HUMOUR IN TRAGEDY,
SIR H. TREE'S STUDIES AND STORIES.
FABOINATING 'ADDRESS. AT BIRMINGHAM.
Bir Herbert Troo visited Birmingham in Iris capacity as president of the Bir mingham and Midland Institute, to de liver the inaugural address of the con sion, and was moet onthusiastically, re ceived by a crowded audience assembled in the Town Hall. The subject he had dhoson wae Humour in Tragedy,"
In the course of his address Bir Her bert Tree remarked that if the quality of humour was important in comedy, it was, ha vontured to say, yet more im- portant in tragedy, whether it be in the tragedy of life or in the tragedy of the he would choose to start on life's journey theatre, Were he asked what companion in quest of happiness, he would un hesitatingly summon to his side humour humour, the darling love-child of intelli
gones.
THE HONGKONG DAILY PRESS, MONDAY, DECEMBER 19TH, 1915.
| GUARDING LORD READING. DETECTIVES AND WARSHIPS ON
HIS AMERICAN MISSION.
How Land Ronding was guarded on hu way out to America and back, and during his stay in that country, is described by the London correspondent of the Journal, who had a conversation with the great. English wyer-politician and financier after his wturn.
"The intercet he awakened was not a friendly interest only," the correspondent writes. "Germany looked with dread upon the members of the Anglo-Frensa Commission whom the Americans wors greeting guesta of note. Day and night they had to be guarded by detectives, and thanks to the precautions that were taken, no suspidous individual was able to ap proact them."
In his conversation Lord Reading spoke cordial relations between the English and with emphasis and evident pleasure of the French members of the Commission, an also of the services randorod by MM. Mal let and lamborg,
Glad to find himself back in Englan Humour being an attitude of mind (continued Sir Herbert), it can to a cer after eight weeks' absenco, save his inter tain extent be developed-given the seed, viewer, he had that involuntary smile it aan ba cultivated. I remember a of satisfaction that seems to mark the phy valued friend once said,Life is siognomy of all great men who have a
Lord mirror-smile at it and it will smile complished it successfully. back; frown at it and it will frown Reading attached no importance to what again." It may at onto be granted that he considered a trifle the return voyage. like every other precious force (like The aim of his journey fulfilled, the rest radium and electricity) the force of was of Hills matter, Yet this indifference humour can be misapplied, and so be was not dared by the authorities. The come dangerous; it is undeniable, too. St. Loui being an American ship they that an absence of humour will enable considered that their responsibility was men to reach the gont of their ambition doubly oncerned, and they kept guard, more quickly, for they who see only what In the Ids, in the engine-rooms, every is immediately in front of their nosed
where allover the ship detectives exercise will often outstrip in the race those who
the atrielst surveillance. At a given mia are hampered with humour and the sen- sivares, and love of life which that Tent destroyers turned up to cort the Transatlantic finer all the way to port. humor implies.
They were first sighted as two black spocks in the horizon, which grow rapidly in size as they cut through the waves at top speed. Os the decks everyone was waving handkerchiefs, and suddenly the enthus astic raras raised: "They're British war ships! Hurray! Hurray!!!
Certainly humour may be a clog in the game of life. On the other hand, he who is gifted with it will laugh at the blud geonings of fate. The man who yields to the assaults of adversity is often stronger than he who offers them a rigid resis tance. Iron breaks; steel bends and recovers its equipoise.
The supreme test of humour is in its personal application. It is the quintes sence of humour which enables a man to lough at himself, and gives, him his highest dignity, for he who can laugh at himself must needs be rifted with a tolerance, a pity for others. None so sensitive to criticism as those whose busi nesa it is to ridicule others. True humour is rarely cruel, cruelty and sarcasm belong rather to the domain of wit.
YOLUMINOUA LETTERS.
It is fact, by-the-bye, which I have observed in life, that all madmen are singularly deficient in the quality of humour. I have noticed that an inor dinate concoit characterises that sad state. I presume it is because the sense of proportion is distorted. Persons with- out a sense of humour always write long letters, and I have noticed, too, that all madmen write letters of more than four pages. I will not venture to assert that all persons who write more than four paged letters are mad. Still, the symp tom should be watched, ingelen
One of the most alarming signs of insanity, is has often seemed to me is that of writing to the newspapers (in variably more than four written pages) to prove that Hamlet was mad, and that Bacon wrole Shakespeare. Yet the same writers who scores the idea that Hamlet pretended to be mad generally assert with equal vehemence that Shakespeare pretended to write the works of Bacon am satisfied that many of the learned commentators have only been kept out of tunatic asylums by the energy, which they have expended in the harmless cou- pation of discussing these two kindred subjects in print. In many cases it has proyed a most valuable safety valve.
