NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 42, 25 October 1923, Page 30

NOTES

Books—Good and Bad. ; . . / ' / ■ / / Most people .will pronounce off-hand■*. that a book is goods or bad; but it seems to us that : the i number;of people , whose. opinion i is worth taking is limited. As sheep follow;: one another through /a gap, /men/ and women,, with traditional blindness will speak of the badness of the penny-dreadful,, while they will put into the hands of their children - some sugared, sickly, sentimental romance which is as . bad for the mind .as a diet of cream-puffs would be for the;body.: Before passing judgment on a book on© ought'to be able to grasp it in its entirety to. weigh its .purpose, .to appreciate its messageif, indeed, a modern novel has one: / } One ought to be free from false prudery, able to take a comprehensive view of things as they are, accustomed to judge in the light .of eternal, principles; One must remember that unpleasant things have to be faced and taken - into : account, that to reveal the. dangers of life is- part of true education, that only a false guide would be , silent where it were better speak out, that to pretend: that there are not pitfalls on the path is more immoral than to indicate them plainly. . . The Catechism, our books of devotion, our New Testament tell - us, with salutary and necessary outspokenness of certain evil things which . prudish persons would be more likely to think than_speak about. But are they bad books, because they do so? Only a fool would say that they are.. Novels that deal with dangerous topics, such , as prudes . are silent about even when speech were silver, are therefore not to be condemned straightway as bad. T!;e ,bad novel is not the on which paints vice in its true colors and conveys a warning against sin, but it is the one which makes vice attractive, even when it does so in veiled and suggestive words such as Mrs. Grundy’s censorious eyes might approve of. The ; Importance of a. Shadow t 1 -l Many years ago we were given, to help us towards proficiency in German, a book by Chiamisso which told a wonderful : tale about one Peter Schlemil, who got into all sorts of trouble because he sold his shadow. If you think that losing one’s shadow makes no difference you had better read about Herr Peter. All rightminded persons recognise the importance of a shadow and reverence their umbral outline as Tim Healy once insisted that the equator, ought to be reverenced. In the. down-gone years of boyhood, we lived under the shadow of the hill on which, the Battle : of Ross was fought, . and if we were proud of it, we did not boast of it half as much as did our neighbors by the Slaney; who could hardly ask for the daily paper, without reminding the public , that they were born under ' the shadow, of - Vinegar Hill. In later, d ays we found 1 traces of this shadowitis in New i Zealand, especially in Taranaki; where many . good friends of ours take a legitimate pride in living by day and sleeping by night under the shadow of Mount Egmont,' loveliest and noblest of ?Maoriland mountains...; If Peter ’Schlemil was cursed m that he had no shadow, how happy . are the Pungarehuites, and the Okatoites, : and the Opunakeites, and the Pihamaites,. and the Kapongaites, - and , the Stratfordites in that they . have two shadows—one v personal and the other provincial, videlicet, the shadow of the man . and the - shadow of - the mountain. The ; chestexpanding pride of the Opunakeites: or the Kapongfaites'; or the ; Elthamites, in their magnificent new schools, is something that passes with time. / But their pride in their mountain shadow is; like the just cause that goes oil‘ for ever. > And why not . - ‘ ■ r; -. . -v .r-v-' - ; .. v. •. : , ... ■ r~ ■ ■ ' c - Slang t :/' :/•'/: When Bishop Wilberforoe, remonstrating with a British workman for swearing, said: ■ “My good 1 man:

where on earth did you- learn that language?" the reply /' was; “Yer Zaven’t; an ’ope, guvnor. It’s, a gift.’’' Bo it is with slang. Those of us who have not the gift are' content to sit quietly and wonder 'at the' Vigor ‘arid! picturesqueness of the hew words that now from the lips of the eloquent exponents of the outraged tongue, and we are without either hope or desire -to attain ‘ the fluency, which" strikes us/ dumb. New - Zealanders, in v some instances, have" the r gift. Australians ' have it - more; fully developed, as ’ witness the glowing ' pages of /y The 'Sentimental Bloke , or of Ginger . Mick . But to’ / America goes the belt, without a'moment’s uncertainty. -Examine and study /at your’Teisure the following account of an Irishman’s meeting with a daughter of Uncle Sam: - • • '.,//.’ ./••'' /.'// • It was of a certainty Miss New York. " She burst . right in on top of me, and at a first glance I ? saw' she / positively exuded First Avenoo from the top of her turban-like swathed head to the toe of her dainty shoe. I stood up in hesitation, not- recognising her. She introduced herself, and when she had unwound the yashmak that concealed, all her features save the point of a powdered nose, my memory called up a little girl I had known years ago, who bore a resemblance to the person who stood before me.:/ / ; • ;; - ' : .- “You are very much" changed,” I said apologetic- • ally. / / // >: ' “Yep, ain’t I, "But you’ve sure changed yoursefl. Why, I. wouldn’t know you from a hole in the wall.”/ “A hole in the wall!’’ This set me thinking. Why a hole in the wall ? / ; ' <■. “What hole in what wall?” I asked. “Oh, any old hole. See here, guy! You ain’t goin’ to put it sarcastic over me. I’m -here to tell you that.” J I disclaimed all intentions of sarcasm, and protested that I was merely a seeker after truth. “Sure,” she replied, “truth’s dandy." /;/., Then she sat down, and we began to talk, or, to put it accurately, she began to talk, and continued to talk. She rambled on interminably, and by careful attention I was able to translate most of what she said! ’ I put in a remark now and again to show that I was a dutiful listener, arid to it she responded at on© time by “Yah," at another by “Yep," and at still another by “Sure thing.” / : ‘ Ti ' - Suddenly she- stopped. “Got a Morley and Hodges?” she asked. “No," I replied, “a second-hand Ford is even beyond my income.” • ” ■ . “I ain’t talking of automobiles, but of cigarettes,” she snapped. ’ ■ " '... // / .// I unearthed some, not Morley - and Hodges, and as she lay back in her chair watching the smoke rings fad© towards the ' ceiling she continued; // ■:/ “Got any street cars in this little outfit?" //- “Oh! yes,” I replied, “we have horse-trams." ./ “Didn’t see them to-day at any rate. Why! I’m sure footsore slogging around.” ./ / r. /‘Perhaps,” I said, by way of explanation, “the hors© is sick." . . * i • - . “Yep.” ■ /■•/. . /;;/-/ Up to this I had been listening to a monologue. I determined, to assert myself, and, seeker , jj.fter truth that I had proclaimed myself, I began to : ask some questions. ;'// r-- r :// ./,/ /.- r;/ '/ ~ / “How long have you been in New York?" r “Twenny years," . she replied. ; , “Twenny years,’’ I repeated, “how long would : that be ?” ' ■ / = : : : She looked at me- with. disdainful contempt. ; / , “Didn’t I say twenny years */'•/ // / / ; ’ ; ! - “You did," I replied,, “but I don’t understand.” ; • ‘ ‘ Why! twenny years is twenny years, t-w-e-n-t-y .years; get me?"'/////;■:/;/:' /' ;///? ;■//;/.:/ /:/ ••// And then I went on: “I suppose; you. have made and saved quit© a lot of money in that time ?!’-/://; " /- “Made, yep; saved, nix.” -//V:/ - -“How’s that I inquired. ’/'■■■■.,'. / •/// // B

;L “Wal, I reckon I ain’t one of those that squeeze a dollar until you hear the eagle shriek.” ■ This ' phrase /pleased me. It was a picturesque mode of expressing her disregard 'of economy. = ;■ X ; ."When. it was nearing 8 o’clock she rose to go. She had to get back to her hotel to meet a friend. As she parted from r' us at the door she said, “Can I get an automobile at the foot of the AvenooJ” ~ tiß ‘‘Possibly,’’ I replied,. ‘‘if you wait long enough. But remember curfew is on at twelve.” / V “Git!” ; she said to me peremptorily pointing a neatly-gloved finger indoors. , ’ - And I “gitted.”