THE SKETCHER

Otago Witness, Issue 3782, 7 September 1926, Page 77

THE SKETCHER

THE KINCFiSHER. The kingfisher sits on a branch all day To spy for fish from the leafy spray, But the blossoms that grow upon that limb Are nothing to him, nothing to him. If it wasn’t for spreading cherry bloom, He wouldn’t be so crowded for room! If it wasn’t for blossoms shining white On the placid pool, he’d better sight Those little trout beneath the foam, And carry them home, carry them home! But down in the depths of the silent pool, Down in its waters dim and cool, The small trout hide by the sheltering rock, And, something like this, engage in talk: “if old Kingfisher would look about He wouldn’t disturb us; peaceful trout Can see more beauty than that fool Who sits and stares into our pool; Up in the world on the airy limb He can’t see beauty doubled for him, doubled for him. “He dives with splash-propelling wings Down in the depths where no one sings; When all the world is wearing white, He might as well be blind as night; And what if his young do raise a fuss— They’re nothing to us, nothing to us!” But the young have died that the young might live, For beauty had nothing that it could give; And complaints that came from the little trout The merry ripples chatter about, chatter about. —Bernard A. Benson, in the Inquirer. AT A COCKTAIL PARTY. (By Jane Doe, in the Daily Chronicle.) 1 expect you go* about more than I do, so it was only natural, wasn’t it, that I should feel most frightfully devilish when a man said to me, “What are you doing next Sunday, between live and seven? I’m giving a cocktail party.” “Well, I was engaged,” I replied, ‘to darn my only two pairs of fifty-gauge silk stockings. I did arrange an important appointment with my better self to tidy up my wardrobe and my tallboy, which, at the moment, look as if their contents had been stirred with an egg-whisk. So, you see . . . “Oh, do come! Mrs Diana is going to be hostess. I’ve got some of the Inter-’Varsity chaps coming, and a few wild Scotsmen down here on business— Bugger business. The flat below is vacant, so we can have a dance.” Now, how would you dress for an occasion like this? Something very dashing, of course. Something, perhaps,'-with no back to it, no sleeves, and, what there is of it, all spangly. Like the dress adorable Georgia, the dance girl, wears in “The Gold Rush.” You will be pleased or disappointed, as the case may be, to learn that' I have no such entrancing garment. But what hurt me more was the fact that I could have done, equally well, with her face. However, by fixing my fringe into a little twiddley bit in the middle of my forehead, the way this fresh sweetie of Charlie does hers, and putting on my new Gigolo hat at a most dangerous angle, I didn’t feel so depressed with myself after all. There was the sound of revelry from an open window when, with trembling finger, I pushed the silver button of this gentleman’s bachelor suite. Supposing there was a raid! And equally supposing I as hauled off before Sir Chartres Biron! Wouldn’t he read me a horrified lecture on the duty of ladies of the press in setting good examples! And what a beautiful article I would be able to make of it all!

Before I knew' what I was doing, once inside, I was taking off my hat. “I’m so glad you’ve taken yours off, too. The host was a bit worried, because 1 didn’t keep mine on. He thought the other women would expect it of me.” Thus, Mrs Diana, in the room set apart for us to powder .our noses. “Good heavens! How many duchesses are you expecting? I thought it didn’t matter at cocktail parties what one took off in the way of .... I mean to say, I certainly didn’t mean to take mine off, because it will take me a good hour to get it on again at that danger—at the proper angle. It was sheer excitement, darling!”

In a wonderful room, with Chinese silk satin carpets hung upon the ceilings, marvellous painted pictures of Persian Durbars, bolster-fat golden cushions, rock crystals, daffodil net curtains that give you that jaundiced look if you stand too near them, lots of pretty ladies, all pale silken of legs and coloured of frocks -—like flowers that have long, silverslippery stems, and athletic-looking men, the introductions w’ent something like this:—

