The New Zealand Graphic AND LADIES’ JOURNAL. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1890.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume V, Issue 43, 25 October 1890, Page 10

The New Zealand Graphic AND LADIES’ JOURNAL. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1890.

The pseudo G. T. Sullivan, alias Arthur Clampett, is reported to be again upon the convers’. n swindle. It remains to be seen whether the human race is capable of yielding a double-distilled essence of credulity in the same locality where theconverted athlete so recently found such a rich vein. Of all sorts of sensationalism, that which deals with the things unseen seems to be the most remunerative ; and it appears to be quite a matter of indifference whether the iridescent vapours of transcendentalism are generated in the human brain by the tongue of either man or woman. Great is the power of speech, or rather the music of words and voice combined, for word-painting and mere sonorous rhetorical figures are nothing but a vague sort of music which excites the imagination while hypnotising the reasoning faculties. In truth, it is neither one thing nor the other. It is not organic sense, and it is not organic music, but a sort of hybrid, with some of the definiteness of the former and some of the emotionalism of the latter.

In the hands of the practised rhetorician the mass of people are little more than puppets, exactly as are many of them in the hands of the mesmerist or the skilful musician. AU they know is that they enjoy a delightful sensation, but whether the pictures conjured up are fact or fiction none take the trouble to inquire. As a French writer has said, the greatest nuisance to a human being is himself. Everybody is grateful to that other person who will transport them out of the loneliness of self-concentration and the incubus of solitude. Give us excitement, never mind truth ; let us laugh with you, or cry with you, or soar you into the empyrean of the imagination, so long as we can forget the tiresome realities of this monotonous existence, and get a glimpse of that happier otherwhere which lies without ourselves.

What is the greatest bliss a woman can enjoy short of getting a proposal of marriage herself? Probably the hearing of another woman being proposed to. Gf course the cruel case, where the intoxicating overture is made to a rival, must not be included within the scope of this inquiry. With that reservation the answer to the question is in the main correct. There are, of course, a few acidulous old maids enjoying that philosophical eminence of contempt peculiar to the sour-grapes condition of mind, and who regard the approximation of younger persons of opposite sex with a sort of nausea—who, if they see a picture of the balcony scene in ‘ Romeo and Juliet,’ recoil from it in well simulated disgust. But these qualms do not trouble the bulk of mankind, and everybody who is not likely to be involved in the inconveniences following upon a love affair takes a benevolent interest in helping the parties into the treacle-pond of their aspirations.

Those of us who stumble accidentally upon a love situation are afflicted with a certain feeling of guiltiness for being where we are, and as we put up the umbrella and beat a retreat, do so in an eloquently deprecating manner,' seeing that profuse verbal excuses for the intrusion are impossible under the circumstances. If, too, you have been robbing the strawberry-bed of its forbidden fruit, ami on emerging light upon your elder sister nestling in the macrocarpa arbour with a young man, you need not be afraid of information being given against you for the offence on that occasion. You will find her very sympathising and indulgent under the circumstances, ami the gentleman will probably ‘ tip’ you with a shilling and ask after your health in a way which will make you wonder at the unselfish interest which some people take in the welfare of little boys. It is true that at times love seeks out strange resting-places, and when you have half broken yourself up in tumbling

over a couple cooing at the bottom of a staircase on a pitch dark night, you are apt to lose your temper for a moment and regard the matter censoriously ; but it passes over, and the feeling of benevolence returns.

The general sympathy for ‘spoony’ ones is probably nothing more ■ than a sort of reflected self-interest. The next best thing to doing it ourselves is to see somebody else doing it. In a way we operate by proxy. As for the delight which convulses the feminine breast at having a finger in another woman’s affaire de cautr, we all know how eccentrically that propensity exhibits itself. In the woman who conceives she has another woman in her tutelage it is of the fussy clucking order, such as a hen shows when a stray dog comes snuffing around her solitary bantling, only there is generally more of the assumption of superior knowledge than affectionate concern about the whole thing. In short, the contemplation of a possible engagement is very apt to upset the mental balance of all women who come closely in contact with it, unless they are hardened old cases, or women of the world. In this event they look at the matter more in the cool way that men do, and conclude that the parties interested know most about the business which may possibly influence the whole of their future lives.

What with Diocesan Synods in deliberation and the electioneering candidates on the stump it threatens to be a pretty lively spring time for the reporters everywhere. In the absence of the swallow as aharbingerof the openingyear, we may gratefully accept the Hirundo elcricalis, Ashestalks along our public thoroughfares in shovel-hat or wide-awake and a long-tailed coat, his placcns uxor beaming at his side, and sundry olive branches of both sexes gaping openmouthed at the wonders of the town, what an interesting group they make. In the days of the Vicar of Wakefield there were no Diocesan Synods, with their harmless debaucheries to tempt Clericus from home, nor are there now where the Church is established and autocratically ruled. Popular government, therefore, and the voluntary system have some compensations seeing that they serve to bring Clericus from out’ the wilds of the country and give his family a glimpse of the greater world beyond.

