INSULTS BETWEEN FRIENDS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 43, 6 March 1937, Page 17

INSULTS BETWEEN FRIENDS

Old-Established Customs

JiHlBB IS A KIND Of INSULT which de&erves a place by itsClf, ivrites « ' Quintus Quiz" ia the Chfistian Century. It is part of the stock-Ltt-trade of friends. Friends are accusfcomed to use words to eaoh other .whicb in other dayo have cansed duelB or led to aetions in the ceurtu of law} but you do not tutu a hair when a friend accuees you of follies and even crinies, or when he calls you by titleB whicb would be fesented by the most hard-' ened criminalo. All this is part of ihe material" for liveiy conversation between frieixds. rwprds, in fact, are the most varl* able , tMngS} they take their meaning from the speakers and their xelations one to another. They change in meaning with the look bn the face of the speaker. There is a kxrid of artificial insult which is part of the game. The friend, so.attacked, answers back ia the same Style.. It is almost a way of showing affection for each other.Amerxcan publie life, I am persuaded, was a little better than it ia "to-day when, to Governor SmitS^"Mr, Roosevelt was Btill an "old po.tet04,* It is an anclent eustom for "members of rival inistitutions to insult one another#,but no one mindaj the Harvard man doea not greatly resent the insuit directed against his universxty by some Yale f riend. ] The Scot from Aberdeen is rather glad whefi the Edinburgh man tells of ihe many atorie* wM.ch" are thougbf t® iffttsiratd the eharacter of the dwellers in that lovety grey city. The atory may represent him as devoted

to the sacred cause of economy to such an extent that if he took the insuit seriotisly he Would find himself coademned as a txghtwad. But he laughs and invents & counter-insult wheriwitb to belabbur Ms Edinburgh friend, It is the Bcots who Tnvent all the ^okes against their eountrymSn, 'and for their own ends they have ma.de. the legend that they are without a sense. of humour. Do you know the stofy-that is told in Cambridge, Englandt Cambridge ahd Oxford men have long kept up a. .tradition of indifference 'to. each Other. Here is the story of th'e Man whb .Imd Twin Sons. The twins were incBstinguishable in ntirsery, in their early school, in their publie schOoK] 1%de» epair their father sent them to iifferent universities, one to Oxford, T the other to Cambridge. Three yeara'pass;edj they graduated and" returned home. One was the finest flower" of Oxford culture, the other just an ordinary. kimHrxdge man — and they wero still indis--tinguishablel . Such a story would, bs approvsd^by the Oxford man as a palpabli hiV-^ut 1 wbuld he be' angryT • Not at a|^:ihe would' simply jfcry to answerTn kihd^It is all a game, and a *r&tf pleasant game. It, keep# eonversation from KocomTng flat. It prevents ur from becomingpoo exalted and serlous. K is of eonrse 'a test of real frien.dship.There is a 3elxghtful old madrigal wMch has these lia&st ? [ Thd falllng out of faithful friend* Renewing, is of levai 5 It is irtirely the test of Tainui friends that' they oan use all the language of invcctive and insuit one*.to another and not' eare in ihe least* It become almost a SindriJf inverted exprcssion 6? theif affection One for, another. If a man eemes Into your pfflce and dalls you an old blackguard, kmnskullj BCoundrel^ Sxe might eonceir^ly be an indignant eust'omer who want's?to give you a plece of Ms own mi'nd^ or he may be an old frienidLi j "

I believe that most ti human aotivity, particuiarly work of the sneehauicab n&n-creatiro sort, is matt's inventionte aveid ihe terror of eoctemprationi the primeval terror of bought. Mm works in order to keep Ced at bay. He plays to forget the awfui p.eriious world of thOttght withln IHm.— T. Bowya. ^