The Club Smoking Room

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 19, 6 May 1908, Page 6

The Club Smoking Room

By

HAVANA

BISHOP XELLGAN? remarked the journalist, ‘’has a happy knack of drawing out that mysterious person who writes letters to the papers. I think the society of journalists should give him a testimonial on his return to our shores. Good correspondence is a most valuable thing to any daily, but it is not very easy to get. Even the most experienced pressman can never tell for certain what will draw. Often-subjects we think of great importance fall absolutely Hat, while a comparative trifle will produce shoals of good and interesting letters. Look at the gallons of ink that were spilt when Jumbo was sold by the authorities of the London Zoo. Could any man have foreseen that the sorrows and woes of an elephant would have* produced eloquent epistles from such men as Buskin and Matthew Arnold? The p&o--jde seem to have resented being called pagans, but there was some truth. I suspect. in his lordship’s indictment, or it would not have met with so much criticism. If he had said we were all drunkards, ami that the results of licensed houses wore ‘ghastly,’ and that Prohibition alone could save the colony, people would have patted him on the back and said ‘Good boy,* because, as a matter of fact, we know that most of us had a sober, if we do not lead a godly and righteous, life.” © © © ,u <hu chief aim in life.” replied the cynic, “is to move with the tide. We strongly object to a man who has either, principles or ideas of his own. The politician. the parson, and the pressman are all expected to echo public opinion, not to lead it. Kind out what the masses think about any question, and then put their thoughts into your own words, and you will be’spoken of as an able man of commanding genius while you Jive, and promptly forgotten when you are dead. The fitting reward bestowed by mobs oik their popular idols is utter and complete oblivion when the idol is consigned to the tomb. Thus are wise men made to smile. But the real fault of the present generation is not paganism—would it were—but com-mon-sense. ('ommon.sense kills all the <»ther senses, and is in itself the most ghastly thing with which the individual or the nation can be cursed. The eye loses it power of seeing, because beautiful scenery gives place to the exigencies of factories for turning out potosi silver and pink pills; the ear loses its power of hearing because the song of the herald angels is drowned in the din of the gramophone. Did you ever meet a practical man or a man of great common sense who was really happy? i never did. ami never hope to.” © © © “Your cynical epigrams, my dear fellow.” answered the dominie, “often hit the right nail on the head. The aim of most people is to kill the sou), expecting to find happiness in the body, and so we kill all that really makes life worth living. A girl is taught to sacrifice love for social position: a boy is taught to sacrifice culture* to worldly advancement. When we have got our way we are not happy. We wonder why people with so much less of this world’s goods seem to get so much more* joy out of life We feel at times that we would gladly retire from purchased glades and mansions if we could stand as w<* once stood: loyal, brave and trm*. Happiness lies in the expression—not the suppression of our individuality —in the affections, in tin- enjoyment of beauty. And common sense too often means subordinating the higher to the lower, putting the things which are seen above the things which are not seen. At present we worship material comfort and the means of attaining it. We have no great poets, no great musicians,

no great painters. Ar a consequence we have no great religious feeling, for religion is a reaching-out towards the unseen. Lhe very churches are infected with the ‘time-spirit,* and rely more on organisation than spiritual power. Refinement, culture, delicacy, are all being trampled under foot by the Juggernaut of Philistinism.” © © © “We pay for these things,” said the doctor, “not merely by the loss of the capacity for enjoyment, but by the loss of health. We no longer indulge in sport, we indulge in the luxury of watching professionals play games for us. We seldom v.alk or fide: we prefer to be whir'i.J r’ohg in motors or tranu-ilrs. Wc Hv on? lives in a stuffy office. and i .replaced the garden with the asp! J led yard. Ledgers dull our brains, (•kGr L';ht ruins our eyesight, hustle and i ’ 4 tic d s:rG/ our nerves, and the biii i ife is ever busy cutting out t' c *cu e . d b. our artificial modes of living. The phase is not new, and of course it will pass away again as it has dons before, but the bell of materialism seems- to me much worse than even the material hell of the Middle Ages.”’ © © © “My dear doctor.’* remarked the cynic, “you and the dominie are really getting most horribly serious. You will never impress the masses with your views, and that at least ought to cause you joy. Then* is nothing more distressing than to find one’s views meet with universal approval. It is such a humiliating confession of stupidity. Why try and draw the multitude away from the serene contemplation of their hoped-for heaven, which .seems to consist of a place where they will eat not- fat pork off gold plates in the company of prosperous retired grocers. The great questions of the day are no longer political, literary, or religious. We prefer to discuss such conundrums as “When is a slipper not a slipper?” “What is a slaughterman?” or “To coupon’ or not to coupon.*’ This last, by the way, seems a delightful problem. We could extend the system so indefinitely. We could put a coupon in the plate at church, we could post bakers* coupons to begging letter writers we suspected of wasting money in drink, we could civilise the pagans of the back blocks by extending to them the inestimable blessings of the coupon.” © © © “What I like about the present day,” suggested the lawyer, “is the practical use to which we put the line arts. Poetry no longer deals with either love or nature, it finds a higher sphere in singing the merits of Bed Arrow ointment or Sapon Soap. To the maker of Limericks is given the seat of honour in the temple of the Muses. Painting and sculpture alike proclaim the merits of soap and pills. “The more practical we make our education the better will the people like it.” was the wise statement recently made at a college meeting. Wc need not give up the classics altogether—we could bring them up-to-date. Our old friend Xerxes could be utilised thus: “The Grecians would never have conquered Xerxes Had he used so-and-so’s Reliable Teas.” You could point out that the prophet Elisha would not have been called a ‘bald head* if he had used ‘Thatchemquick.’ You could explain that Virgil’s line ‘Yet tears to human sufferings are dm*’ was written before we had learnt that backache kidney pills were better than tears. You could still read Shakespeare if you added practical notes. ‘Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt* might have as a commentary ‘so it would

have done if he had used anti-fat.’ We could combine the old and the new to the infinite advantage of an age that has learnt to despise sentiment and value only the practical.” © © © “They complain.” said the schoolmaster, “that our children are overworked. We could easily remedy this by introducing the practical education of ‘Dotheboy’s Hall’—“W-i-n-d-e-r. winder. Now go and clean them after learning how to spell them.’ That is my idea of really useful training. Whackford Hqueers was in advance of his time. He would be hailed as an educational reformer nowadays. I often.think the old pagans must smile as they look down from the Elysian fields on our wholly unromantic and therefore joyless age. How insulted they must feel at being compared to us. Socrates preached a gospel of the immortal beauty of the soul, we preach a gospel of stuccoed villas and bile beans for biliousness.”