FOIBLES AND SUPERSTITIONS

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 13

FOIBLES AND SUPERSTITIONS

ODDS AND ENDS ABOUT MEN. By H. J. A. It is apparently one of the necessities to which famous men are subject that they shall have recorded of them by faithful (sometimes too faithful) biographers such peculiar little personal peccadilloes as they have exhibited. There is certainly some warranty of "sound ground for the practice, for it is often to be noticed that an individual's character is more betrayed by his ; little actions, his unrehearsed sayings, • movements, and doings than by liis studiously prepared and carefully rehearsed be- . haviour when under the blaze of the public e^e. That principle operates beyond doubt in t some of the following cases ; as, for in- ! stance, it is a distinct assistance to a comprehension of Longfellow's poetry and his majestic treatment of open-air topics : and the healthful vigour of life to read that he himself enjoyed walking only at • sunrise or subset, at which times he said • his sublimest and most elevated moods of : thought came upon him. Tht is a revela-" tion as ,to the genuineness, of his poems. In contradistinction it was Ifeeorded of a w once tolerably well-known English poet, \i who raved about the. glories of dawn and . eventide, that the occasions upon which he •jf had actually experienced £hese\ 'feelings V were extxainely' few and far between. : ,Longfellow at leist fulfills Lewes's dictum 7 that success in literature can only be ' achieved by full expression of sincere I thought, with" double emphasis upon the .^"■sincere." Jtgaaa, in HawCfiorne's case it is a distinct revelation as to the inherent Puxitaaiic though* in him that* we should read that before reading a latter from Ms wife* he always washed his hands. Generations of stern-minded men with conceptions of Purita-nic justice were the X or hear6 of Nathaniel_ Hawthorne, " and M 7 Montegut malted gj. happy*- 'remark when be speaks of these *• conceptions as shaving slowly ■ filtered down to Hawthorne, through him, and appearing as pure drops of moral teaching in that exposition of the retributive workings of conscience, "The Scarlet Letter." To read, therefore, as we have, of Hawthorne's silently-expressed regard . for his wife is to obtain a glimpse at the unaffected sincerity of the entire man.. A further little glimpse into his nature is indicated, in the recording of the facb .that, it ,was mW .delight to hang over the advertisement columns of newepaperk., These are very reflections of human life and it was as . such thaiE their, appeal was made to him. A thumb-nail portrait is also given -of Bobert Browning when his biographer wrote that he could not eit still over his work 'and that, through the I constant shuffling of his feet, holes were worn in the carpet! That fact may be tafesn as some slight indication of th© real labour and toil that went to the production •' of those mystic poems of his. Of Robert Louis Sfevenson it is recorded that his • favourite recreation was flute-playing. , This, he said, was to " tuno up his ideas." That little fact alsf> takes you nearer to the heart of the man, and recalls Shakesi peare's remark about man and music. Thackeray,, whether rightly or wrongly, is usually credited with having had a very good opinion' of himself. And, again, a little action' — only a little action' — endorses this general opinion. As he passed the house in which he wrote " Vanity Fair " it was his invariable practice to lift his hat. He was rot blind to his own merits. Utilitarian DaTwin was governed solely by considerations of practical ommoneeme. Books, merely as objects of regard or beauty, had no meaning to him. A book wns an instrument to learn from and acquire knowledge, by. He would cut a big volume in two for convenience in handling, or he would ruthlessly tear out leaves for facility in reference. That gives almost as good a conception of his character as would pages of writing. But it must be admitted that in biography there *are things recorded from which little ■ additional conception Ls gained respecting the character of the subject. For insta/nee, what inference are we to draw concerning Keats's poetry from the grave record of fact/ that he was very fond of ,red pepper on his toast ? or as to Edgar Allan Poe's work frcm the fact that he was very fond of hi« cat, slept with it, and also had an unaffected admiration for his own feet ? or that Doudet wore his eyegfeispies when asleep ? These are those things famous men must submit to. It seems liardilv fair to assume with regard to Joaquin Miller that it was a distrust of the kleptomaniaca] tendencies of hits fellow men that actuated him to nail all his cjresirs firmly to the walls of his residence. The discomfort of any such proceeding, it would be thought, would j be a sufficient argument against it ; but as it was done, the only explanation j seems to be that it was a pure foiblo which admits of no explanation. That seems a characteristic of most foibles. There seems more reason in Alexandra Dumas tlie Younger's action, in buying a new picture upon the occasion of the publication of another book of his, inns 1 much as it may fairly be assumed to have 1 been a sii*n of increasing material gain. Under the heading of pure superstition 1 must be placed the action of Oliver Wendell Holmes in carrying incessantly in one pocket a horse chestnut and in another ' ps-dcet a potato. These are sufficiently incongruous objects for a literary gentleman to carry about his person, and the purpose for which they were carried is ' al'-o slightly peculiar. The object was to ward off rheumatism ! A recent theorypublished with regard to the magnetic . current almost gives some ground for 1 Dickers's predilection for sk^ping always due north and south. It was his invariable practice to carry a compass in order to tes-.t ; the accuracy or otherwise of strange beds ;

