THE OTAGO WITNESS. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHER MERCURY

Otago Witness, Issue 2735, 15 August 1906, Page 46

THE OTAGO WITNESS. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHER MERCURY

(WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15^ 1906.) THE WEEK.

■ !(■>«>■■ ttiat attar*, *U«4 s>bUbU» 4lslt.~— Jpruu. " •»•« >miv* u4 f—4 ■•■»• aan nwjKi.*-riri. Our esteemed contributor, "Civis,'*quoting from a London Nothing New evening paper, notes some UutiM-tkeSiia. queer contractions which have obtained currency in what is popularly known as "Smart Society." These include such distortions of the English tongue as "neury" for neuralgia, "champey" for champagne, "divey" for divine, "umbey" for umbrella, and "Kensey" for Kensington. But this affords only another instance of the oft-repeated declaration that there is nothing new under the sun. One of the least known of Dean Swift's works is his "Manual of Polite Conversation," a book which has been rightly described as a masterpiece of sarcasm, wit, humour, and icony. Never did Swift's ironical vein show to more consummate advantage than in the Introduction to this work, which, like all his prefaces and digressions, contains some of his most laughable and -humorous passages. In the Introduction, too, Swift explains the meaning of several words used in the conversation,, which, are clipped and mispronounced by) the dramatis persons until little of thtif original sounds or orthography has beent. - left. To his list may be added that] meaning of "Poles," which is a corruption;} of St. "Paul's" Church, and "Tantin^J pig," which is a corruption of 5.., Anthony's pig, which was always represented in the Saint's company. A perusa' of Swift's polite conversations serves v show how little the world has ccha r H

yrithin the past 200 years, and how little progress has been made in what is often lamented as the lost art of conversation. {The following sentences, for instance, from Swift's Introduction might have been penned by a modern essayist, so applicable are they to existing conditions pi Society : — "The only invention of late jrears which has anyway contributed tojtrards politeness in discourse is that of Abbreviating or reducing words of many ryllables into one, by lopping off the real. This refinement haying begun about ihe time of the Revolution, I had some share in the honour of promoting it; and I observe, to my great satisfaction, that t makes daily advancements, and I hope A time will" raise our language to the Utmost perfection; although I must Confess, to avoid obscurity, I have been feeiy sparing of this ornament in the following dialogues." Further on in the feme Introduction Swift gives full play o his matchless powers of irony m the bllowing delightful passage : — "The reader cannot but observe what pains I lave been at in polishing the style of py book to the greatest exactness; nor lave I been less diligent m refining the >rthogr«phy, by spelling tbe words in he very* same manner as they are pro-iounced;.by-the chief patterns of politeless at court, at levees, at assemblies, ■^t .* playhouses, at the prime visiting >la£es, by young Templars, and by Gentlemen commoners of both universities, irhq have lived at least a twelvemonth in ;owh, and kept the best company. Of ihe%e spellings the public will meet with i nany examples in the following book. For instance, can't, han't, shan't, didn't, :ouldn-'t, wouldn't, isn't, en't, with many ' nore $ besides -several words which tcholars pretend are derived from Greek aid Latin, but bow pared into a polite iound by ladies, officers of the army, ourtiers, and templars, such -as jommetry or geometry, vardi for verdict, lard for . ord, learnen for learning ; together with Some abbreviations exquisitely refined-— as g>ozz for positive, mobb for mobile, phizz ior physiognomy, rep for reputation, pleno for plenopotentiary, incog for incog«ito, hypps or hippo for hyohojchondriacs, bam for bamboozle, and bamboozle for God knows what, wherehy much time is saved, and the high road to conversation cut short by many 1»_ mile."

