NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 43, 2 November 1922, Page 30

NOTES

On Saving One’s Skin v “Marmaduke,” who, as we now know, was Mr. Jemingham, was one of the most brilliant of London journalists a quarter of a century ago. His column in Truth was good reading, and fortunately the best of his remarks are preserved in a volume but too little read. One keen comment of his was that an actress was “a second class soul in a first class skin, to whom complexion was more than character.” It was unkind to actresses, but as sensible people know it was a general assertion that made allowance for many exceptions; for there are certainly actresses who have first class souls, and it is probable that there are even more who have not first class skins. However, care of the skin, especially in a metaphorical sense, is by no means confined to the stage. Saving one’s skin is. only too often the guiding rule of life of many a man and woman never seen on the stage with too many it comes before saving the soul. There are even people who profess by word of mouth that saving the soul is their chief business in life, but now and then one catches them , off-guard and finds that in their ■ own narrowminded, selfish, ungenerous, unchivalrous way, it is saving their skins that comes first with them. To come to “Marmaduke” again, we may say that the second class soul thinks , more of saving its skin, while the first class soul does not bother one jot about the skin provided that the soul be saved. The first class souls puts honor first; the second class variety puts self first; a first class soul is unselfish and charitable and loyal; the second is selfish and uncharitable and disloyal to its friends. ’Which would you rather be? Which are you ? The Silk Purse and Sow’s Ear A homely saying has it that one cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Once upon a time we heard a great prelate introduce, that proverb into a sermon with telling effect. He was speaking of the natural virtues and of their importance. He emphasised the necessity of truthfulness, of candor, of straight-forwardness, of loyalty to friends, of sincerity; and he maintained that the man or woman who is wanting in them can never be a truly spiritual man or woman. Teachers know that tale-bearing pupils are never made of the right stuff; superiors know that gossipers and scandal-mongers are not their best subjects. ; The frank boy or girl.. the honorable, loyal subject, is the best material for the building of a right Christian character, and not to recognise that this is the.case means disaster in the end. The pupil or subject who will betray a companion will betray a superior; the boy or girl who is loyal to a friend will be equally loyal to teacher or -superior. He or she who will not : prove worthy of the confidence of a friend cannot be trusted in any emergency of life: cunning, the aim at saving the skin, subserviency, hypocrisy may carry the weak and unreliable through for a while, but in the end a touchstone will be found and the truth will out. It is the old saying:. You cannot make a silk,purse out of a sow’s ear. For our solemn warning Christ permitted one sow’s ear to appear for a while as a silk purse among the Twelve, but the trial came and when it was over Judas had hanged himself. But he also hanged, or rather crucified; his Master. That was a long time ago now, but the lesson remains.. Wasn’t it Judas who said so sanctimoniously that much good for the poor could be done with the money for which the box of precious ointment, mipht have been sold? Some people might have been taken in bv his sanctimoniousness, but Christ saw into the man’s heart, saw that the sow’s ear. not the silk nurse, was speaking there; Other people are not so keen of vision, and they are deceived. J ■ Curiosity , - ' . . Carlyle said, “The age of curiosity, like that of chivalry, , is gone. Yet perhaps only gone to sleep.” His surmise was perfectly correct,. for we: have ample . evidence that the sleep is over, at least in some.parishes. ■ At the beginning of Lent, his -Reverence,, according i to ancient'and honorable custom read the regulations . ; and ■ did all a man could do to make them clear to the % profanum vulgus . - Having duly established the fact

that all under twenty-one, j all over sixty' (with a special allowance for the devout f emale sex), all in ill health, all who had convinced themselves that they were amdeiseoiri (“angishores”), all who were forced by poverty to take what they got, and when and where they got it, all who had to work hard, and several other classes too numerous to mention, were exempt from the obligation of fasting, he, in his usual zealous and pastoral manner, proceeded to urge and advise the advantages of, the voluntary undertaking, by those exempt, of some works of mortification and self-denial. He followed the beaten track and recommended the ladies to be satisfied with the second last word, while suggesting that the men might give up smoking. The next morning, Mrs. de Montmorency, aetas 70, and with a hattrick to her credit in the matter of interred husbands, went to the back door of the presbytery and knocked thereon timidly. To her promptly came Perpetua, just then busy about many things in the kitchen. “I merely called,” said Madame la Yeuve, “to inquire from you if Father Antonio has given up smoking for Lent yet.” Unblushing was the curiosity and candid was the answer: “His Reverence has begun to smoke Madame,” said Perpetua. “On Shrove Tuesday, owing to the poor quality of the tobacco sold now and to its high price, he decided to give it up. But next morning when pondering on what sort of mortification he might , select for Lent it occurred to him that he could not be better than smoke three or four pipes of the vile tobacco every day.” Our conclusion is that if a lady over-burdened with a sense of curiosity is as great a nuisance as a non-Bulgarian Bug, a housekeeper who knows not only that there is a time to be silent, but also that there is a time to speak if you can think of the right sort of thing to say, is a treasure as rare as ten ounce nuggets of gold on the sands of Sahara or -race-horses in Roxburgh. It is perhaps as well for us to apologise here for- the accident which makes the inquiring mind in the story belong to a lady, and we hasten to admit that it is a calumny and a most unwarranted one at that to say, as certain foolish persons do say, that the other name of curiosity is woman. Indeed we are sure that it was only through a blundering sense of courtesy that inclines men to give the palm to women in all things that the latter acquired their reputation. We know several mere men who are peripatetic notes of interrogation and who always begin a conversation by asking you if you take porridge for breakfast. If you admit that you' begin the day by such an act of self-denial, they then want to know whether you have R fried on a gridiron or toasted on a fork. Woman may be curious, but men are .even curiouser. <XA* i