THE SKETCHER

Otago Witness, Issue 3808, 8 March 1927, Page 73

THE SKETCHER

L ' PEDLAR’S SONG IN AUTUMN. Al), ’tis well enough roving in a world of summer skies ! A pedlar might be merry then, and not be sore at heart, With gold and silver trinkets for to match with laughing eyes, And a little grey donkey and a highwheeled cart.

A pedlar might be merry then —aye sure, as I have been, A-questing down the country when hills are starred with flowers, And all the woodland singing, and all. the meadows green, And never a lamplit window for to haunt his evening hours.

For then he’d walk with Wonder, but now, ’tis Sorrow old, A far faint voice that follows him, that goes with him along, And mocks him on the hillside, and in the valley’s gold, And sweet in roadside gardens filled with autumn robin-song.

’Tis all but him have dwellings, over all the shires, Over all of England, from sea to misty sea ; And men will come at twilight to their own hearth’s fires, And mice will build their winter nests beneath the wild rose tree.

Aye! ’tis well enough roving when the land is bright, A pedlar might be merry then, before the swallow’s flown, With never a lamplit window for to haunt him thro’ the night, And he and his little donkey on the dark road- alone. —Hamish M'Laren, in the London Spectator.

THE TEMPTRESS. By Kathleen O’Brien, in the Daily Chronicle. Since Robina the cat came to stay with ns, Horatio has never been quite the same dog. Robina is a pretty, lissome thing, with more than a dash of minx in her composition. Not for nothing has she that sandyred hair that so frequently accompanies minxhood. She came one afternoon, brought in a cat-basket from the house of her owners, who were going away for a fortnight. Two hours after her arrival Horatio came and sat with a thoughtful expression at my feet. “Well, Horatio?” I said, after a little silence, “out with it.” “It’s nothing,” said Horatio, ‘‘only—well, I suppose I don’t understand women. When she came into the kitchen she seemed a bit strange and lonesome, so 1 thought I'd better talk to her a bit, just to be matey. I went up to her and said, just as I’d say to another fellow, ‘Hully, funny face! Where did you get your whiskers?’ ” “Oho !” I chuckled. “.And what did she say to that?'’ “She spat at me,” said Horatio, in a hurt voice, “and then she smacked my face. If only she’d been a man, I’d have bitten her ear for her. But you can’t bite a woman.” Horatio sleeps in" a box. specially made for him,, in the kitchen. I made up a bed for Robina in a smaller box, with a nice, thick blanket folded in it. Three nights after her arrival, finding that I had left my alarm clock in the kitchen, and having to be up early in the morning, I went down to fetch it. I found Robina curled up comfortably in Horatio’s box, Horatio, with an expression of intense discomfort, cramped into Rqbina’s. I took Robina out and smacked her. and order Horatio back to his own bed. ••

The next morning I called him in to me ‘‘What was the meaning. Horatio,’’ t asked sternly, “of that absurd business about changing beds with Robina?” , *lt started,” said‘Horatio, “the night she came. I had gone to my own bed when I heard someone walking all round my bed, making a kind of sing-song noise. ”, as “I know,” I nodded. “They call it purring. It is a gift denied to you and me, Horatio. A great pity, as it’s moral effect is tremendous. 1 hat s just what I found,” said poor J? looked up and said, Hullo! What do you want?’ She puired is that what you call it?—more than ever, and began rubbing her cheek in a pretty, cuddlesome way against tho bed. She said, ‘Horatio, dear, you do like me a little, don’t you?’ I said, ‘Um ! you’re not so bad;’ She went on, *1 hate that horrid -old box.’ I said, ‘What’s wrong with it.’ She replied, ‘There’s nothing wrong with it. That’s 'why I hate it. Now, if you would let me have your box, Horatio, and take mine!’ Of course I refused flatly. I said, ‘How on earth could I get into your box? Don't bo silly!’ I’d always heard it was best to take a strong line with women, you see. She went on purring and rubbing, and suddenly she began to cry, and said, ‘Justfor one night, please, Horatio dear. I’m such a poor, cold, strange, little thing, and you’re so big and strong and handsome!’ So I felt*=sorry for her.” “Simpleton!” I said. ‘‘—and I got 4 out.” “AU right,” I said, “just for one night, mind.” And I got into her bed. Beastly uncomfort-

