NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 28 August 1919, Page 26

NOTES

Littie Thing's In, more than one sense it is the "little things that count. We all know the story of Michelangelo's reply to • one who seeing him polishing and retouching a finished statue asked him why he was wasting time over such trifles instead of getting to work on a new statue. "Trifles make perfection," said the sculptor, "and perfection is no trifle." It v is true in every "order.. In

the moral and spiritual order :it is just the attention to trifles that distinguishes the saint from the- tepid man. Attention to trifles makes a gentleman in the social world, just as neglect of them makes a boor. In the ideal order—using ideal in its philosophical sensetrifles tell beyond power of estimation. Dante, artist that he was, realises this when he makes the old Florentine say that what he remembered most in Hell were the green hills and the little streams that ran down to the Arno around the home of his boyhood. We take the risk of correction and quote from memory;

I piccoli rluscelletti die dot coUi verdi In GasenMn-scendon r/kiso in Arno Mi stanno sempre innanzi, e -non indarno.

Why? Why is it that .triflesapparently trifles at any ratedominate as they do in our recollections of places and persons? How often, on looking back to the past, the memory of a friend is in some mysterious manner associated with ,some entirely fortuitous circumstance, which makes as it, were a background for our mental picture. We recall one friend long lost and inevitably see him lazily paddling a light boat on a summer evening on the Harrow; another we cannot sec without an effort apart, from the grateful shade of the olive groves around Tivoli ; recollection of a third is for some hidden reason always associated with a. walk among the mountains between Subiaco and Olevano. It is the same with places. The first image the name of Rome suggests is a little garden, green with orange and lemon trees and filled with the cool sound of a plashing "fountain: Germany brings back an idle day in the groves around Heidelberg Schloss ; if there will be years ahead from which we shall look back at Dunedin it will suggest, we venture to say, the vision of dawn coming in over the hills that shelter the harbor and spilling regal colors over the inner reaches of the sea. Why this is we know not, but that it is so our own consciousness as well as the witness of poets—from Dante to —assures us.

TI e art stitch stuff a* dreams art mode of.

A Warning to Bachelors

In the only volume left behind by that brilliant essayist, “Marmaduke,” of the Truth of Labouchere’s day, there is many a rare gem to be found. The little volume—it called The Maxims of Marmaduke—seems to be caviare to the general reader. However that may be, the people who like caviare are satisfied to be in a minority. Read this and meditate thereon, ye bachelors of New Zealand;

“The ordinary woman is trained to catch a man, not to keep a husband. As a girl she dances much, sings more, dresses simply but attractively, smiles,when it is her interest to do so, and is apparently devoted to home. That conduct implies cheerfulness, economy, and contentment. It is, however, only her ante-nup-tial manner. Many a man could describe his experience six months after marriage in these words: “My wife is a parcel of assorted follies and failings, enclosed in a decorative wrapper and labelled “Mixed Chocolates,” but after marriage I discovered it to be a packet df acid drops.’ . . The following is even more appalling; “In a seductive atmosphere of music, perfume, and luxury, the eligible man, dazzled and inebriated • by the illusive surroundings, is entrapped by the combined blandishments of the selling parent and the child on sale. . In the majority of cases, the man purchases a toy sold to the highest bidder in the dearest market in conditions skilfully contrived to delude and obscure his judgment.” Considering the modern New Zealand “flapper” with her latchkey and her cigarettes and “spots,” not to mention her —costly inversely as its covering powers— are of opinion that there was method in Marmaduke’s madness.

Some Useful Definitions %■■ The "same^writer also gives us 'some'" definitions which are positively indispensable for up-to-date people nowadays. Cut the following ■ out and apply them and you will be one of the' sheep, or one of the lilies of the field or anything else you please except a man or a woman as God made them: r ' ;'' ' /1 : ' K ,"■.' /:i - *■*?% Question— 'How., is your ! behaviour in accordance with the latest fashion ?' ; ' ■"'''■ ; , Answer "ln that I possess no opinion or principles of my own, and do not mind what I do, so long as I do it in distinguished society." (For instanceJazzing, smoking, drinking whisky, flirting ad Übertum now seem to be quite proper for modest maidens.) J . "What is reputation ?—The estimate your neighbors entertain of your wealth and social position." (In olden times old-fashioned people used to have an idea that a good name and a fair fame were important. Since the New Zealand Government gave us Mammon instead of God in the schools things are improved.) "What is fashion?— latest frivolity practised by the smallest number. "How are you to know what is fashion?—By consulting dressmakers and imitating notorious Parisian soubrctlcs. (Enough said !) "What is charity?—Assisting those who may directly or indirectly bo in any way useful to you hereafter. (Collecting for "patriotic" purposes and sending white feathers to an only son on whom a widowed mother depends is also charity.) "What is justice Strongly condemning the slightest -failings of others, whilst readily condoning our own most infamous iniquities. (For example shrieking about corpse-factories that never existed and then wondering why any person should object to a lunatic like Colthurst murdering people.) " "'What is modesty? Not to dress lower than the most decolletee woman in the room.

“What is a good book ?—The latest suggestive novel.” ,

It seems hard to believe that Marmaduke was never in New Zealand.