TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11508, 14 February 1903, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

In tv of th* A Famous of :tf.A.Pe., ■ interesting ;*$ WtrAttitt. "Chapter* of AuUMo-;^ graphy," Mr R. Woodville, the famous war artist, tells story of his life. Bom in London, . tluijiji well-known painter wae descended, on tt*.£|| father/i aide, from the same f«iuly.;'fwe||| which sprang Mistress Elizabeth ville, wife of Edward IV. His motM|g iwas half Bussiari and half Gtratan/ r it was in Germany that the young received his first training. InctaUwt *is9| Duseeldorf aa the pupil of the painter Geohatrdt, whose delight it was to; scene* of quiet peacefulness or fervour, the future war artist sooo 'fo**ojSß more congenial themes in the studios Kamphaueeen, the court painter to Emperor William 1., whose most subjecte were the gjory and pUattayMSßß battle.' He found ample means of fying these martial tastes on his to London, when he was represent the "Illustrated London daring , part of the Russo-Turkish wW. the conclusion of his journalistic Caton-Woodville came into prominenei, aot at once, to fame,- with his P , * ,I * , of "Frederick the Great on the Leuthen." This painting we* J l * o,, * |>y Ihe Academicians by being hung the line" at Burlington House, and "The Times" with a whole column description and favourable criticism. artist was then twenty-two years of B e*-jS In tho foUowing year he again won favour of the Academy with hU cf "Blenheim, August 13th, 1704." tal other well-known pictores folio wed, in 1882, when trouble broke Egypt, the late Queen .Victoria ! Catoa-WoodviUe, through Lord jto ' point »'picture of TeUl-Kebir, "* to chow the Duke of injj*tp|gs j mand «f the Guards. After thk ' poumd in upon the artist from all-' I and though be desired greatly *t? &Msk& the front during the recent War, he waa unable to leave his Hi* "Gentleman in Khaki," <k * l illuetration to Kipling's OT Absent-Mlnded Beggar," hae duced probably in more forms picture before it, and certainly in JWH I than any since. It is interesting I that the artist has never ?•* He painted at least one ether r*™ 8 connection with the late f"? 'M Lencer. at Bandslaagte" ll working at "The Gordon Memorial Ssrrwat Khartoum," Lord \% aire of the late Queen, paid tnqnmi | to the artist's studio, and *"^J* d had associations with Royalty. He ac g companied the late Prince Albert on liis tour through the Empire, later days his Majesty the King ! ,g his approval of the portrait P* j|j|| himself. The artist's passion for efl **ji|||| subjeota wae never fostered by any experience of warfare, but h* *•* **J@h| tin* • Captain ef Xeomaogr.

Two American philologists, Of Words Profosora Greenough and and Poets. Kittredge, of Harvard University, have produced a tbeorv likely to aeUmish the "practical man v ho rides in electric care, talks by the long distance telephone, dictates his "letters to B ethnographer, and seldom has time to think that he is the heir of all the ages." A very ■well known person rejoiced to find that all his 'rife he had been speaking prose without knowing it. Harvard declares that unawares we are always speaking poetry. Hseoann'H dictum, "Poetry ia the- mothertongue of man," was only intended by him to explain man's first impulse into language; bJlt the later theory applies to all the mass (4 variously derived material which hae been mibjeoKsl "f<r cvnturifs to the languagepmking instinct. 'Language i* fossil poetry which is constantly l>eing worked over for &c -usffl of speech. Our commonest words ife worn-out metaphors." Again it is arged that no device which we are accustomed to ca'il poetical, in similitude, metaphor, or metonymy, is unfamiliar in our ordinary talk; while as tho need* of advancing thoughts require new expression, even when the manufactuivd word seems drily prosaic, the processes that create it ore identical with those of artistic poetry. IWhefl we ure not poets, we are historian*. »'B*dlam," for instance (a, clipped form of Bethlehem) comprises in its present day fose, "the history of Europe and Asia for piote than fifteen hundred years," and , so modem a word as the colloquial "foxy" («W) "leads us straight back, by an unbroken clue, to the infancy of the race." It ig an interesting suggestion, too, pertinacity with which animal nymW.ism Jwlde its ground, that the fox Temaina a tptoKpn Sot "craft," witb thousands of polunkla to whom Reynard himself ie as purely literary a character as the leviathan. Amongst some primitive nations it is* insmiting to call a man by his right name— and the idea survives in parliamentary reference, "the gentleman frpm Ohio," or "the member for Olirwtchurch." Primitive superstition again suggests that, euphemjam common still to men in every stage of culture. It is unlucky to speak of death or misfortune. To pronounce Uie word may bring the thing to jaes. So we instinctively veil and soften the hard fact. "He ia gone," "he is passed! away," "the silent majority," "to breathe one's lost," are jphrases by which the reluctant speaker proves not only his poetic origins of speech, but his kinship with all tihe long historic yean of man.

Some moet fortunate creaA Happy tiona in words or phrases Blundering, are due to popular blundering. "Sand-blind," for instance, tlie philologist must refer to "urn blind," in -which earn is an AngloSaxon prefix meaning half. But "earn" became otherwee obsolete, and the etymological ooneciouenees of the folk re-made the origin. "Sand in the eyes would cauae temporary blindness: c.f., 'throw dust in one's eyes' for 'deceive.' A very pretty eong describes with muoh particularity the function of the ' Sand-man,' who puts babies to sleep." Another interesting example is given <m concerns a "4orlorn iope," the body of soldiers w&o undertake Rome desperate eervioe. The phrase ie from the Dutch "Verloren hoop," "lost ijtind"—in French they are "enfante perdus." The Englishman mistook the "hoop," which signified merely the collection of persons. '"Who cao doubt," is tba American comment, "that the hypy (confusion of tongues which illuminated With a ray o£ "hope* the desperate valour of the old phrase, hoe had ita effect upon the fortune of war?" Quotation usages, ia the same way, may sometimes gain by a misapplication from their context. Thus Shakespeare's "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," carried far from its present-day declaration of universal brotherhood. The "Troilue and Cressida" passage means eimply that men are all alike only in one natural trait, and that no eredutable one. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin— That all, with one consent, praiee new , born gauds, . Though they are made and moulded of things past, - And give to dust that is a little gilt More laud than gilt o'er-dusted." Our authors seem at fault, however, in their Shakesperian critieiem, when treating the modern specialisation of meaning %hich makes an older sense prove s baffling to new readers. They take theex- , ample " hint "—in Shakespeare only .an "ocoaaion, ,, . an "opportunity," without the " intentional suggestion" implied today. Thus, we are told, when Othello • ena« the description of hie wooing, " Upon this hint t spake," modern readers are not t> understand him in the modern sense is if Deademona bad been "hinting at an offer of marriage." He means only " lie seized the occasion" offered when naive Deademona sighed— "And bade me, if I had a friend that loved he-r, J I should but teach him how to tell my story, And that would woo her." s But if this is not to be considered then a very decided hint, it must certainly stand as the first occasion which suggested the change of meaning I Finally, another modern variation speaks much for gal- . lantry. The old phrase, "kiesing goes by •favour," , signified only that such, things vent where good looks called them. In ite modern sense, we read they go where ladies choose to will.