PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25298, 7 August 1943, Page 3

PASSING NOTES

“No man is indispensable,” says the proverb. To this might be added, “ except Winston Churchill.” For no man exists to-day on whom so much depends, and who would be so conspicuous by his absence. He has been likened to an Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders, The Atlas of ancient myth and legend was a mighty Titan who, with his fellow-Titans, made war upon the pagan gods of Olympus, and, for this act of titanic effrontery, was condemned to hold up the heavens by his arms and hands. Having become the tutelary genius of map-making, his figure has become familiar on every school book of maps. But in this presentation the countenance of this ancient Atlas has the same strained and tortured look which Laocoon had when he struggled in agony with the pair of terrible coiling serpents. R. L. Stevenson calls him “just a gentleman with a nightmare.” But no trace of anguish or nightmare marks the face 'of his modern counterpart. No lines of lassitude or inertness furrow Churchill’s cheeks. The weight of his world-burden does riot crush the ebullience of his tremendous energy. His “ impudent grin ” drives Dr Goebbels to the point of fury, as also might the light feather of a smile with which he greets a humorous situation. A pleasant story is told in the English press of Churchill sitting through, a two-hour Budget speech of the Chancellor of the . Exchequer, when increased duties on tobacco were announced. The Commons as one man turned meaningly at Churchill. Churchill himself, with a boyish twinkle in his eye, silently waved a non-existent cigar.

The Nazis, too, like to picture their Fuhrer as a mighty Atlas, but they are proud of his care-lined face and furrowed cheeks. Goebbels said in April last, on the eve of Hitler’s fifty-fourth birthday:

The war has reached its hardest stage so far, and the way out of our burdens and sufferings is nowhere in sight. How does the Fuhrer bear it? The Fuhrer represents for all of us the image of the German people. The physical effect of the war is seen in the furrows of hardness and determination that line his face. How different this is from the impudent grin which the present chief of British policy assumes when he appears in public! How well this shows which of the two is’most satisfied with war, and consequently who wanted and provoked it. - The face alone ,of Churchill reveals the guilty man. . . . The German people often complain that the Fuhrer, though ,he Is. the decisive factor in the whole political ' and military trend of world events, is almost completely hidden behind his work. A more eloquent contrast could not be found to the practice of everyday nonentities in the enemy camp who miss no opportunities of showing themselves in the full brilliance of the footlights of the world.

, This, of course, an * allusion to Churchill’s greatest triumph—his last address 'to the American Congress, when American pressmen became almost lyrical in their eulogies. “A brilliance and an eloquence characteristic of his greatest moments.” (New York Times). “Mr Churchill electri-fied-his audience with one of the greatest speeches of his career.” (New York Herald-Tribune). “The world’s greatest orator 'at his best.” (New York World-Telegram). “A masterly summary of the war situation.” (Christian Science Monitor.) Even the Chicago Tribune said; He faced a Congress shot through with doubt of the wisdom of the ' Churchill - Rocsevelt strategy and clamouring for an immediate'offensive against Japan. But he carried the day with the aid of all the arts of persuasion and a captivating personality. Greater praise than this was forthcoming. An opponent of Roosevelt deciared: “ The speech will injure the President by excelling and overshadowing him.” The ultimate and dizziest height of praise was expressed when the speech “raised some Ariierican misgivings about the perfection of the. much-lauded American Constitution.” One commentator said: , ' \ ■ The speech raised doubts in many American minds whether there was any sufficient compensation in the American system of Separating the Executive and the Legislature, and

depriving the people’s representatives of that intimate contact with the head of the Government which is enjoyed by the Commons of Britain.

It was reported by a 8.8. C. news announcer during the week that an American military airman, for demonstration purposes, has just made a flight in which his speed exceeded the velocity of sound. Well may we ask what we are coming to on this earth. The time is at hand when an airman competing > for a Schneider Cup will hear the drone of the starting gun following close on his tail throughout the race. He will arrive at his finishing post almost before he started. In time he may even outstrip the movement of the sun by which we set our clocks. If these reflections seem inane, let us remember man’s conception of possible speeds in, the days of the stage coach with its then sensational speed of 10 m.p.h. “If anyone wants to go faster than that.” a traveller of the time said, “let him charter a streak of lightning.” “What is more absurd.” asked the Quarterly Review of 1835, “ than the prospect held out of a locomotive travelling as fast as a stage coach?” Then came Stephensons Rocket, shooting over the ground at 35 m;p.h. In the matter of speed, mankind is still, relatively, at the stagecoach speed. Man’s speed will inevitably increase till be can 'keen pace with the rotation of the earth. He will then fly off it. J. B. S. Haldane, the eminent scientist, in his “ Essay ‘on Man’s Destiny,” observes: Onlv seven miles a second at the earth’s surface is required to counteract the gravitational 'control of , the earth. .... Man will certainly attempt to leave the earth. . • • There is no reason why our successors should not succeed in colonising some at least, of the planets of the solar system. t

D f?ames*sometimes come so pat that they seem almost too good to be true. The " Darling of the Gods, a Japanese plav produced by Beerbohm Tree, was the joint production of HavicL Belasco and John Luther Lon S- Th f ~.S cs S°l ' girl.” a musical comedy with Edna May and Arthur Roberts in the lead, was in preparation when Tree produced the collaboration This piece included a burlesque of the Parting of the Gods.” It i was billed as the “ Darling of the Guards by David Burlesquo and John Leath Eerlung. Belasco was Burlesquo as inevitably as Dick was Swiveller. Mussolini s successor is named Badoglio; and the following quatrain- simply writes itself; — ,

Oh Victor, King, Emmanuel, Oh tell me, tell me, can you tell, Whv in this dire embroglio , There should be one Badoglio. I could run on, but this is your column, not mine.-I am, etc..

The name Badoglio strains the ingenuity of many a rhymer. In a northern paper a correspondent who evidently owns no wireless set. and listens to none, rhymed Badoglio the other day with “Mad-dog-leo ! Of rhymes to Badoglio only three are known: “folio,”, “portfolio,” and the “embroglio” of “ Disciplicus.” , It is still better off than “month,’ onoe reputed to be the only rhymeless word in English, till the famous Professor Jowett, once challenged at a social gathering to produce a rhyme to “month,”' speedily' achieved the following:—

Young gentlemen who would famous be, , In Cambridge University, Must burn the midnight oil from month to month And n-aise binomials to the n plus oneth! There is even a rAyme to “ chrysanthemum ”: We have a new maid named Chrysanthemum. She said, “My last place was at Grantham, mumf But mv mistress took fright. When I snored in the night, To the tune of the National Anthem, mum.” Browning rhymed with .great gusto and promptitude. Tennyson once asked him to improvise a rhyme to “rhinoceros.” Browning at once rapped out:— O if you could see a rhinoceros, And a tree should be in sight, • Climb quickly up, for his might Is a match for the .gods, he can toss Eros. Givis.