“This is Miss Enaj Eod, who writes those ypytfsgh articles in the Xyrtpouyg

Zvdgfhtyur! Mrs Mypdkl, Miss Qpsgft, Miss Klbgtyx, Mr Plravcf, who jumps rather well; Mr Mrgtrt, who has broken more records than any other man; Mr Poiuy, who plays scrum centre-half for Holyrood; Mr Zxcvb, who does nothing, but does it rather nicely! What’ll you have ?” “Oh, a cocktail, of course,” I giggled, as you would expect from one in a Gigolo hat. “One of those pretty ones with a cherry stuck on a Japanese toothpick.” I pointed to the table in the corner loaded down with interesting bottles, a silver shaker, and a lot of little glasses filled with brassy coloured liquor, cherries, and olives. They made room for me and my glass on a black satin chaise-louiige full of ladies and handbags and bowls of salted almonds and fried potato petals. Now, said I, inwardly, taking two sips, let the fun and the raid begin. I am ready. But, naturally, the result of that disgustingly jumbled and mumbled introduction was that I didn’t know one person from t’other, and I wasted ten minutes talking to a woman sitting on the floor (it’s much more uncomfortable than devilish, I assure you) about the proper way to keep maids; three minutes w’ith a man in a brown suit w T ho was under the impression that I understood and loved the game of soccer, which I don’t, and who left me flat. —well, practically, when he found me out; half a dance with a Scotsman who told me all about tlie new trams in Princes street, Edinburgh—new, that is, since I was there last; and another dance, the Valencia, with one more Scotsman who talked between the upheavals of this very latest form of Ihe poetry of commotion, of the reason of the potency of cocktails. It seems it’s the gin. Gin, you know', doesn’t have to" mature. You can make it one day and sell it the next. By that time half the party was over. Every now and again our host would come round and lovingly jog the cocktail shaker, and invite us to have another. We would, only someone nearly always asked for a dance at the sarme time, and the consequence was that when you got back the little table w'liere you put ic was bare. In all, I must have, had four cherries, but of cocktail, pure and simple, about two eggspoonfuls. And after helping the hostess to wash up the glasses—l’m very fond of her— I hurried away to take supper with a bachelor girl who offered me stuffed chicken roll and water out of the tap. Delicious! * * * But that’s all there is to a cocktail party. Won’t Mother and the Bishop he pleased! CERTIE MAKES A HOT DECISION. I toll you, Pearl, I’m givin’ the air To the cookie-dusters and parlour snakes, An’ all them sheiks with the patent hair— How could they keep a mamma in cakes? All they can do is spoon and dance— A rush of brains to the feet beneath. I’m kissin* ’em out! I want a chance At a ploddin’ guy with three gold teeth! A steady guy with his pants cut raw. Yon get me, Pearl —your Al’s that way. An’ a strong man’s bust an’ a fireman's jaw. Lead me to him, is all I say! A thrifty bozo that's after the gilt An’ asks- for bids on his bridal wreath. Show me that kind an’ I’ll chirp, “I wilt.” Gimme a plodder with three gold teeth. Honest, Pearl, if you’ll read the books, You'll find that guys that gathered the gelt Was mainly weak wdien it comes to looks, But terrible strong in the business belt! Me, I’m for ’em! Give me ’em plain! Bury the cake-caters deep iu Lethe (That means “fini”). I’ll say it again— Gimme a plodder with three gold teeth! —Gordon Scagrovc, in Liberty. DEATH TO THE SLUG. The slug has come in for rather more attention in the way of literary effort than it customarily receives in the coinmns.of the newspapers, though it has often evoked a wealth of vituperative expression in the garden wdiich eclipses the ineffective expletives of wrath in even a learned golfer's vocabulary. But the slug has now no power to arouse my ire, for the first evidence of its depredations means its certain death. This is a world of the tooth ami claw. Man rends his victims not with his finger nails, "but with the devilish inventions of Rcienco, or the discoveries which come from the savagery of the beasts, and even the gentlest lovers of flowers experience something in the nature of exultation in scattering death among the slugs. I confess that I have no pangs in dusting the

slugs which invade my flower beds with a clean white powder, which is harmless to everything but slugs.