Though the subject of the Shakespeare Bacon, controversy is somewhat musty, I will ask you to bear with me while I wander down a by-lane of parenthesis in order to prove to my own entire satis. fashion that, peated by the touchstone of humour, the Bacon theory vanishes into the air. If there is one quality which characterises the writings of Shakespeare more than another it is humour. He cannot resist it is irresistible. Hu- mour, like murder, will out. Had Bagon humour I think not,
AN OLD BAILEY INCIDENT.
THE NEWEST RECRUIT. Unmoved be heard the band go by;
The gasdy posters on the wall He passed with an unseeing eye
Despite of King and Country's call." What, join the colours when it meant
Leaving his job for sneaks to pinch? He wouldn't budgs till others went,
No, no one blessed jnch !:
There was recruiting meetings, too, And spreches in Trafalgar square, But little good they seemed to do
Becaua the slacker wasn't there. His favorite paper loved to tell
How all was cheerful as could be "If things," he said, "are going well
What do they want with me I'
Then suddenly he heard a voico
|
WAS HE A COWARD /
THREE FUNK" STORIES.
[BY W. BEACH THOMAS.]
** The man's a born coward. Take my word for it, he'll be missing one of these daya," So said ono officer. The other was| of much the same opinien, but he added, "All the same I've seen those nervy follows turn up trumps."
WAR NEWS.
FIVE THOUSAND CIVILIANS KILLED.
According to the Echo Brige, some 1,350 Belgian civilang have been killed by Ger- man troops in the Province of Liège since the invasion. The paper adds that its climate of 5,000 civilians killed in the whole of Belgium is not at all exag. gorated.
THAT DAMNED ENGLISH
BLOOD!"
The man they spoke of was one of the obvious cowards, because he was a self- "When you write a Kaiser-book, toll conscious coward, always thinking of his 'em this," said one of the Flaneur's old own cowardice. Unlike many others, he friends, of German descent in the Park, was less afraid at night, when he could not do they gossiped at Poverty Corner," be seen, thon by day, when the eyes of which, as you know, is within half a critics were upon him, The darkness minute of the French Embassy." There might have scared him; but one day some-
are many versions of it, but this is the
having a coward in the trench was the at Bonn. I was a student at that uni- one said in his hearing that the worst of right one, as I will show
As Prince William the Kaiser studied effect on the other men; and, in truth, versity at the same time, tear and courage are just about equally the Kaiser was lunching with some off- One day, 48 contagious. But the maxim was unfor tunate. The coward kept saying to him-es, not by any means teadies, his nose began to bleed. Two or three of the eclf, "If I make the others funk I had yohng fellows came forward with pocket better be away," and daily, against his bandkerchiefs. No," he shouted, rather will, schemes of escape of the maddest sort angrily don't try to stop i-let it go waltzed round his brain but brought no oni In a few seconds the red stream decision.
censed of its own accord.
At last this rage of indecisive misery Hal he exclaimed.
There goes the reached a pitch that became intolerable. last drop of that damned English I was standing close to the The night was moonless but clear, and from blood 1. the pit of the trench the stars secried to little group, and an officer, seeing that I look down with a pitiless cerutiny, which was English, and had heard what was added to his wretchedness more than any said, without perhaps fully understand. sane and sold mind could well undering it, came up to me and repeated the stand. Before he knew what he was doing exact words." the coward slipped over the parapet and began to make his tremulous way towards the German trenches. Further fears now seized him and he sidled off to the left, afraid to surrender, afraid to return. S for a while he wandered, an insane vog rant, through the purgatory of No Man's Land beneath the accusing stars
he came to see eo muddenly the thing in He could not remember afterwards how front of him, but his belief, from muddled recollection, was that he had fallen flat on his face upon seeing the ox plosion of a star shell. At any rate, there within a yard or so of his eyes was the muzzle of a machine gun hidden with de viliah couning in a pit well outside the German lines.
He heard a gruff whisper and the muzzle moved. With as little reasoned thought as when he fled from his french he jumped past the muzzle, pulled aside mud-covered plank over the hole, and when real sanity returned to him he found himself in a spacious enough room with two he thought two-dead Germans lying in front of him, At any rate, the machine gunners were dead, and he had killed
hem.
