is a tenant farmer, and nothing more or less. Vavasour ie said to represent a vulgar Latin “vassus vaesorum” —a vassal of vassals. From Oamaru: Dear “Civis,” —With others I was listening a few evenings ago to a musical recital on a violin. Those present were just ordinary folk who said they enjoyed the music. Now, when a piece like “ Andante Cantabile,” from the trio in D by Tsohaikowsky, was being performed, I can understand the listeners looking thoughtful, and having, so to speak, long faces. But why the long faces should continue during Verdi's “11 Trovatore,” which is not a gloomy, thoughtful piece, I do not understand. The piece has more "kick” in it than the liveliest jazz; but because it was a classical piece it must be listened to in an attitude of ecstatic immobility. Have you any theory for this? A theory? Who would apply a bookish, frigid theory to a Tschaikowsky or a Verdi audience, when he knew nought of the audience? Did not Bacon say, “ Generally music feedeth the disposition of spirit which it findeth ” ? Again, according to Bernard Shaw, “ Music is the brandy of the damned.” I prefer the words of the charming Jessica: “I am never merry when I hear sweet music.” Perhaps the best explanation of the phenomenon described by my correspondent may be deduced from the following advice given by Mr Roy Henderson, himself a distinguished baritone, to the competitors in one of the classes which he adjudicated at a musical festival in England;— Baritones, for heaven’s sake fall’ in love before you sing a love song. If you can't think of some girl, it is a poor lookout for you. If you are married, you must think of your wives; and if that doesn’t help,— somebody else. Picture somebody, even if it be an imaginary person, when you dre singing a love song. The audience may have been doing what the audience in question was doing—and it was feeling the “ kick ” in it. Cms.