The discovery of this slug destroyer was a pure accident. Had I been a keen business man I might have turned it to profit, but what wielder of the pen is astute in financial matters? Having made a discovery welcome to every garde enthusiast like myself, I have tried to make it known as freely as it came to me. The story of the discovery may be of interest, as it has never appeared in print. It was some 12 or 13 years ago. In view of my marriage I bought a house with a garden not far from the Borders—an old but comfortable house, with a “black hole” under tho stairs which made an admirable though stuffy “dark room” for the development of photographic negatives. But this dark room revolted my wife. Every morning the stone floor glistened with a silver tracery, which even extended at times to the floor of the kitchen adjoining. There were slugs hiding somewhere most mysteriously, but search as w*e would we could not discover them. Night after night I invaded the black hole with matches or candle, but no slug ever appeared. Yet the morning revealed fresh traces of their silvered wanderings. We had resigned ourselves to the unpleasant knowledge that we were harbouring a detestable tribe, with the power of making themselves invisible whe” e unexpected happened. I had been developing negatives, tlie film of w’hich rose in blebs aud fringes—and a hardening of the gelatine with alum was the only cur In opening the package of powdered alum in the “dark room” a small quantity trickled unobserved to the floor. * * * Next morning, seated on the top of this dusting of alum, was what appeared to be a mouse, but on removal proved to be a monster grey slug such as is frequently seen by the roadside on a damp autumn evening. It was stiff and dead, and drawn up into a heap, and slime had exuded from its body in a blotch on ‘the floor. We thought this was the end of the trouble. But no. Fresh slime traces appeared, and with deliberate intent I scattered the floor with alum powder. Two other victims lay dead the following morning. Here at last was the antidote to the slug terror, I went out into tlie garden, sought out slugs, and scattered on each a small pinch of powdered alum. One or two writhings, an effort to cast its skin, and the slug in every case lay dead. In the greenhouse I dusted alum around the edges of seed' boxes, and on the plant staging, and found that no slug ever tr. aggressed where this protection was placed. I scattered powder over the rockery, and the tenderest Alpines, left alone by the slugs, took fresh heart and flourished. I have used powdered alum freely ever since, and never found it harm any plants, and when I hear a gardening brother bemoan the loss of plants I cheer him with the tale of the virtues of powdered alum, and quietly note the glint of the savage in his eyes.—R. T., in the Weekly Scotsman. HIS BELIEF. I ain’t much on religion ’Cause I ain’t much skeered of Hell, But I’d a dnrned lot rather settle Where religious people dwell. I don’t go much for figlitin’, Fur in which some boast; But Uncle Sam’s a blamed sight safer With some cannon round tlie coast. I ain’t no hand for missions, Fur the heathen and the pore; But, shoot my cats, if I can rest With some sufferin’ at my door. I don’t stake much on college—" Jimmie, my boy was sent, And blame my skin if he can name The fust and second president. I don’t b’lieve much o’ nothin’ To tell the bare-faced fact; But when my belief’s agin the truth, I’ll allers take it back. —W. I. Jones, in the Kentucky Folklore and Poetry Magazine. ARE HONEYMOONS A MISTAKE? “Well, how did you get on?” I asked a young friend, just returned from his honeymoon. “Had an idyllically happy time, of course ? ” “ Oli, not so bad,” he answered a little dolefully. “ Found it rather boring at times, and would have been glad if a friend or two could have dropped in.” “ Or even an enemy ? ” I suggested mischievously. “ Well—yes—to be quite truthful,” he confessed, with more than the suggestion of A twinkle in his eyes. My young friend is not, I fear, the only man by a long way who lias found his honeymoon a disappointment. I won’t go so far as to endorse the old riddle: “What is the difference between a honeycomb and a honeymoon ? ” “ One consists of many small cells, the other is one big sell.” But I firmly believe that to the majority of men and women its vaunted delights are as illusory and elusive as a desert mirage; and that boredom is by no means its only or its chief penalty.