In his excitement he was conscious, he said, of a sense of being born again. He had meant to call "Kamarade!" to the frst Germans he approached. He had re- heared all sorts of forms of surrender, but
NEW AIRCRAFT RANGE FINDER
Becond Lieutenant Lewis Weirter, whi has passed through the ranks of the Lon-
don Scottish and is now attached to the ing, has hoon responsible for an invention Staff as an instructor of military sketch-
Chronicle) a range-finder for aircraft, by of high importance in the the war,
which the altitude of an aeroplane can b
He has constructed (says the Daily
told the moment it appears in sight, and
at the same time gives its distance away from you.
The details of the instrument cannot be
explained for obvious reasons,
Another of Lieutenant Weirter's invoa- tions is a retractor, which enables a so dier to make a field sketch in less than half
an hour.
Lieutenant Wairter is a well-known Painter and etcher, and a member of the Council of the Royal Society of British Artista. His canvas of the Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee procession hangs at Windsor, whilst South Kensington Muccum possesses a number of his works
A QUICK PUNISHMENT.
Hero is a little scene that happened in the heart of London a few days ago, says a writer in the Daily Mail. A lady of high
That seemed to touch some hidden spring somehow instead of abeying reason he had position went with a friend inside an
It left hy wakened heart no choice, That ringing anmons of his King. And now he hears the rolling dring
That call him to the distant fray...
Bo
sesterday's wash-out becomes
The soldier of "to-day hash
TOUCHSTONE in the Daily Mail.
BRIKESPEARE AND NAPOLEON.
In the play of Antony and Cleopa tra, I may note in passing a little touch of realism that only one of Shakes peare's delicate humour could suggest, When Chopatra has breathed her last breath, Charmain says;
So, fue thee well-
Now bust thee, death in thy posses
ator lice
A la unparallel'd. Downy window,
elisa
And piden Phebus never bo beheld Of as again sa royal! Your crown's
avit:
I'll end it, and then play, "Your own's awry that is a true Shakespearean touch. It reminds one of Dickens' Fagin, who while he was await ing seatice of death fell to counting the iron pikes in the court, and wonder ed how the head of one had been broken off, and whether they would end it, or leave it is it was. And in the play of Casar," what an understanding of the mob does Antony reveal in his dealing with the motley crowd. To Bratus, to Cassius, tad to Cesar, Shakespeare pur posely dies the gift of humour, though Casca (a kind of Labouchers of the period) as it richly.
attacked the Germans as a ferret attacks a rabbit and had killed them dead, stone dead. His brain and will were clear.
Quickly and silently be released the machine gan, dragged it out of the hole, took is on his back, and returned to his trench helped by the light of the now kindly stare and a faint hint of dawn
The next day, much against his will, he was sent into hospital with a very saver: strain in the back and a flesh wound in the calf, got somehow in the struggle. We he law there he longed, as not one in a hundred longs, to go back to the trenches, that he might exercise this now possess of his, this strange thing called courage. The surgeon saw his name in the honours list a few days after he left the hospital for the convalescent camp.
It was a foregone conclusion that the verdict would be guilty, and the sentence to be shot at dawn. One might well be sorry, with Worsworth, for what wan has made of man," if this lusty sergeant, of sufficiently long and honourable service, had become desertar, Would anyone two or three months ago have picked out this man of all men for coward or, oven "akirimshander
The fact is steadily dawning on even the Judge Jeffreys type who still remain that the delicate, sensitive, complex mind of man may induce actions which cannot be judged as bare, isolated facts and labelled with such-and-such a degree of crimina lity.
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The firing squad were not wanted in the morning; and their almost victim will probably fight again, as well no over, doctor who discovered the malady also dis- covered the cure. Both were mental.
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[1154
Under this dawning notion, this nascentous as they looked. All were doing well, THE TAIKOO O DOCKYARD
The actuality of life's tragedy is, of couree, charged with humour. The re words of the Old Bailey attest this There was the case of a criminal who, This bings me to the question as to the on boing saked by the judge if he had possession or non possession of humour anything to say why sentence of death by great men. As I suggested a little should not be passed upon him, replied, while eg humour may be a help or a No; I am disgusted with the whole pro clog in lie. Many great men have been ceeding." Another, in a similar situs without it. I think it may be broadly tion, on being asked whether he had any stated that men of action, the great des last request to make, said, Well, troyers, the men who take, are as a rule should like to learn the piano,”
devoid of humour; while men if imagina- An instance of humour in tragedy tion and contemplation, those who (conscious or otherwise came within my create, who give, have the gift of humour, knowledge, had constantly relieved the Among hose preeminently gifted with importunities of one who claimed to be humour are Abraham Lincoln, Disraeli, Bliterary man, on the grounds, I subse Goethe and Heine, the lafs Lord Balis- quently discovered, that he addrexed bury, Athur Balfour, Dickens, Thecke envelopes for an advertising firm. His ray Fielding, Shakespeare, Queen Eliza constant ples with me was that he wanted beth, Hory VIII. Charles II, Dr. to get a glass eye out of pawn. So fre Johnson, Charles Lamb, Emerson, and quent were his applications on this head Byron. that at last my secretary revoited. I conll enlarge upon this theme until received
letter couched in these terms: your eyelids would no longer wag But "Sir, unless I receive 10s. this evening I will wontent myself with contrasting by ten o'clock my body will be floating as typical examples of the yea and nay down the Thames. On your head be it of humor two of the world's greatest I will call at the stage door." I was men Shakespeare and Napoleon, the placed in a must invidious position, and arch-reitor and the arch-destroyer. told my, secretary that he had better send take it that the greatness of a man onst out the 10s.