able it was, too. But when I went to my own bed the next night there was Robina already curled •up in it! I said, “Look here, that’s my bed!’’ She looked at me, with her eyes all cold and green, and said, “Your bed? Impertinence!” And she turned her back to me and curled up again. “Why didn’t you turn her out?” I asked. “You’re much stronger than she is.’ “I tried to,” he replied, “and she called me a coward, and told me to hit someone my own size.” - “You should have told me, my poor Horatio.” “I threatened to. And she told me I was a sneak, and that all men were selfish brutes. I tried to make her see how unreasonable she was. I explained to her, quite patiently and kindly, that she was quite in the wrong.” “And how did she take that?” “She went to sleep,” said Horatio. A few days later Horatio came limping in with a torn ear and blood on his coat. “Horatio!” I upbraided him. “You’ve been fighting again! And you promised me ” “I know,” said Horatio, wretchedly. “It’s all that Robina. She wanted me to go for Mr Potter’s Great Dane—without any provocation, mind you! He and I are on quite good terms in the usual way. If it had been the baker’s dog, now! I said, “I haven’t any excuse.’ She answered, ‘Make one up. Tell him he’s a mongrel.’ I said, ‘But it wouldn’t be true.’ She replied, ‘What’s that matter?’ She egged me and egged me . she said, ‘You can’t He afraid of him, Horatio?’ insinuating, of course, that I was. So then I saw red, and .went for him. And when I came back to her, all in this mess, expecting some kind of praise and sympathy, what do you think she said? ‘Well, more silly you to attack a dog bigger than yourself!” “I don’t understand women,’ said poor, simple Horatio. “It’s a dog’s life.’’

Robina has gone back to her owners-: now. I have suggested that they rechristen her Delilah. THE ZULU CIRL. When in the sun the hot reel acres smoulder, Down where the sweating gang its labour plies, A girl throw’s down her hoe, and from her shoulder Unslings her child ‘tormented -by the flies: She talces him to a ring of shadow pooled By thorn trees, purpled with the death of ticks, While her sharp nails in slow caresses ruled . Prowl through his hair with soft' electric clicks. His sleepy mouth, plugged by the heavy nipple, Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feeds: Through his frail nerves her own deep languors ripple Like a broad river sighing through its reeds. Yet in that drowsy stream his flesh imbibes An old unquenched unsmotherable heat— The curbed ferocity of beaten tribes The sullen dignity of their defeat. Her body looms above him like a hill Within whose shade a village lies at rest, Or the first cloud, so terrible and still, That, bears the coming harvest in its breast.

—Roy Campbell, in the New Statesman.

INFLUENCE OF OCCUPATION ON THE TEETH. . The teeth are affected not merely by the character of the food and the manner in which, it is chewed, but by the general condition of the body, which itself is the product of many factors. The teeth, of course, are constantly bathed in saliva, which is affected by the chemical state of the blood, depending on digestion, on elimination, and even on the air we breathe. It is thus not strange to learn that recent investigations have shown a direct relation between occupation and the preservation of the teeth. Writing in a recent number of the Illustrierte Zeitung (Leipzig), Dr K. F. Hoffman remarks: “ All statistics of tooth decay indicate that persons employed for the most part in the open air show a lower percentage of this disease than those in closed rooms. Decay is promoted above all by badly ventilated workrooms, with a high percentage of carbon* dioxid. Those especially affected are bakers, cooks, waiters, tailors, confectioners, etc. “ Carbon-monoxid gas, which is a constituent of both illuminating and heating gas, as well as of the exhaust gas of automobiles, is a • blood poison, and produces a diseased condition : of the tissues, occasioning the formation of cavities and even the shedding of the

teeth. In especial danger from this cause are gas workers, laundry ironers, chauffeurs, garage workers, etc.

