PAST AND PRESENT.

Waikato Times, Volume 99, Issue 16596, 12 September 1925, Page 15 (Supplement)

PAST AND PRESENT.

A SKETCH.

(By Simple-Simon.)

Our friend Tutankhamen Rex has had such a wonderful “Press” that future chroniclers will give him a special paragraph all to himself in their history books and describe the discovery of his tomb as one of the landmarks of the twentieth century. There is one fact, however, which they will not mention, and that concerns the reincarnation ofhis first wife. When we look back on the Tutankhamen affair in a few years’ time we shall have forgotten the incident of his wife altogether. That is the worst of these newspaper stories. They don’t last. Strange, because newspapers -always speak the truth, and this particular story; moreover, came from America. In case you've forgotten it this time next year, I might just mention that a millionaire’s daughter during the Tutankhamen Press boom of 1923 made a very interetsing discovery- According to the reporters—and the veracity t of American reporters is proverbial—'she believed she was the re-incarna-tiori of the first wife of Tutankhamen. It happened, like this. When she -was glancing at a picture paper she noticed a chair taken from the deceased king’s tomb. The chair had an electrical effect on her memory. In a flash everything came back to her. She recognised the chair —naturally. She had sat in it again and again after she married Tutankhamen when she was sixteen. As for her past life as Queen of Egypt, she remembered that too. She even remembered dying two years after • her marriage. Next, please. I admire the millionaire’s daughter for her verve and imagination, and I envy her because if I had a memory like that I should be on the musichalls earning two hundred a week as a single turn, with no scenery and no assistants. “Any question, ladies and gentlemen. ... 'I beg your pardon, sir . . . the date of whose death? . John Bunyan passed away in 1688, sir. Am I right? What happened when, madam? On the thirtyfirst of March, 1342. . . Nothing I assure you absolutely nothing. . ; >

Any more questions?” I rather like this idea of re-incarna-tion—within limits. I take it tnat it comes upon you suddenly instead of growing on you gradually like some people’s faces arc said to do. 1 have been wondering whether it will ever burst upon me. I’m not encouraging my imagination too much, because when the veil of Time was lifted and the light of memory began to burn the results might be unsettling. There seems to be no means of guaranteeing oneself , satisfaction. I wouldn’t mind owning up to being the spiritual re-echo of King Alfred, for instance in spite of the incident of the cakes but there are one or two notorious gentlemen of ancient history with whose manners and morals In have no wish to be associated. The knowledge that I once had eight wives or played the violin while Rome/ was burning would tend, I feel, to a.further repetition of such carelessness and callous behaviour. Knowing that history repeats itself, it might make things awkward for Christine to feel that seven others were destined to usurp her particular end of the table in rapid succession. True, beheading, as a poplar pastime has gone out of fashion, but these things can be done prettv neatly in these days of cheap weed-killer. You remember the_ husband who drowned his wives in a bath. I forget whether he actuallly drowned them, but anyway they went. He may have just turned on the gas of the geyser and then locked the door. I forget the details. But I fancy it would be a mistake for any man to tell his wife that he was the re-incarnaticra of Henry the Eighth. I should feel far happier as Moses, or someone like that, with a blameless past and a beard. /Varon, for instance, or Noah, who„ probably had two beards. ■ ... I have discussed the matter with Christine, and the result is a new game. It is called- “Re-incarnations,” and is very good for your brain. To plav it well you need a good, memory for’history and as much imagination as possible. It’s rather like the game where somebody goes out of the room and the. rest think of a person whom everybody knows. When they ye thought, the somebody comes in again from the cold passage and asks questions, which are only answered in terms of colours, vegetables, books, music, and things likg that. It sounds complicated, but when you have been told that the person thought of signifies puce, parsnips. “Jessica’s First Pravcr,” “Heme, Sweet Home,” geraniums, The Quiver, acid drops, Queen Victoria, and the Albert Memorial, you know without a moment’s hesitation that the answer is “Aunt Jane.” “Re-incarnations” is more difficult. You choose someone you all know and re-incarnate him —or her. The re-incarnation voted the best scores on-e point. For instance, to take Aunt Jane again, it would be useless among players of intellect to trace her back "to Helen of Troy or Cleopatra. Personally, I should vote every time for the Mother of the Gracchi. Christine and I spent a few interesting moments in running over our respective families, and found the occupation not unamusing, though limited by a lack of both memory and an encyclopaedia. Clever people with both might follow our example with better results. It makes things easier, of course, when you leave the family— we have no Cleopatras, Cromwells, or Canutes in ours—and turn to the celebrities. What about Mr Asquith, IJobbs, the Prince of Wales, G. Iv. Chesterton, Lady Astor, Mr Bottomley, Dean Inge, Lloyd George, Carpcntier? Or, again, such well-known personages as Mr Bottomley, Mr Asquith, G. K. Chesterton. Dean Inge, Hobbs, Lloyd George, Lady Astor, and the Prince of Wales? One could go on like that indefinitely. Next time I see Charles —who has a penchant for brainy’ games, with or without pencils—l shall tell him about his past lire. I think, in spite of a loug spell of matrimony, he would treat Hermione with more respect if he realised, as we do, that she has seen in a previous existence “better days.” Rather more unsettled days, perhaps, but from a social point of view distinctly superior. In view of her past training it is a mystery In me why Boadicea ever misses her iee shots. ' I wouldn’t trust llerniionn with a how and arrow. As for Charles, opinion is divided. Still thinking of the cakes, 1 mentioned Alfred, a simple, kindly soul, but Christine, said he was 100 practical. She antedated Charles far beyond Alfred, and turned him back into a prehistoric man, one of the easy-go-ing. anti-beaver type who strolled out of his cave and spoke kindly to the mammaths, and then went away to play a strange game with a wooden club and a small round stone till it was time io go back home and sit over a peat lire with a plate of stewed Broilliosaurus for supper. Altogether a pleasant, primitive citizen. When it came to Christine herself my supply of history had run out. She rather fancied something obscure -and mediaeval. I suggested one of the early feminine martyrs, or I he first wife of Fulk FitzWarine, the

worst baron In Shropshire (pronounced Salop). Christine, however, hinted at Romance. I think she saw lierr self, dressed in white, standing on top of her father’s watch tower with her hair down and one of those tall, peaked caps on her head, waving a lilywhite hand to a gaily caparisoned knight on a white palfrey below. I expect he rode away with her to the hills wtih her father in hot pursuiton the family dragon.

As for my own re-incarnation, Christine’s ideas on the subject strike me as Irrelevant and uncomplimentary. Without wishing to • offend the daughter of the American millionaire, I have a strong feeling, amounting to conviction, that she is wrong about that chair. I remember it perfectly. It belonged to my second wife.