THE TITTLE-TATTLE PAPERS.

Colonist, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8065, 9 October 1894, Page 2

THE TITTLE-TATTLE PAPERS.

[B-j Hornby.] For fulsome flattery and iidicalous gash hard t) beat, I must quote a paragraph in a London paper (not a Society journal for of oouree the poor eoribes must adapt themselves lo the mental capacity of their reader*) but a paper from which you expect better thinge. It was the description of a bride the daughter of a Duke approaching ■he altar at a fashionable wedding and after a lot of naußeatiug sycophancy went on to say :— " A fait English gantle-woman approaching in all the spotless statelineßS of white Duchease, satin, acd old Brassels lace, shimmering purely through eoftenirjg mist 3 I of tulle, her wedding coronet orange blossoms, linked with a sun of diamonds and pearls ; in her hand white roseß and rare orobids drooping their blossoms like the Bpraya of the silver birch." Now is it not charitable to suppose the scribe had bad a square feed in the servants' hall, and drunk too much of the strong beer that is usually broaohed on suoh auspicious occasions. I fear so, for wbat had the poor worn in done to him, that he nbould bo bt slaver her with his ha'penny hero C 3. If ttie bride was a sensible woman abe would imagine he wished to make her a laoghing-stock and advise him to spare " The Mubo in Livery," and stick t) sober prose. The tribe of fycophants, flatterers, and toad - eaters, has existed for many ages, always denounced yet dearly prized by humanly, and under vatioua terms snoh as soft * sawder, soft - soap, lick of the blarney stone, and many others more or less vulgar, we all understand what it means, for you may Bafely depend that when one man flatters another he iDtsnds to get present or prospective advantages out of him, for see how plain-spoken and blunt the sycophant can be to the poor, wboee good opinicn is not worth cultivating. No doubt fUttery is degrading to the giver, and an insult to the reoeiver. because indirectly you are hood-winked, and Bet down as an ass. It is a curious fact of which mo&t adroit flatterers are aware that those qualities or gilts taat are undeciable are not a eubject for the flatterer ; it muEt be thoee to which you have but little claim, and are dubious in your own miod whether you pot sees them at all -as by example— That cranky old Ewe&ring Dragoon Frederick of Russia, &truok up a literary friendship w.th Voltaire, aod i he gifted Frenchman could give him conscientiously any amount of flattery, as being the first general of his age— the oonqieror ol Europe - and so forth, but that did not euit the other party, a quarrel and separation was tbe consequence. Voltaire said "Fe could put up with anything from Frederick the Groat but he could not Btand hia poetry." and then he bolted, and Frederick would have made short wotk of Voltaira ii he could have caught bim- Flattery is a counterfeit debased coinage representing a value that it has not, but even flattery can be of tometriflirjg value, if it ba but a peg to harg beautiful thoughts in refined language like " the toad, ug y, anl venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in bis head " but couise vulgar adaltaion la3ed on wiih a trowel is de. eatable. Thus one might condone Shakespeare's flattery of Queen Elizabeth for the exquisi c teauty ol the lines —

"That very time 1 saw (but thou could'st not) Flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd ; a certain aim he t ok At a fair vestal, tbroned by the west ; And loos'd his love shaft smaitly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts : But I might see yonng Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon ; And the imperial vctaries passed on, In maiden meditation fanoy free, Yet mark'd I where the bole of Cupid fell : It fell upon a little weEtern flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens ca'l it love-in-idleness. I can also furnish another example of what I mean, in Sir Henry Wotten, sometime ambassador for James the First, and afterwards Provost of Eton College, and of the mighty Elizabethians whose mixture of delioate feeling with strong thought, makss the lyrics of that time at once our delight and our despair. The verses I quote shows the happy skill in refined compliment of the courtly ambassador and refined scholar. They were written in honor of his dear and Eoyal mistress Elizabeth (daughter of James I), the Queen of Bohemia, whose cause he pleaded at the Court of Ferdinand 11. Ihese lines are worthy ef being better known; observe the way in which every verse artistically leads up to the last, and while beautiful, each in itself serves only to strengthen, not to enfeeble the noble compliment in the climax.

" To the most illustrious Princess, the Lady Elizabeth. " You meaner beautie3 of the night, That poorly satisfy our eyes More by your number than your light, You common people of the skies ! What ara you, when the sun shall rise ?" " You curious chanters of the wood, That warble forth Dame Nature's lays, Thinking your voice 3 understood By your weak accents -What's your praise When Philqmel her voice shall raise ?" 11 You violets that first appear, By your pure purple mantles known, Like the proud virgins of the year, As if the spring were all your own — What are you when the rose is blown ?" " So when my mistress shall be seen, In form and beauty of her mind, By virtue first, tben choice a Queen, Tell me, if she were not designed The eclipse and glory of her kind ?" * ••;: :;: % One touoh of nature mikes the world akin," and establishes the relationship with all the world and bi3 wife, and a good many of their children, for when men and women leave for ever the home of their birth, where many generations of their forefathers have lived and died, they never cease to recall with affection, the rememberance of their early days ; and a letter from home is always regerJel as an event, espeoialiy by those natives o! little rural villages, and if the short and simple anoalß ol the poor may seem bat trivial in the great battle of life, they are important to those immediately concerned, Who does noi remember the village green for sports and ra3times, tha horsepond that you fell into when frozen ever, the pareon'a orchard where you sto'e apples, and came to grief on the broken g'ass on top cf the wall ; ani there livtd tbe old maid to whose cat you hitched the tin-kettle, and up here dwelt that awful butcher's do?, Boob a terror to the boy'a pants, and in the ohurchyard, under the gteat yew-tree, Bleeps the old schoolmaster that used to dust the boy's jaokets every day, and a double dose on Fridays to make up good measure. Alas ! in the old digging days under the Southern Gross, when letters from home were few and far apart, we used to hsnd it round for all bands to read, and much comfort was extracted from if, and one did not feel so lonely and uttt rly out off from all family ties. With muoh tae same good-chum feeling, having reoaived a letter from horn?, I likewise hand it round, and mush good may i do you. Fcgb-Ctjm-Tubmits, England. Dear John,— l sand you tbis letter to let you koow we are all wtll, hoping you are the same at present:. I have no particular news to" aend you, except your aunt with the Lrown spot has had a calf with five leg?, and tur | cow is laid up with a swelled face, and toothache. Dear John, I see I have made a lit'l* mistake. If you put the cow in your aunt's plaoe, that mike s is oome right. We opened the new. organ at our church. Tha same day oar old torn oat was caught in the rat-trap, 80 you sic we are well off in musio down here. I think sve shall have good Bhooticg this cca c .oi, bat the miners ara on strike, and

