NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 40, 11 October 1923, Page 30

NOTES

Evolution of Language , Evolution is accepted by its advocates to mean a process of development from the less to the more perfect. The , testimony of history is that the process has been contrariwise. We have fallen from Phidias to the artist who gave Dunedin its horrible statue of Victoria ; from Raphael to . cubists and futurists; from Michelangelo to the brains responsible for Wellington’s marble monstrosity that is the Parliamentary buildings; from Dante to Kipling; from Thomas Aquinas to Dean Inge; from Aristotle to Lloyd George. Like the fate of men is that of words. Apropos of the movement to alter the phrases in the English Prayer Book which have lost their original meaning, we may note how many words in common use to-day have deteriorated. Not only are the beautiful old words, “prevent,” “indifferently,” “quick,” and “vulgar,” become obsolete in their, proper meaning, but many ordinary adjectives are now used in a meaner sense than originally. Thus, people speak' of a chronic toothache when they mean an acute toothache; respectable has become almost an offensive term inquisitive, which used to denote an inquiring and scientific spirit, now comes to connote a sort of nuisance ; officious used to mean kindly and helpful, but it now stamps the busybody; vulgar strictly means popular, although it now means boorish. The gradual adoption of slang words accelerates the process of deterioration, while the widespread habit of reading newspapers sends it along on top gear. Indeed, one notices in the Dominions a tendency to expunge altogether certain fine old Saxon words which have acquired a perverted and suggestive meaning in modern use. It is all a sign of the times.

An * ‘Outline of Literature” Some time ago we had thrust upon us an Outlive of History by the romancer. Wells. It was largely imaginative and wholly untrustworthy, and after many persons had been duped into buying it by advertising sharpers it fell flat of its own weight.' Now comes another Outline: this time of literature. The editor is John Drinkwater, who has had a modicum of notice as a minor poet in a poor season. Its price is three times $4.50, for three volumesthat is, about three pounds. There will be buyers, of course; for people who undertake to publish such expensive books are wise in their generation. As a work of reference it belongs to the same class as Mr. Wells’s opus fatuum. Coming from an author who has proved that he has both imagination and a certain mastery of English, there are, as a matter of course, good things in it. But ■ Mr. Drinkwater has undertaken a. task for which he was most unfitted. Altogether the outlook is narrow and national. , Ignorance of certain periods hinders his vision of them. There are pages and pages which shriek their superficiality aloud. A blindness to the whole meaning of Catholic thought and inspiration ruins the treatment of the Middle Ages. The following reference to Dante— &

~ v "The old commentators on Dante have much to say regarding his theology, his metaphysics, his use of allegory, and such matters. . . All such 1 rubbish should be. swept intxv the dustbin and forgotten' is , clear proof of the unscholarly mind of the man who presumed to undertake the writing (at three pounds a set) of ■ these, pretentious volumes. He is to a large extent only the editor of the set, though he does his part as well as his helpers, among whom the unorthodox Canon Barnes is selected to write "The Story of the Bible." There are pages in the work which make it unfit reading for a. Catholic. Beyond that, we might add that it is certainly not worth the money from any conceivable point of view. In some ways it is as great

an insult ;jto Christian conscience as Wells's Outline was to common sense. ""','■■';■ %

The Banshee - Imagine a reader of the Tablet writing to ask ua what is the Banshee, to which there was some reference' in our pages not long since! Now the name comes ‘from two Gaelic words, meaning the fairy woman. Beansidhe is therefore the proper way to spell the word. The name gives us the first step towards knowledge of the Beansidhe: she is a fairy woman, hence a being not of this world. For further information we have to turn to tradition, which tells us that the Beansidhe follows only families of zeal Irish blood. People who have claimed to have heard the Beansidhe are numerous, but fewer say they have seen her. Of these who think they did, some say that she was beautiful, with long raven, or golden hair, with starry eyes of blue or grey, and of a pitiful mien others, on the contrary, i ©present her as a wild, dishevelled creature, bowed with grief or despair. Of these who say they heard her, some assert that her voice was sad and tearful, while others say that it was exultant. Hence, people think there may be two kinds of Beansidhe—one that mourns for misfortune and one that malignantly rejoices in the trials that befall the family. The rule is that the Beansidhe is not visible, but is heard groaning and wailing, and sometimes tapping at the windows. Mi. Elliot McDonnell tells us that he has heard a Beadsidhe utter a low, short, but terribly expressive chuckle, that makes ten times more impression on the mind of the hearer than any other ghostly sound he has heard, and which no lapse of time is ever able to efface from his memory.” Here is a typical story of the friendly Beansidhe: The Irish poet, -Dr. Kenealy, had a young brother, a youth of such gentle and amiable manners that he was beloved by all. The boy fell into decline and his life was despaired of. One day, as his friends sat round his sick-bed, they heard someone singing in the grounds outside the room. The voice was soft and sweet and full of tender pity, and charged with a quality that was indescribable. Now it swelled and now it sank to a murmur, dying away and falling as the ripple of a wavelet dies on the sands in summer. What a glorious voice,” somebody remarked. • “I never heard anything more beautiful.” “Very likely not,” was the answer, “for that is the Beansidhe.” And it was only when the singing ended that they turned to the bed and saw that the boy had died. Here is another story, this time of a malignant Beansidhe: The chief of an old Mayo family betrayed a beautiful girl who in her despair cursed him with her last breath. Years after, when he had married and reared a family, and was regarded as a model of propriety, he was one night sitting by the fire in his hall when loud shrieks of exultation were heard outside. The family rushed out, but could find nobody. Later, when all had retired to est, the shrieks were renewed and continued for a long time. Next day, the chief was attacked and brutally murdered by one of his own dependants. The Beansidhe recognises the antiquity of race and blood, and will not condescend to take notice of people who like most British noblemen have been made aristocrats because they were successful makers of sausages or beer. Hence, a Lipton or a Guinness may travel round the world and hear no warning wail, whereas an O’ Farrell is not safe even in Ashburton, an O’Byrne in Onehunga or an O’Kelly in Otago. Indeed, as the Beansidhe follows some old Scots families also, Otago ought to be a rather congenial place for them in New Zealand. Thus far concerning the nature and appearances of the fairy woman. What are we to think of it all ? There are many who will at once dismiss the matter contemptuously as mere jnsherogv.es. Yet, serious people give evidence that they have heard and even seen the strange visitor, and become very angry if their word is doubted. or our own part, we are rather inclined to believe in ghostly beings, and to do so is much better and wiser than to be a rank materialist, ready to scoff at all spiritual things, while equally ready to believe in Missing Links and similar fairy tales of pseudo-scientists. •rt —>.T . • . •*:« ' .V i. A •*. . w *

There, are ; more things in heaven and earth, than our philosophy doth dream, of, and a widespread and very ancient tradition of the existence of spirits is not to be got rid of lightly. We know that there are angels around uswe also know that the demons are untiring in their malignant efforts to ruin us; arid we do not know of anything in Christian belief to prevent us from holding that in certain circumstances other ghostly visitors may appear on earth.