Dr Johnson’s honeymooii was inaugurated by a deluge of tears and reproaches from his bride before she had left the church three miles behind. And Walter Savage Landor began his “ month after marriage,” which Johnson, with his tongue in his cheek, defined as “ full of tenderness ami happiness,” with a right royal row with his wife because she pre-

ferred watching a Punch and Judy show to listening to liis verses. Thus the serpent shows his head in thousands of paradises of the newly wedded every year. And, fools that men are! we still tenaciously hug the delusion that it is the supreme paradise on earth in spite of the fact that a few moments’ sane thought would show our folly. Picture two young people, who really know nothing of each other’s true character and temperament, who have only seen each other at intervals and for brief periods under ideal conditions and on their best behaviour, suddenly thrown together for weeks in the constant intimacy of a solitude a deux. Boredom is as inevitable as the setting of the sun. A couple of angels could scarcely live together under such trying circumstances without growing a little weary of each other; and, in the wake of weariness, petulance, misunderstanding, and possibly tears are likely to follow. The greater the sweetness, the sooner it begins to cloy (such is human nature); and each day brings to light some unsuspected fault, or divergencies of taste and temperament, with all the perils of disillusion. He was a wise old bishop who said of honeymoons: “ They are a forced homage to utterly false ideas; a waste of money, and a loss of time which soon comes to be dreary and weary. Most of all, they are a risk for love, which ought not so soon to be unpleasantly tested by the inevitable petulance of a secret ennui. Six days, if you must; and then go straight home.” Better still —postpone your experiment for a year. Then, when you have lived down your mutual discoveries and delusions, and have learned the blessed lesson of mutual forbearance and sympathy, you can face your honeymoon with a light heart. You will be glad you waited. —T. H., in an English exchange. MARRIAGE. * Modern fiction harps on the failure ol marriage, but modern biography—which is fact and not fiction—throws into relief its far more frequent success. If this generation gets the evil notion that marriage is a stupid tragedy, inevitably attended by disillusionment, it will be thanks to novelists and playwrights who have portrayed what is fundamentally untrue —untrue not only to the facts of the case, but to the instincts of the human heart. No doubt the old time “happy ending” was a little bit overdone, but it was vastly nearer the truth than the grotesque travesty which forms the theme q{ some of our “best sellers, _ and our “problem plays.” Realists theL authors ea)l themselves, but what they portray is as far from reality as a nightmare. Failures in marriage there are, of course, and many ill-assorted couples. The wonder is there are not more of them considering the atmosphere in which courtship is allowed to begin, and the very general lack of wise understanding and sympathy on the part of elders. But one of the thousand arguments tor the “divinity that shapes our ends” is the fact that the vast bulk of marriages, though entered into so lightly, and with such small preparation, and perhaps no invocation of divine help, turn out not unhappily, or so as to spoil the life. And in every street of every town, and every cluster of cottages in every hamlet in every West-end square and every block of workmen’s dwellings, there are couples so united as to make one believe that some marriaaes, at all events, are made in heaven. This has always been so, and once again, this time by a great Scottish laird and his chatelaine, it has been recorded on the minutes.—Roger Englewood, in’ the Sunday at Home on We Twa. FORCET YOURSELF. “Actresses, as you said, do seem to keep fit in rather a “marvellous way, but I think it is, generally speaking, because they haven’t time to think_ about being ill” (says Clarice Mayne in an interview reported in the Star). I sometimes feel anything but sprightly in the morning, and if I didn’t have to w ? ork I should very likely feel extremely sorry for myself and think I was quite ill. But when you know you have to be at the theatre punctually at two o’clock, it is no good thinking you can have the luxury of coddling yourself up. Most of the coddlers in this world are those who have nothing to do and nothing particular to think about except themselves and their ailments. The actress often feels as if she really can’t play her part, but she has to—unless she is really seriously Aland once she is on the stage she forgets all about herself and her pains, and when she comes off she says she feels heaps better. It just shows you what you can do by not thinking of yourself, doesn’t “When I am well I always drink pints of tea, and when I feel ill I drink still more. It is a fine tonic, and nr de as I have it, which is very weak, and with lemon instead of milk, and no sugar, it can’t possibly do any more harm. My motto for keeping fit is not to bother about yourself too much, and not to think about being ill.” WOMANLINESS* . Reflection will show anybody that eminent women who seemed meek were really despevate fighters, and that the obviously masterful had a very tender—sometimes hyper-emotional—side; the fact being that great personalities of either sex unite in qualities of both, writes Dame Ethel Smyth in the Daily Telegraph. Florence Nightingale, the gentle “Lady of the Lamp,” invented the War Office, modern army transport, and the whole hospital system. The terror of slackers and bunglers, she was described bv him who knew and loved her best as “the most violent

