PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3101, 20 August 1913, Page 11

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturdays Duly Hum.l

At the Town Hall this week it was granted us to spend a reposeful hour with Sir Joseph Ward in the character of our “brother man.’’ The word was his own “ he desired to say that he was there as a brother man ” —and it was a word of peace, connoting ideas that are simple, elemental, broad as humanity. If for a moment we had forgotten its Robert burns, seated in bronze just outside the hall, was there to remind us: Then gently scan your brother man,

Still gentler sister woman; Tho’ they may gang a kennin wrang To stop aside is human.

There is no woman in the case, thanks be; but the same principle covers both. Man or woman, the politician is a storm centre; but divested of his politics t>ii Joseph Ward is just a brother man to dine and wine with, laugh and chaff with, as with any other brother man. Some daj ere long he will relapse into politics; but even then there are -whole tracts of public action which, if we can trust our ears, he would de-politicalise. binance and defence, to wit; but it sounds a counsel of perfection, since if your ideas about finance are not mine, we argue we vote, we become political. About defence the same. Anyhow, Sir Joseph on the Opposition benches will take order where order there is none, but chaos; also he will afford to the other side what now is denied them —

The stern delight which warriors feel In foernen worthy of their steel.

An uneasy virtue and a viperous longue are the distinguishing marks of many Oppositionists in the House. Mr Atmore, of Nelson, cannot sleep at nights because Mr Fisher, Minister of Marine, some time back appointed to sit on a harbour board a man against whom there was a record of Police Court convictions. What precisely their gravity I do not know, but the man’s neighbours and colleagues who do know say there was nothing in them. 1 myself might have a Police Court conviction against me for a chimney on fire, an unregistered dog, an unlit bicycle ridden at night. In Mr Atmore’s eyes, however, the appointment was a scandal, a political crime, an eternal disgrace to the Govern ment. But, lo and behold, it turns out that Mr Atmore himself has a conviction against him. Like the surreptitious baby in Marryat’s novel, it was “only a little one;” but there it is. The member for Nelson explained to the effect that he had been fined Is for an exceedingly technical breach. A daughter signed an electoral form for her mother (who was unable to do so).

and he witnessed it. To make things even, Mr Atmore then suggested that the Minister had been guilty of “improper conduct” in Soutli Africa during the war. After which might have come in “scandal about Queen Elizabeth,” but the committee huddled up its business and adjourned.

By the German newspapers in celebrating the Silver Jubilee of their Kaiser as William the Second to None many flattering things have been said, and we may presume that the Kaiser will read them. His newspaper fare is selected for him by a staff of “ tasters” who each morning, under the searching eye of a Prussian officer, cut and clip and paste on cards the news and comments of the day, which cards the officer presents to the Kaiser at 7 o’clock precisely. Under this regimen it may be that candid criticism seldom reaches him. But it were a pity if he fails to see the story I am about to quote. It is a story told by Lady Macdonnell, whose husband was attached to the Berlin Embassy during the old Kaiser William’s time. Prince William, the present Kaiser, then “ a fine young man with a strong sense of fun and fond of teasing,” was a -frequent visitor at the Macdonnell’s house. He often played draughts.

I shall not forgot one occasion when he accused me of cheating. He was so apparently serious that 1 became infuriated, and, unmindful of his high estate or my duty as hostess, I impulsively leant across the table and boxed his ears ! His sense of humour and tho

satisfaction of having been successful in working upon my feelings saved the situation. I received full punishment later, for ever afterwards when he met me ho used to cry, “ I know a lady who cheats at draughts !”

The ending is greatly to the Kaiser s credit. All the same, if Lady Macdonnell had told this story in Germany during the lese majesty craze of a few years ago, she would have been sent to play draughts in a fortress.

British Buddhism, a more thoroughgoing brand of theosophy than that which reports from week to week in Dunedin, can hardly be x'ecommended for acclimatising. We should never be able to live up to it. There were little joy in seeing the lecturer of Sunday night pervading our streets in yellow robe, shaven as respects the top of his head, and holding ’out a begging bowl. Yet this is the proper thing—a Buddhist “Bhikkhu, or monk; and for want of the proper thing the Bwtish Buddhists, a society numbering 200} thereabouts, mostly English, lament themselves as sheep without a shepherd. Their fifth anniversary, celebrated the' other day in London, was under the humiliating presidency of a woman, Mrs G. A. F. Rhys Davids, M.A-, As a last shift they had advertised in The Times: —Wanted a university man to be educated as a Bhikkhu, or monk, at the expense of a Sinhalese gentleman. Three’ applicants came forward but were rejected as unsuitable, probably cried off as soon as they heard the conditions — ten years of training under a Buddhist name, European identity being sunk by the rules of the order: A Bhikku must not eat solid food but once a day, between sunrise and noon. His wor.'dly possessions are limited to nine, the throe most inrportant being tho yellow robe, the begging-bowl, and a razor. His time is spent in the study of the Pali Scriptures and in holy meditation. His object in abandoning ■worldly things is to attain Nirvana for himself, and te. teach the way to others by precept and example. In this way, and to the extent of bis own personality, he eliminates sorrow in eliminating himself, the fundamental teaching being that there is suffering in all life, and that the cessation of suffering is the