landlords and friends were always notified before his arrival about his taste in this direction, and any neglect was meet rigorously corrected. When, on some occasions, the host was stubborn about up- ■ setting the arrangements of his roam, littleGoenes are stated to have taken plac-s. Dickens always got his \ray. In his diary Lord Macaulay makes reference co a conversation he once had about that feeling to which Dr Johneon has referred — th> sensatien of thinking oneself bound to touch a particular poet or rail in passing along the street, or to tread-in- the centre of certain paving-stones^ Few were more governed by pure reason than Lord Macaulay, but he confessed that he. had this feeling in a very strong degree. Parnell had a " right way " and a " wrong way " of starring coffee, and told by Miss M'Carthy that he .offee" checked bam for sttJa-ring her cup "the wrong way," and insisted that- she* should nofc- ] drink that coffee, - bui /should "procure another cup. , In, :the course, ' of ] his Hibbe-rT' ' lectures Max Muller i once said to his students, " Many j of you, I suspect, carry a ■ha'penny with.j a hole in it for luck.. I am not ashamed to own that I have done so jnyjeelf fear J many yeaie." He further confessed that when on occasions he left home without i his talisman ha "always felt -very "uncomfortable till he had it once more in his possession. An ancedote about Lord Roberts may well conclude these aotes, regarding ths foibles of famous men. A|" .gentleman in England, whose belief in the ' good old horse-shoe was very strong, cent to him when things in South Africa locked fairly -black,"',a well-worn specimen, and in gratefully acknowledging ;t; t the General admitted that he would.. keep it-" in, con>pany with one I pidked up the day* I entered the Orange- Free State and another T found at Paardeberg the day before General .Qronje -surrendered." The subject of superstitions, is. an extremely interesting" one and, as Buckle points out in his "-History of Civilisation in England," is one indksolubly connected with the history of the human race. Buckle's explanation is that it is the necessary and inevitable outcome of the circumstances surrounding the. nation or individual. And his case is materially strengthened by the illustrations he citss as to the broad belt of superstition-affected nations round the equator, or where the aspect of nature is of the^wildeet and the conditions of life the mos'i precarious. Speaking of the old tropical civilisation, he says : " The devastations of an-imafe j v hostile^ ttf TiMtn, the^ravages of h4irr,icaoes, tempests, earthquakes, and similar perils, constantly pressed upon them and nffeeted the ton« of their national ■ character. For the mere' loss of life was the smallest partof the inconvenience. The real mischief was that there was engendered in the mind • associations which made the imagination predominate over the understanding, which infused into the people % spirit of reverence instead of a spirit of inquiry, and which encouraged a disposition to neglect the investigation of natural causes and ascribe events to the operation of supernatural i ones." ' That is the origin of primeval ffctichism, and theee foibles and superstitions which appear in not only a few. but in practically every one, are survivals in greater or less strength.