ANCIENT FALLACIES.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17220, 1 October 1927, Page 13 (Supplement)

ANCIENT FALLACIES.

HIGH BROWS AND EMPTY HEADS.

Miss Edith Sitwell, the poet, who has become recognised, with her brothers Osbert and Sacheverell, as one of the leaders of the “advanced” movement in present-day letters, writing in the London Daily Mail, says: “When I was a child my elders would from time to time repeat the mysterious sentence, ‘Nature abhors a vacuum.’ It was only later that I learned the meaning of the phrase. But now, looking at the world around me, I have come to the almost certain conclusion that Nature, far from abhorring a vacuum,

Positively Adores It.

In the head, at any rate. Otherwise, how can you account for that total absence of face about which I complained lately? (Absence of face is the result of vacuum in the mind.) And how can you account for those popular amusements —revue, modern drama, musical comedy, other people’s cricket matches, golf matches, etc.? I am not particular, but if I have an amusement I like that amusement to be amusing; if I have an interest I like that interest to be interesting. And amusing amusements, interesting interests, can only spring from a mind which does not contain a vacuum. If Nature really abhorred a vacuum these amusements could not be. The persons living through these entertainments must have the same powers of endurance as a toad which was found recently in a coal mine, walled up in a scam of coal. lie had existed in that seam of coal ever since tree first turned into coal—with, you will admit, not much to think about or even to notice. Then, again, if I am wrong, and Nature does really abhor a vacuum the vacuum most certainly returns the dislike! Since, whatever the person possessing a vacuum in the mind may be by nature, he or she tries to alter that nature, and become something quite different. . . . Girls try to look like boys; old ladies turn into ‘flappers.” Poor Jittie persons with one foot in Bloomsbury and the other kicking hopelessly at the more vulgar ol' the doors in Mayfair, turn into ‘exquisite ladies of fashion,’ ‘rare writers,’ and heaven knows what else besides. Cricketers turn into poets; so do men of business. Persons of an infinitesimal size swell up and turn into ‘great writers,’ ‘great musicians,’ ‘great wits.’ (Nature cannot abhor a vacuum, otherwise they wouid surely burst, like La Fontaine's frog.) Limp green male persons with

Not -Sufficient Vitality

to understand anything, turn into criiies of literature (in the more ‘advanced’ weeklies), and blink and wince and whimper about good taste, persecute vitality. They would be far happier as vegetables, for it is to the vegetable kingdom Dial they belong by nature. Do not be deceived, my friends! Many a high brow conceals a vacuum. Empty-headed young ladies of fashion turn into actresses. Vulgarians become great hostesses, ladies of fashion, grandes dames. Slipshod and indiscriminate morals are held up to us as great sins—upon the stage, in novels, in real life. Virtue and discrimination are held up to us as repression, instead of fastidiousness, which is probably the case. White hobnobs with black—and is afraid not to! Indeed, black at this moment, seems the only part of the vacuum which does not abhor Nature and is not afraid to be seen in its own true light.”