ultimate end of man. He “eliminates sorrow in eliminating himself” —makes an end of suffering by making an end of existence; and he has ten years to do it in. A tedious suicide this. Surely there is a quicker way. We are told that he carries a razor. Or he could try a dose of strychnine.

Dear “ CivLs,” —In Saturday’s column of your readable “Passing Notes” appeared a reference to Strauss’s opera, “Salome.” I know you are not a lover of Oscar Wilde, but" do you hade him too much to acknowledge that ‘ Saiome is bis plav merely set to music .by Strauss? The play’s the tiling,” also “ Honour to whom honour is duo.”— Yours faithfully, Nemo. Timaru, August 11.

“Salome” (three syllables, please), a one-act drama written by Wilde for Sarah Bernhardt and written in French, the French, not bad, —let that be allowed. — was suppressed hy the Censor in tho interest of public morals. “Honour to whom honour is due,” —the playwright or the Censor, which? As the libretto cf Richard Strauss’s opera the nlay will have been modified; but-necessarily the leading motif remains Salome, daughter of Herodias. makes indecent love to John the Baptist, is repelled, and avenges herself in the way we know —“Give me here John Baptist’s head in a charger.”

Hell has no fury like a woman scorned. Old as the world, this theme with many variants crops up again and again m literature; but, however adorned by genius, has never been other than nauseous and abominable.

The trouble with Oscar Wilde as poet and dramatist is that in his finest moments the nauseous and the noisome are never far away. Disinfectants and deodorisers were needed in one of the English law courts the other day when, at the instance of Lord Alfred Douglas, disciple or victim, Wilde’s miserable life-story was dragged again to light. Some of his choice sayings, aphorisms, epigrams, amused the court. “It is better to be beautiful than good,” for example. Again “Examinations are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman lie knows quite enough. If he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is had for him.” “There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books arc well written or badly written. That is >»

Another of Wildes epigrams occasioned much laughter: “One can resist everything except temptation.” “ 1 just quote these things,’ said Mr Hayes, “ to show what sort of influence they might have T>n a young man who read them.” His I.ordship: When wore these gems first nublishcd ? Mr 'Hayes; They wore published last year for the first time, but Oscar Wildo wrote them in his “Intentions” and “ Phrases for the Young.” His Lordship: Do you say these are what corrupted Lord Alfred Douglas? Counsel; I am afraid Lord Alfred was not the only young man who read them. He would bo a simple young man who didn't detect in these paradoxes a latent joke. Not in them is Wilde seen at his worst. Other correspondents must suffer compression. Here is “.Arnica,” her neat and delicate handwriting symptomatic of a mind interested in neat distinctions: When parsing in front of a person is “ Excuse mo ” or “ Excuse my passing ” the correct thing to say? T.s it the person that is to be excused or the action? Both the person and the action. But on a point of such nicety let us turn up the Shakespeare Concordance. “ Excuse me,”

‘‘l must excuse myself,” ‘‘Excuse her keeping close,” “ Give me excuse, good madam,” —these and a dozen other forms are at your service, all of equal literary authority. Not to be found in Shakespeare, however, is a curious use of “ Excuse me” as the retort quarrelsome. “I never said that, excuse me.” ‘‘Excuse me, you did.” ‘‘l beg your pardon, sir!” “I beg your pardon!” These civilities bandied from one to the other in rising tones are a storm signal. Kipling in “Et Dona Ferentes” notes the similar politeness of the English when an international row is brewing. Venture on this, dare that ‘‘but oh, beware my country when my country grows polite!” Next comes ‘‘Erasmus” informing me that at the annual meeting of the Classical Association, Sheffield University, a paper was read advocating the restoration of Latin as an international language, together with its use in scientific treatises and even colloquially. May I live to see it! Civis.