Admirers of Sterne, who have passed many delightful hours in A Defect company with Tristam U Polite Shandy, will remember the GtßTersfttloa. story of Le Fever, and the oath which the recital propoked Uncle Toby to utter, followed by the inimitable sentence, which had he permed none other would have immortalised the novelist :— "The Accusing Spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery «vith, the oath, blushed as he gave it sn, and the Recording Angel as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, -and blotted it out for ever." We fear, iiowever., that the majority of the oaths (uttered to-day, both in gplite and im4»okte conversations, cannot plead the same extenuation as in Uncle Toby's case. In truth nowadays ,bad language has lost much of its picturesqueness, and has developed into a mere monotonous habit ; Idevoid .of either meaning or force, Strange to say, if we are to credit Dean Swift, and read between the lines of his biting irony, things were much the Bame a couple of hundred years ago. In the same Introduction from which we have already quoted occurs the following : — ''Perhaps the critics may accuse me of a defect in my following system of Polite Conversation; that there is one ornament of discourse whereof I have not Sroduced a single example, which, indeed, purposely omitted, for some reasons ifchat I shall immediately offer, and if those reasons will not satisfy the male cart of my gentle readers, the defect may be supplied in some manner by an appendix to the second edition — which appendix shall be printed by itself, and sold for sixpence, stitched, and with a marble cover, that my readers may have no occasion to complain of being defrauded. The defect I mean is, my not having inserted into the body oi my book all the oaths now most in fashion for ■5 »«mbelHshing discourse, especially since lit could give no offence to the clergy who. are seldom, -if ever, admitted to these polite assemblies. And it must be admitted that oaths well chosen are not wily very useful expletives to matter, but )great ornaments of style. What I shall now offer in my own defence upon this important article will 5 I hope, be some extenuation of my - fault. First, I reasoned with myself that a just collection of oaths, repeated as often as the fashion requires, must Jiave enlarged* this volume at least to double the bulk; whereby it would sot only double the charge, but likewise make the volume less commodious for pocket carriage. Secondly, I tiave been assured by some judicious (fiiends tKat themselves have known certain ladies to take offence (whether seriously or not) at too great a profnsion 'of cursing and swearing, even when that bind of ornament was not improperly introduced, which, I confess, did startle me not a little, having never observed Ahe like in the compass of my own several acquaintance at least for 20 years past. However, I was forced to submit to wiser judgments than my own. Thirdly, as this most useful treatise is calculated .for. all future times, I considered, in this maturity of my age, how great a variety of oaths I have heard since I began to study the world and to know men and manners. And here I found it to be true, what I have read in an ancient poet :—: — For, nowaday* men change their oaths, As often as they ctonge their clothes. In short, oaths are like the children of fashion; they are in some sense almost 'annuals, like what I observed of cant [words, and I myself can remember about taMUfferent sets. The old stock oaths, I lim confident, do not amount to above MS, or 60 at the most; but the way of jningling and compounding them is almost

as various .as the alphabet." Thus, it would appear that although the outward expression of the oath varies and changes, according to the fashion of the hour, the habit of swearing is almost as deep seated in human nature as are the habits of gambling, smoking, and other indulgences to which flesh is heir.

The foregoing quotations from Swift render apropos some estiHow a Cyate mate of his place in literals Ma«e. ture, more especially as a new edition of his works is now being issued from the press ; not perhaps quite so exhaustive an edition as that edited by Sir Walter Scott, in 19 volumes, but containing all that is essential for the student of to-day. Mr Augustine Birrell, perhaps the man of to-aay best acquainted with eighteenth century literature, in one of his published essays, has criticised Swift somewhat severely. The Minister of Education remarks : — "No fouler pen than Swift's has soiled our literature. His language is odious from first to last. He is full of odious images, of base and abominable I illusions. It would be a labour of [ Hercules, to. cleanse his pages. His love ! letters are defaced by his incurable [ coarseness. This habit of his is so ' inveterate that it seems a miracle he | kept bis sermons free from his blackguard phrases. It is a question, not of [ mowklity, but of decency, whether it is becoming to sit dowa in the same room with the works of this divine. How the good Sir Walter ever managed to see him through the press is amazing. In this -matter Swift is inexcusable." And yet almost in the same" breath Mr Birrell admits that Swift is one of the masters of English prose; bis poetry is admirable, but for one defect— that it lacks imagination; while "Gulliver" has become a child's book and has been read with wonder and delight by generations of innocents. A new apologist for Swift has now arisen ia the person of Mr Henry Blanchamp, who, after a not too flattering reference to Mr Birrell and his strictures, goes on to remark : — "Those who woold understand Swift to the core should view him from the standpoint of an unconquerable idealist, whose ideals of life and humanity underwent the per- i petual process of blighting which falls to ! the lot of many sensitive souls when they engage in a public career. . . . Take no^.v a man of Swift's delicate and keen sensibilities, extraordinary powers of expression, and vast abilities, launched upon , a society of the lowest intrigues and ■ grossest basenesses of which there is a record in our history, and remembering that his physical constitution was never of the healthiest and most robust, how can it surprise you that he should give forcible and even violent utterance to the i 'fierce resentment and indignation' he ; felt at 'the slavery, folly, and baseness' of. the world he lived in, when his great j political services were rewarded by j neglect and perfidy; that, sick of the in- j gratitude, and worse than ingratitude, of so-called friends, he should propose to aimself, as the end of all his labours, to i vex mankind rather than to divert it. j He was in the prime of life and in the plenitude of his powers when his experience gradually converted him into an out-and-out misanthrope and pessimist. The changed outlook diet not hinder him from doing a prodigious amount of work — too much for his good health, even had he been endowed with a cast-iron physique, — but it necessarily lent a passionately bitter and caustic tone to all he wrote. As his life went drearily on. everything about him became a matter of contempt or horror or disgust. Everything, indeed, combined to make his latter years wretched. Finally came the irreparable death of Stella, whom the Dean loved as he never loved any other woman. There was then nothing left him to live for, except the venting of . his rage and scorn for things as they were. He felt as though he might 'die of rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.' His attacks of giddiness grew more frequent, and his health weakened, but it was not until he was over 70 that any pronounced symptoms of senile decay were manifest. There are literary critics, amateur and professional, who are imbecile long before they have reached the allotted span of three score years and ten."