“ Besides damages such as these, due to general disturbances of the system, there are also many specific injuries to the teeth occurring either independently or as an after-effect of various maladies. Under this head come injuries due to chemical substances in the form of dust or vapour, and likewise mechanical injuries. “ Among the damages which may be ascribed to dust the chief is discolouration, which may be wholly or in part removed by thorough brushing. The dust of copper and its alloys (bronze and brass) imparts -a greenish colour, coal dust a black colour, as do also compounds of mercury. The most dangerous dusts of all, probably, are those of stigar and flour, since these may work into the edges of the sockets of the front teeth, ferment there, and thus form acids which first attack the enamel and then the bony substance of the teeth. “ Vapours of bromin and iodin discolour the teeth. The mineral acids (hydrochloric, nitric, and sulphuric) have a devastating effect of the worst sort, since they cause a gradual necrosis of the tooth beneath the gums. “ Under the head of mechanical injuries we find a whole series for which the occupation is directly responsible. The teeth of musicians who play upon wind instruments become badly worn, and the same is true of glass-blowers.” The writer adds that even in other occupations damage may occur from carelessness, as when small objects, such' as needles, nails, pencils, etc., are held in the mouth. Persons who fall into this bad habit include tailors, saddlers, carpet makers, shoemakers, as well as members of the accounting and similar professions. The injury exhibits itself in the front teeth in the form of crescent-shaped curves on the cutting edges. Again, persons who are continually biting off small objects,. such as thread, produce crevice-like incisions in the teeth. Workers in cigar factories acquire tinge-cornered defects in the front teeth from the habit of biting off the filler of the cigar.

COLOURED LAUGH—“R. What is the colour of your laughter? That may sound an absurd question, and I admit that I never thought of laughter in colours till I heard W. H. Berry in “Princess Charming” at the Palace talk of the King’s (George Grossmith’s) ha-ha-ha’s as “nasty dark brown laughs.” Then it seemed such a particularly apt description that 1 began thinking of other people’s laughs in the form of colours. Colours and sounds are very closely allied, and it only needs a very little imagination to match them up in pairs (says G. F. M- in the Star). The poets often talk of laughter as silvery. That may mean only the sound of silver bells tinkling, but doesn’t the shining beauty* of polished silver also seem to fit in perfectly with the sound of musical laughter? The King’s laugh in “Princess Charming,” although gay, had a sinister sound that suggested, something dark and murky. It wasn’t bad enough to be black, that would be a very evil laugh. But dark brown fitted it perfectly. The grey laughs are just the opposite, especially the steel-grey laughs which are so often heard coming' from a group of fashionably-dressed women. These sound cold and meaningless, and you may be pretty sure that their owners are artificial and heartless. The only grey laugh which is beautiful is a dove-grey one. This is very seldom heard, for it belongs, like its sister the lavender laugh—to other times when old ladies wore caps and shawls and had gentle manners and peaceful minds. Blue laughs are generally young and up-to-date. There is the spirit of adventure in the sound. The owners of these laughs make splendid companions, for they are healthy- and jolly people, and quite free from the modern diseases of nerves and craving for unnatural excitement. The possessors of the whole range of pink and red laughs are less easy to know. They may be quite charming, sympathetic, and intelligent men and women, but they are more likely to be self-seeking, vain, and cruel. Exquisite in sound is pale pink laughter, but if you listen carefully you will detect a tone of insincerity that should act as a warning.

THE CRAZE FOR CLASS. Old glass has long had its' devotees, even among those who were not .collectors, but the present craze for glass, has a more practical origin (writes S. C. M. in the Manchester Guardian. It sprang in the first instance from the labour-saving idea, for being so easily and quickly cleaned it not unnaturally usurped the place of silver and plate with their tedious demand for polishing. To-day, however, the craze has gone far beyond the utility stage. The charm of good glass on polished mahogany is fully .recognised, so that even those who are little concerned with economy in labour deck their tables with beautiful glass. Recognising tlie craze for glass,' fascinating sets of salt-cellars are fitted with cases for Christmas or wedding presents. Lovely, long-stemmed liqueur glasses, richly cut and engraved, and the bowls exquisitely tinted, are sold in the same manner. Fruit dishes with bordered bands in gilt or colour are no less charming. Among other novelties are miniature reproductions of old supper dishes, four in a'wooden frame, intended for jams or for hors-d’-oeuvres. White glass, cut and polished, is the favourite of -the hour, but those who love colour have ho difficulty in satisfying their taste. Opaque glass in a glor-

ious orange and in red is fashioned into cups and saucers, plates, vases, and so on, while sapphire blue, a rich wine red, and a golden brown, contrasted with white, find a place in every collection of clear glass which is either cut or engraved. There is much colour, too, in the foreign variety, which is cheaper than ours. But, with the exception of Venetian, .which is too fanciful for everyday use, its colour’s are often very dull. The smoke-tinted glass, with its hint of pink, which Sweden sends, has a charm of its own, but it needs a white tablecloth to show it to perfection. '