be gaugd by his output for good-the At the end of the evening I thought measure of his greatness is, in fact, in of my friend.
"Did you send out the proportion to what he gives to the world; money to that deserving suicide? I his lack of greatness by what he takes or Esked. No," replied my secretary, "I destroys Shakespeare gave an abiding did not." A horrible picture presented joy, one that will contribute to the hap itself to my mind. I felt myself guilty piness, the education, and the ennobling numb to painful sensation, though per of manslaughter at the least. I was of mankind throughout the ages, infectly sound on the other side. much relieved on leaving the stage-door states unborn and accents yet un- to find the importunate terary man known. Napoleon, on the other hand, outside, dancing a hornpipe to keep him: took from mankind millions of lives and tor. You may describe it as hysteria. as a form of paralysis or shock, or what not. self warm. Good evening, my friend," set hunimity wailing.
The fact was that something had reduced I said, in cynical revulsion, I thought It difficult to think of the Emperor
15 you were in the Thames." "Don't be Napoles without thinking of the Em- the man to a one-sided state, and his as flippant, sir," he said, "I did mean to peror Wilhelm. The resemblance betions were likely to be as one-sided as his submerge myself: but on gazing on the twem these two great criminels is not nerves. The pretty mechanism of the cells dark river my better feeling conquered. one of person, for two men could hardly of the brain was out of gear, and the man and I've come back for the 10s. be more unlike the likeness is in their was for the while only half a man, and
therefore unmanly. think he deserved them,
monstrous ambition.
I
The young lieutenant was brought into hospital, wounded rather badly in several places. But his wounds were noj so seri- and he showed unusual impatience to be cured. "I must get back to the trenches," he said. "I must get back.
A friend went to see him, just as he was waking from a doze, and he began to talk freely as a child will talk when it is tired. We were to go over the parapet at 5.5 a.m., and I never was so frightened in my life. I heard ons of the men say, The lootenant don't leak half green, does he f
sense of pyschology of mind-science, the sergeant was sent to a great nerve spe cialist. At the interview they sat together
This oneasiness of mind was the only Some in a room looking over the Channel, studded now, as throughout the German menace, thing that hindered his progress. doctor bad failed to find in his patient was likely to stay there till it was confess The thing, it seemed, was on his mind, and with craft of every sort and kind. any malady, named or unnamed, but heed and faced. The confession came quietly was not going to give the man up to death and unexpectedly without wrestling as hard as a docter could wrestle with a mortal illness.
The two began to talk of shipping." Is that a torpedo-boat or a destroyer? ask ed the doctor, nodding towards the sea, and at the word driving a needle into the soldier's leg as his head was turned away
Quite quitely, in the even, depressed "Then the moment came. As soon as voice in which he had spoken throughont, we got on the run I saw with the tail of the man replied that it was a British my eye the captain fall, and for twenty. destroyer. He did not start, he did no yards I was thinking of nothing in the stom even sware that his leg had been tam-world but this--whether I could pretend pored with. The doctor heaved a sigh of not to see that I was left in command. It infinite relief.
would have boen a rotten way to die. shirking like that. But I think I shall do better next time if I can get the chance."
Then the friend told him what had hap
The self-styled pened in the action. shirker had reached the barbed wire, which had been untouced by the bombardment an absurd distence in front of his men.
He was hit twice while trying to cut it. He was hit once again as he lay on the
teen hours later while he was helping a ground. The fourth wound was got fil Tommy, just about as badly wounded a he was, back to the trench,
The account cheered the invalid, bu still he says, the ons vivid impression left in his mind is that he pretended for a while not to see that it had fallen to him to lead the company.-Daily Mail.
It is not necessary to describe the rather complicated and numberous tests which followed the primitive trial with the needle. It is enough that they proved he yond all doubt that the burly sergeant was in this strange condition: that the nerves en ons side of his body were absolutely
What the malady is named does not mat
10
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