ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3862, 20 March 1928, Page 17

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER.

IL—A CHARMING ABERDONIAN.

By W.H.

As I -write the wordg “ A Charming Aberdonian” I remember that John Ker price said, ” A man’s adjectives show his taste, his conjunctions his logic.” There are those who think that my adjective ‘-‘charming ” i s proof positive that I have no taste at all, no logic, and no sense of fact. They maintain that the words ‘‘a Aberdonian ” are a contradiction in terms; that there never was and

never can be such a person. They are of the same mind about the charming Aberdonian that Betsey Prig was about Sairey damp’s friend, Mrs Harris. “ I don’t believe,” said the militant Betsey, “ there’s ■po sich. a person.” I know that the application of this adjective to an Aberdonian is rather unusual. The adjectives and adjectival phrases often applied to Aberdonians, even by themselves, are “ hard,” ‘‘ shrewd,” “ cool hard sense,” “ caritio.us,” ‘‘reticent,” “impatient of extra- ■ v agant action and unmeasured speech,” jind so on. Many stories illustrative of these qualities are told. I suspect that many of these stories are like those told gbout Henry Ford and his cars—locally manufactured. Notwithstanding the stories and the denials of all the Betsey Prigs in the world, I stand by my adjective and say that William Gray Elmslie was a charming Aberdonian. A week ago I described Elmslie’s Aberdonian thirst for learning, intensified as it was by the fierce, competitive Aberdonian spirit of that period. ’ Now let me try to depict the charm of the man. When I am asked what I mean by charm I have some difficulty in answering, but there are many common simple words that are proverbially difficult to define. I believe in the existence of many things I can neither explain nor define. I have heard that Mr James Macandrew once used the word “ pawky ” in the Provincial House of Legislature. Somone asked' him what is meant. “ Pawky ? ” ” Pawky'/ ” said Macandrew, completely nonplussed by being asked to define so common a word. “ Pawky? Why, Donald Smith is pawky.” When 1 am asked the meaning of charming I follow Macandrew’s method, and 1 say Elmslie was charming. When I try.. to analyse what constitutes charm, 1 feel that it is sometimes a characteristic, of a man’s appearance or manner; at other times it is something in his character. The particular thing In a man’s appearance, manner, and character that gives him charm is something of a nature of light. A charming landscape, according to my idea, has the sun bn it. I would not apply the word charming to a picture of Glencoe which I .have seen, with its heavy masses of clouds darkening the heavens, filling the glen and obscuring the mountains. Beethoven’s face with the dark stormcloud on the brow, and the fire, which is not the same thing as light, in the eyes, is not to me a charming face. Neither is Carlyle’s in Whistler’s well-known portrait. It reminds me of Froude’s remarkthat he never could forget the cry of pain with which Carlyle said, as they discussed the perplexities of Providence. “ Ah, but He does nothing.” There is no light of hope and joy in the sad face Whistler painted ; it is not charming. Now Elmslie had light and brightness in his appearance and manner. He had a beautiful and finely-formed face, delicacy "of feature?, and great expressiveness of countenance. Henry Drummond says that “ a peculiarity of Elmslie’s, which added greatly to his power, was that he thought with his his whole face. In fact, in listening to him one did not so much hear a man speaking as see a man thinking. His eyes on these occasions would become very targe and full of light, not of fire or heat, but of a calm luminosity, expressive of a mingled glow of reason, conscience, and emotion.’’ One is not surprised after reading that to learn that Elmslie had a rare charm for his fellowmen, and that as a student he was the most popular man in his college. I have grown to have a kind of suspicion of a very popular man. It distressed Robertson of Brighton to be called a popular preacher. What some men would give a year’s stipend to possess Robertson disliked and despised. Popularity to him suggested shallowness and fawning. Many feel that a charming man is invariably an insincere one. I once said to an old man in my heroworshipping youth about one of my heroes, ‘‘ Everybody speaks well of him.” “ Then,” said my old friend, “ I’d watch him.” After that short, sharp thrust there was no more any breath left in me, for I remembered that it, is written “ Woe unto you when all men speak well of you.” 'When I am in my most scornful, anti-popularity mood, and have set my teeth on edge by eating the sour grapes of the wilderness, I sometimes reflect, as a corrective of my temper, on a remark of St. Luke’s, “ He grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with man.” When I .read; that remark it always arrests me. Mem came to like him. I had a fellow Student who became a minister. He once described himself as “ transcendently unpopular.” He seemed to glory in the fact and to regard his empty church as a certificate to the fidelity and truthfulness of his preaching. St. Luke in vivid and very simple phrase said of that man’s Master, “the people hung upon Him, listening.” I shrink a little from writing it, but it appears to me that the growing boy in St. Luke was a charming boy, and the preacher was a charming speaker. It is very difficult I am,'pure at times to do it,, but I conclude that a man can be .faithful, being offensive, he can combine truth with grace.;- Elmslie won

the favour of his fellow students in a remarkable degree, when he spoke they hung upon him, listening, and they did this, though he beat them hopelessly in class competitions, and castigated them sharply in student discussion. He could expound free views, without exciting bitter opposition, and say revolutionary things without hurting the feelings of others. One of his fellow students said of him that “ his weapon, though it cut deep, had the marvellous property of diffusing an anaisthetic on the wound it made.” I shall sell all I possess and buy that weapon.

I think the qualities in Elmslie’s character that gave him charm were his charity and hiajhope in man and in God. • ha® been said that he had a sense of the frailty of men, their sore struggles and thick temptations, so profound and compassionate that he would do his .utmost to secure a fresh opportunity for the erring penitent. His friend of vouth and manhood, Mr Harper, B ays Elmslie’s .” belief in the existence of an ideal element in every human being was so strong that even without Christ he would have loved men. His toleration for error and .aberration of all kinds was consequently almost boundless, yet his power of moral indignation was extremely great.” He had hope not only in man, but great hope in God, and that was the chief among all hi s attracting qualities. Hope and charity are charming qualities. They give brightness to their possessor, and bring light to the men and women on whom they fall. Mr Watts has given us a famous picture he calls “ Hope,” in which everything is painted a deep blue—a deep blue globe in a deep blue atmosphere, a blue "woman, blindfolded, crouching on the top of the gl°° e , and playing a lyre with one string. It would never nave occurred to me to paint Hope thus. I never could either draw or paint, but if I could I would paint Hope as a woman in white, standing tip-toe with expectancy on the top of the world, with the day breaking and filling her face with light, flushing her gown with colour, and glorifying the clouds of the departing night. If I could get it. into the picture, I would have her listening to the music of th e spheres and not to a tune on one string. One thing leads to another. When I was thinking about Elmslie as a charming Aberdonian, it occurred to me to take down a book. I had not opened for a lon<r tim e and read “ Borland Hall,” with its story of college life in Aberdeen. There I found a picture of a Scotch girl, in which there was everything I had been trying to say about charm, its light and its revelation in appearance and manner and character. In my folly I had forgotten that the best examples of charm are not found among men but among good women. If I were younger, and not in the circumstances I now am and have long been, I would commit that song to memory. ~ She is a woman You cannot help but love, but love Nobody can. She carries a charm with her everywhere In her gait, in her glance, in her voice, in her hair. Bewitching man. What Is it tn her you love, you love’ Is It her face. Beaming with beauty along the way? Is it her wit so nimble and gay? Is it her grace? I would quote more about the charmingirl, how she brings

Light to the eyes of the old and weak : And oh how wisely her lips can speak As well as sing ! but editors don’t like poetry.