SHEILA KAYE-SMITH. You stand in a yellow stream of sunshine, perhaps, on a ridge of the downs near Chanctonbury, and you say: “It’s raining over Brighton way.” And that sums up my first impression of Sheila Kaye-Smith. For I saw her eyes at once, and long before the rest of her. Her grey eyes are like far-off falling rain; they hold a story of happenings, somewhere . . . not here ... at the same time as now, maybe, but not here . . . . Over there, where it’s raining. Well, and next I saw her hat. Naturally I mention that enormous floppety nine-and-elever.penny leghorn wheel, with its little black velvet crown, because it was gracefullly presented to me not long afterwards, and is still, after twelve years, in hard daily use though the crown, eaten and re-eaten by many puppies, is in its seventh incarnation; my household of Italian servants call it “the hat of the signorina no, excuse, of the Signora Sheila !” and believe that all English authoresses wear hate like than when they attain a certain eminence. The secret is more or less everybody’s secret, nowadays, that this celebrated novelist of the soil is outwardly not in the very least “like her books.” It is of no avail taking her into a wet ploughed field and expecting her to roll in it, ecstatically chewing the sod. She has no stalwart breadth of brawn and muscle to drive the plough as tirelessly as any man, and despise the cushioned arm-chair afterwards. On the contrary, Sheila Kaye-Smith is extremely responsive to ease and cushioned arm-chairs. I have seen her curled up in them like a pretty, tired kitten, glad to exclude the harsh cold of the outside world, or only to remember it for the luxury of enhancing a Sybarite; she appreciates clear-burning fires and the boquet of exquisite wine; she wears beautiful clothes and, as Paula Tanqueray might have said, she loves travelling “when it’s expensive.” An orderly and well-run house, plentiful hot water, luscious colours and a decorous background . . . All good things, brother . . . . And yet—there’s always a wind on the heath.

Actually, theft, and this is a secret unlike that other which everybody knows, Sheila Kaye-Smith is “like her books.” Of course she is. The author’s personal mind and soul are rather more than mere vehicles for inspiration. Forget for a moment the superficial picture of a slender childish figure in white taffeta, strapped shoes, soft, short hair, on appealing manner. . . . Spiritually, mentally, she is like her books; the fundamental quality of her is a splendid triumphant sanity. Her philosophy and conduct of life are unusually normal, sane, generous, and, above all things, honest. She is in self-contemplation quite one of the most honest people I know.—G. B. Stern in T.P.’s and Cassells’ Weekly. SAND DUNES. Sea waves are green and wet, But up where they die Rise others vaster yet, And those are brown and dry. They are the sea-made land To come at the fisher town, And bury in solid sand The men she could not drown. She may know cove and cape, * But she does not know mankind If by any change of shape She hopes to cut off mind. Men left her a ship to sink; They can leave her a hut as well, And be but more free to think For the one more cast-off shell. —Robert Frost, in the New Republic.

REAL PEOPLE IN FICTION. Mr Arnold Bennett has been accused—as if he had invented a new sin—of depicting living persons in a work of fiction. But the sin, if sin it is, is so far from being new that it is at least as old-as Aristophanes, who made mock of Alcibiades and Socrates. Dante put his enemies into Hell, explaining, in the case of one of them who was still alive, that he was really dead and that his body on earth was inhabited by a demon. The victim was so much incensed that he carried his grievance to the Pope. “If he has put you in Hell,” replied his Holiness, “I can do nothing for you. If he had put you in Purgatory, I might have saved you.” ' But let us come to modern times. Almost all the chief Victorian novelists were guilty of this practice. Charlotte Bronte put three curates of her acquaintance into “Shirley,” to their righteous indignation. Thackeray was accused of painting Becky Sharp from Charlotte Bronte—but the charge, of course, is merely silly*. He did, however, depict Andrew Arcedeckne in the character of Foker. But Andrew had a prettier wit than Foker. “Thackeray,” he said, “I heard your lecture on the English humorists, but you left out the humour. Take my tip, old boy, and get a piano.” Dickens, in “Bleak House,” drew the

