PUBLIC OPINION. THE OBLOQUY OF PHILOSOPHY.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 January 1927, Page 2

PUBLIC OPINION.

THE OBLOQUY OF PHILOSOPHY.

“The working hours of an imaginative writer are the only islands of forgetfulness in the oases of self-con-sciousness. As for the really successful writer, be lie best seller or Olympian, or a little hit of both, there is a conspiracy to remind him of himself, but even to the successful writer come those hours when lie reaches shade, and kneels at the well to draw and drink. Then, for a spell, he leaves that, and in the gardens of his country goes conjuring and creating. People need to think that to forget self was the essence of gentility. The word ‘ gentle ’ is ever attached to those who bore their way through life, shouting ‘I, T, L’ It would appear, therefore, that if they cultivate the philisophy of self-forgetfulness they are in danger of being thought gentlemen. If that fate appalls them, let them remember that from time immemorial all true, philosophers have met with a certain obloquy.”—John Galsworthy, in a. speech to the Associated Societies of the Universitvof Edinburgh.

OUR DUTY TO INDIA. “Whether a new political form must ho devised for India or whether a line must he drawn between Europeans and Asiatics, and tile methods which have proved good for the one he declared impossible fur the other, are questions which India now presents to us. 'Mo have been saving for the last tweflfy " years that we acknowledge no such line: for all this period we have been repeating that our object is to render the people of India'capable of governing themselves, and we have said it with special emphasis in times of stress and troubles. We cannot go on saying these things without being expected to act up to them; and we must either do so or he prepared for a passive resistance which may so increase the cost and difficulty of our rule as to wear down the patience of the taxpayer. and to fill serious people with a sense Of the futility and vexatiousness of our self-imposed task.”—.T. A. Spender. in “The Changing East.”