creature he had ever met.” Joan of Arc was wooed, though not won (a black mark, I admit, but she was sued for breach of promise—surely a proof of femininity?) Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, strong women, were obviously “womanly” all the same; ditto Caterina Storza, Catherine of Russia, the Empress of China, and all the women martyrs. And what of Mrs Pankhurst, who loves babies to the extent of adopting four, and adores shopping? What of all the women who have triumphed over silencing circumstances and given the world their message—the Brontes, the Georges (Sand and Eliot), Sarah Bernhardt, and the rest? Is anyone fooliuh enough not to see that Jane Austen’s strength, dissembled, like Mozart’s, by perfect ease, is the strength of perfect control—the Jap who overthrows Giant Bloody Bones? THE FORK IN HISTORY. Although used by the Greeks and ancient Romans as an implement of agriculture and as a weapon, the table fork is only of comparatively recent date. We know that it existed in the time of the Anglo-Saxons, and was extensively used during the Middle Ages by the nobles on State occasions (says John o’ London’s Weekly). This was proved by a discovery made in 1834 when labourers, laying a drain near Sevington, North Wilts, discovered a decayed box containing a spoon and fork, together with coins elating from Coen wolf, King of Mercia ( a.d. 795) to Ethelstan (879-890). Again, the will of Bury Wills (1403) states: — “ I beqwcatlie to Davn John Keitel - ynge my silver forke for grene gyngour.” But from this time up till the reign of James I the fork seems to have fallen into disuse in England. Even as late as 1652 we read in Hey 1 in’s “ Cosmography ” of “the use of silver forks, which is by some of our spruce gallants taken up of late.” Indeed, Italy seems to have been the only country in which “ the use of silver forks ” survived. Thomas Coryate, in his book of “ Crudities,” published at tlie beginning of the seventeenth century, says that he observed the “ custom of forked cutting of meat ” during his travels in Italy. He says that “the Italian cannot by any means endure to have his dish touched wdth fingers, seeing that all men’s fingers are not alike clean.” On his return to England Coryate probably presented a for’ to James I, for this Sovereign is the first who is definitely known to have used a fork in England. And Ben Jonson in “ Volpone” commemorates this fact in flattery of his Royal patron: . . . then must you learn to use And handling of your silver fork at meals. Indeed, so great a luxury w'as the use of a fork considered in those days that many monastic orders forbade their members to indulge in it. The Asiatics, even to this day, use no forks, but eat with their fingers. The Persians are said to refer contemptuously to the European custom as the “ claw of the Christians.” As is well known, the Chinese eat their food by means of tw r o small sticks. NOVELS AND NOVELISTS. To render secure tlie importance of a novel it is necessary that tlie characters should clash one with another, so as to produce strong emotion, first in the author liimself and second in the reader. This strong emotion cannot be produced unless the characters are kept true throughout. You cannot get strength out of falsity. The moment the still small voice whispers to the reader about a character, “ He wouldn’t have acted like that ” the book is imperilled. The reader may say: “This is charming. This is exciting.’* But if he also lias to say, “ It’s not true ” the success of the book cannot be permanent. The foundation of good fiction is char-acter-creating, and nothing else. The characters must be so fully true that they possess their own creator. Every deviation from truth, every omission of truth, necessarily impairs the emotional power and, therefore, weakens the interest. I think that we have to-day a number of young novelists who display all manner of good qualities—originality in view, ingenuity of presentiment, sound common sense, and even style. But they appear to ine to be interested more in details than in the full creation of their individual characters. They are so busy with states of society as to half forget that any society consists of individuals; and they attach too much weight to cleverness, which is, perhaps, the lowest of all artistic qualities. I have seldoft read a cleverer book than Virginia Woolf’s “ Jacob’s Room,” a novel which has made a great stir in a small world. It is packed and bursting with originality, and it is exquisitely written. But the characters do not vitally survive in the mind because the author has been obsessed by details of originality and cleverness. I regard this book as characteristic of the new novelists who have recently gained the attention of the alert and the curious; and I admit that for myself I cannot yet descry any coming big novelists. —“Tilings That Interested lie ” (Arnold Bennett).