portraits of Leigh Hunt as Harold Skim--pole, and of Landor as Boythorne—portraits which received but scant approval from the sitters. Bulwey Lytton went much farther—in “Paul Clifford’’ he depicted George the Fourth as Gentleman George, the keeper of a boozing-shop, and the Duke of Devonshire as Bachelor Bill. But he himself was pilloried by Thackeray in “The Yellow-plush Papers” under the name of Bulwig—a piece of really savage satire, though not more savage or stinging than Tennyson’s remark about the same victim—“the padded man who wears the stays.” Another poet, Browning, was drawing from real life when he represented Wordsworth in “The Lost Leader,” Cardinal Wiseman as Bishop Blougram, Napoleon the Third as Prince Hohenstiel-Schwagan, and Home as Sludge the Medium. As for Disraeli, his books are like a portrait gallery*.

French novelists would supply us with a list at least as long; but we will close with one or two examples. When Alfred de Musset and George Sand broke up their love-affair and separated, each wrote a book about the other. But while Alfred painted his late amorata as an angel, she depicted Alfred as a selfish bore. Both portraits may* be true ones. ’ Mme. de Stael, in “Delphine,” took herself as a model for the heroine, while she satirised Talleyrand as a woman, Mme. de Vernon. But to jest with Talleyrand was never safe. “Madame,” he said to the authoress, “I hear that we both appear in your romance and both in the disguise of ladies.—John o’ London's Weekly*.

CARYATIDES. Figures have I beheld, from granite hewn", Supporting with uplifted hands tho weight Of massive lintels. You had thought that soon Beneath that stress they must disintegrate, So vast the burden, yet unbowed they stood, , With stony eyes that seemed to challenge Fate. Have I not seen the counterpart of these Immobile images in fleshly guise? Unyielding human caryatides, Whose lips are set as though they stifled cries Of anguish for the burden that they bore, The while'they challenged Fate with stony eyes. —Robert Rutherford, in the Century.

WHAT IS BEAUTY? Certain people are attracted by* one type of beauty*, while an entirely different type appeals to others. A beautiful face, according to Rogers, was one that was arch and full of mirth. . Byron’s beauty had glossy hair clustering over a bright, smooth brow, eyebrows like aerial bows, glowing cheeks, and constant blushes. Spenser, Shakespeare, Scott, Ben Jonson, and Cowper had their own ideas of beauty*. Spenser said that his love ought to have eyes like sapphires, teeth like pearls, a forehead like ivory, hair *ike geld, and hands of silvery whiteness. Shakespeare’s beauties always had very white skin. If the skin were snow-white, smooth, and alabaster-like, he seemed to care for little else-; while Scott’s heroines were all high in the forehead, dark in the eyelash, and generally* soft and pensive. Ben Jonson asked for a face marked by simplicity, and he demanded in his ideal that she should have flowing locks and a sweet- neglect. • Cowper insisted on the damask cheek in his ideal beau tv.

The demand for different types of '■beauty* is not confined to great men. The ordinary Tom, Dick, and Harry have their own distinctive likes and dislikes. Each extols his lover’s lieauty and sees little or nothing in his companion’s choices to call forth his admiration. So long as men differ in constitution an.l tastes it will be impossible to fix a rule by* which to determine what is the supreme type of beauty. To the Burmese, the lissome and feather-weight woman is the ideal type of beauty; but to the Sandwich Islander enormous girth is essential in the woman who would lay claim to beauty. The straight up and down waist of the Venus de Milo may. attract some men; but the wasp-like waist of the French beauty, Mme. de Maintenon, was a ■ source of delight to many men. Some sing the praises of their mistress's eyebrow because it is arched; but Aladdin - fell in love with that of the Princess Noureddin because it was slanted. The Englishman may liken his lover’s teeth to a double row of pearls; but the Turkish poets sing praises to their beauties* betel-stained teeth, because these are like pomegranate seeds. In the matter of beauty tastes differ, and while this is so there will always be different types of beauty to meet and satisfy* those varied tastes. All gentlemen do not prefer blondes.—Glasgow Weekly Herald.