MB*

go poaching* I shot fi?o btace and Ber.fc them to Sir John Trollop's, but the railway people kept them until tbey were ratten. Dear John, I have made another little miatibe, dtn't think I shot poachers, its pheasants I moan. We buve been to London and went to see Monnt Vesuvius, but it was seized for rent. Your aunt was very much dis9ppoin'ed that she bad no ernption, but she 1 ked the wild beast 3 vastly. We also saw the goiilla, your aunt Bays iti'a the castießt head she has seen sinoe you left England. Dear John, jour aont saya I have made another mistake, but I know better. Going in the " bup," those dreadful London thieves s'.oli your aunt'a pu«e, but it only held & lot of cough-lczscges and sixpence, to they did not get muoh. Your cousin Jenny is married to a yonug man— what you oall a eoulptor— they say he is a good hand at turning ouC lit :1a images, £he has five children now. I tell your aunt it makes us feel very old/ I now conclude with no more at present. Your aunt ani all your coasins join in love wi h me. Your affectionate Uncle, Matjew Gbabtbee. P.S,-Ifyoa don't get this letter, you will know it's lost on the voyage. Another P.B.— Your aunt says be cure you? chew pler>t/ of tobacco, and th.BS na3fcy savages oan'c eat yoa without your disagreeing with tbern. « * :;; * While doing a perish in New South Wales for want of something hotter to do, I wend into the musio business— that ie, I peddled Jew's harps and tin whistles in the baoic blooks, for the trumpet had not yet blown that loosed the plague of acoordians to aftiicb the earth, and concertinas were yet in embryo in t'ae infernal region?. My customers were principally men who lay on their baoke in the shade and smoked, and then got up and leaned cgainst & tree and smoked — in fact, shepherds wondering how long it would be before they became luneys, after the ex* citing reading of the testimonials to a patent medicine, or the milder and more olaasio puffery of a baking powder. No doubt, the ttudy of music was a relief, and I had no compunction in selling my musical instruments, well knowing their nest-cLor neighbor hv?d twenty miles off. One day, after a weary tramp nnder a sun thatconvined me that the " grill " is much superior to the frying pan, I arrived q^ite " baked" (excuse a mild pun) at the " Surldowner's Best," a slab and bark note 1 , and resoled to stay there. In the bar parlor were Shiva oouviviil s^ula drinking " chain Hghtniru." They enquired who I wa^, what I wanted, and where I was going? and being answ rvd satisfactorily, invited me to " have a drir.k." As tbeie was nothing to b 3 had bufch-ialigblnirg," I had that, but waa Ciief jl t3 wash the fuael &ii off both side?, uuae.t ketti being sc*tce in ihoee parts. We soon b.csme convivial, and told cattle and dog stories, then horse, and finally enake stories, until the room became sulphurious, and the oandles burnt blue. Then the landlord told us he was but a poor man, and did not want his house swallowed up by aa earthquake I Ec was an ignorant, superstitious man, 86 if half the busineES of tha world was not carried on by sturdy and pereiatent Jying. I don't know bow it happened, bat as is often the oaee with half-drunken men, the aubj ct turned on religion, and a Methodist bragged of what he bad done for hia Ohureb. His ohum was a Baptist, end he belictled hi] boasting?, and awakened the wrath of the third, who was a Primitive t Christian. Well knowing that trouble waa (brewiDg, I sought to allay the storm by | offering to shout drinks all round if any of them could repeat the Lord's Prayer. I This was received with a enort of derision.

" Look bere. old thum," said the Primitive Christian, " order in the drinks at once. You have come acrots a dabster; here goe3 — " ' I promise and vow thie3 t ings in my name : First, I renounce the devil and alt bis works; the po^aps and vanities of this wicked world ; and all the sinful lusts of the flesh." " ' Landlo d, Iring in the drinke." "Hold hard!" cried the Baptut, "if you don't know the Lord's Player, you ignoramus I will tell you, it is this — " 'For what we are about to receive The Lord make us tru'y thaukfal.'" " Bah ! you poor benighted white savages, 11 said the Methodist, " this shows the advantage of learning religion at your mother's knee, and jou never for^ec it ; now, this ijj the Lord's Prayer, try and remember ib— " ' Twinkle, twinkle, little star, | How I wond-r what you are ; Up above the yk rid so high — Like a diamond in the Bky.' "Now, landlord, yon osn bring in the drinks.' " What a dreadful thing is religious animosity ! In a moment there was a frea fight— the Methodist punched the Baptist, and the Primilive Christian chewed the ear of the Methodiaf, so I thought it time to get ; and when outside, I made use of this pious ejaculation, " Lord, hoy thesa Christians do love ono another !"