Nor was Swift the only author who lived morosely ; the lot of the The Lot man of letters is notoriously

,*ofthc an unhappy one. To Mm of Latter*, begin with, seldom is he fortunate in his selection of a wife, whilst if single 6candal invariably attaches to his name. Hamerton, in his "Intellectual Life," lays it down that for an intellectual man, only two courses are open — either he ought to marry some simple, dutiful woman who will bear him children and see to the household matters, and love him in a trustful spirit without jealousy of his occupation, or else, on tbc other hand, he ought to marry some highly intelligent lady, able to carry her education far beyond school experiences, and willing to become his companion in the arduous paths of intellectual labour. Nor is this the only pitfall that besets the path of the man of letters. As an old writer has said : — "There are few less exhilarating books than the biographies of men of letters, and of artists generally, and this arises from the pictures of comparative default which, in almost every instance, such books contain. In these books we see failure moie or less — seldom clear, victorious effort." For at the outset of his career, the man of letters is confronted with the fact that he must live. Away in the seventeenth century, it is true every literary man had his patron. Le Sage, for instance, the author of "Gil Bias " and "The Devil on Two Sticks," was fortunate in having the patronage of the Abbe de Lyonne : but ', with many of our English men of letters 1 the patronage proved more of a curse than a blessing. There is no specially preliminary training for men of letters : henc* it comes that the ranks are re

cruited from all the vagrant talent of the world, and the battle is won by sheer strength of brain. Thus it conies about that the man of letters has usually a history of his own ; his individuality is more pronounced than is the case with other men ; he has been knocked about by passion and circumstance. All his life he has had a dislike for iron rules and commonplace maxims. There is something of the gipsy in his nature. He is to some extent eccentric, and he indulges his eccentricities. And the misfortunes of men of letters mainly arise from the want of harmony between their impulsiveness and volatility and the staid unmercurial world with which they are brought into conflict. They are unconventional in a world of conventions ; they are fanciful, and are constantly misunderstood in prosaic relations. They are wise enough in their books, for there they are sovereigns, and can shape everything to their own likings ; out of their books they are not unfrequently extremely foolish, for they exist then in the territory of an alien power, and are constantly knocking their heads against existing orders of things. Men of letters take prosaic men out of themI selves, bot they are weak where the | prosaic men are strong. They have their f own way in the world of ideas, prosaic , men in the world of facts. From his ; practical errors the writer learns some- ; thing, if not always humility and amend- ; ment. A memorial flower grows on every spot where he has come to grief, and the chasm he cannot overleap he bridges with a rainbow.

The man of letters suffers keenly — more keenly than most people If bat Critielaw suspect — from sharp cruel Ccmpassec noises, from witless obser-

vations, from social misconceptions of every kind, from hard utilitarian wisdom, and from his own good things going to the grave unrecognised and unhonoured. Forced to live by his pen, to extract from his brain bread and beer, clothing, lodging, and income tax — is it any wonder that he is often nervous, querulous, impatient ? Pondering these things, the student need scarcely wonder at Hazlitt's spleen, Swift's brutality, at Lamb's punch, or at Coleridge's opium. Think of the days spent in writing, and of the nights which repeat the day in _ dream, and in which there is no refreshment. Think of the brain which must be worked out at length, of Scott when the wand o{ the enchanter was broken writing noor romances ; or of Southey, sitting vacantly in his library, and drawing a feeble satisfaction from the faces of his books. Besides which, for the man of letters there is more than the mere laoour. After writing his book, he frequently has the mortification of seeing it neglected or torn to pieces. The skin of the man of letters is peculiarly sensitive to the bite of the critical mosquito, and he lives in a climate in which such mosquitoes swarjn. He is seldom pricked to t^he heart — he is often killed by pin pricks.