What a handshaking and a greeting there is when two of these little parties meet. How the feminine treble strikes up in the vioace or the andante-sostenuto style, while the bass or tenor puts in an occasional chord when opportunity oilers (which is seldom), and the youngsters shout ‘ ma ’ or ‘pa,’ as the case may be, in the effort to attract the attention of their seniors to Buffalo Bill or a stray Indian connected with the Wild West Show. Then the plans for the day, the visit to Mrs This (‘who is an old parishioner of ours’), or Mrs That p whose -sister married my husband’s second cousin'), or Mrs Otherbody (‘ wife of our senior vestry-man, at present in town ’); the afternoon tea at Bishopscourt, the anticipated debate oh the introduction of the offertory.- detector, a sort of penny-in-the-slot machine revealing the amount of your offering according as it varies from a threepenny-piece to a button, and such like trifles, light as the happy vernal Wind. As for the muffin struggles, they are everywhere, and are in the main harmless in their effects, except in so far as they produce gastric distension in the persons of the younger members. There is nothing’very thrilling in all this outing, but it is as a picture of mankind, grateful, decorous, and humanising, and though unnoticed by city-folks in their haste, leaves a strong influence upon the minds of these visitants to whom city life is a revelation.

The press is the receptacle of the woes of humanity. When anyone is in trouble or perplexity he hastens to pour his confidences into the bosom of the utterly uhsympathising editor. Probably the correspondent is aware of this, but the object, as in the case of many other confidences, is merely to secure publicity. Did the editor, in the most self-denying manner, settle down to diagnose the difficulty and endeavour to solve the problem privately, he would not only find life too short, but he would get no thanks for his trouble. He therefore disembarrasses himself by putting the correspondent en rapport with his fellows, or those of them -u l»o dissipate the ennui peculiar to this vale of tears by writing publicly on the perplexities of life.

One gentleman of inquiring mind propounds the old conundrum regarding the habitat of honesty. ‘Where is it?’ says he, and echo answers ‘Where?’ An eminent English judge now living, and the greatest authority on evidence, asserts that where his own interests are at stake the statements of no person aie to be accepted without suspicion. One might safely say that of people’s actions as well. And after all what inducement is there to be honest ? Tell-tales are often honest people; but they, like other strictly truthful persons, are terrible mar-feasts, and are generally detested. When having stolen from the scene of festivity to ravage the comestibles below, and returning through a dark corridor you feel a soft hand and hear a soft voice you recognise whisper ‘Harry’ (your name being ‘ John’), what do you do ? Run away and tell the girl’s mother? No ; you gasp with emotion and say, ‘ Ah ! I am not Harry, but just stay here a little and I will tell him there is something awfully good in the way of refreshment waiting for him down here.’ That is dishonesty, and it pays. She will like you next best after Harry, and fight for you like the—the—well, like the angel that she is.

And then, too, what is honesty in the matter of coats and’ umbrellas ? If anybody wishes to lay T a trap for a person and ruin his reputation he does it with a bran, span-new umbrella, or an irreproachable mackintosh, or an inviting pair of dancing pumps. It can sometimes be done with a fine rusty old gamp of the age of Queen Anne. We had such an one. It was an heirloom used by the great Dean Swift in the traditional hailstorm which devastated England in the days of the good Queen. It had also devastated that umbrella, but greatly enhanced its value. In the colonies there are few such antiques, and somebody knew this, for he took it one evening and left us a regular toothpick masher contrivance, which might just serve to hold up the heavy dews of an Auckland evening. Worst of all, its incongruity with our tout ensemble is so manifest that we dare not take it out. Everybody would suspect that we had stolen it. It would be prima facie evidence justifying arrest for a press man to be seen with such a thing. Thus we also ask, ‘ Where is honesty ?’

Now is the approaching hurricane of election oratory, and the harvest of speeches redolent of unlimited promise. There is an old story of the Virgin Queen, who, on asking a courtier, walking moodily below her window, what a man thinks about when he thinks of nothing, got for reply, ‘He thinks of a woman’s broken promises.’ If thinking of the broken promises of candidates for Parliament were attended with half as much pleasure as thinking of the horrible deceits played upon us by the ladies in our credulous moments, if the process were attended with the same feeling of gratified vanity, the election speeches of candidates might attain a fleeting popularity. As it is the whole affair is regarded as a sort of intellectual bull-baiting. There is a world of truth in the remark of Lord Bacon, that public men are slaves. In these days of popular government, the gentleman who solicits our votes and influence can scarcely be said to have a soul he can call his own. He seeks eminence, and when he gets it he finds that it is in some sense a sort of honourable pillory where the position is constrained, and he serves as a mark for any insignificant busybody who thinks it worth his while to level a shaft at him. Milton wrote, ‘ Fame is the spur that the clean spirit doth raise, that last infirmity of noble minds.’ He did not live in the days when the übiquitous pressman does so much to confer immortality. In those times men wrote to mould public taste, and spoke to form public opinion. Nowadays men write, pipe, or speak to the tune which the many-headed desires and the object of it is usually gold. No doubt there is progress in the mass ; but now, as in Pulteney’s day, the heads of parties move like snakes upon their bodies, and the politician is an opportunist worshipping at the shrine of the‘jumping cat,’and ostensibly thinking up (or down) to the level of those whose suffrages he hopes to obtain.