MEANINGLESS MEDICINE FOR TIRED MINDS

Shannon News, 5 February 1926, Page 3

MEANINGLESS MEDICINE FOR TIRED MINDS

PURE KQSStiA'SIi B\ CLEVER MEN. "What nonsense, child!" are almost the first words that one remembers hearing; and it is no doubt due to the false association thus early set up that we go on neglecting and depreciating nonsense all our lives. It would become us better, thinks Mi Gerald Gould, to recognise the'merits, glories and beauties of nonsense; nonsense, the medicine of tired minds; the refuge, of sick hearts; the balance rectifier and adjuster of this indisputably imperfect v. cr!d. Lord Alfred Douglas, who has just published a. book of non-sense, verses quotes, as the ■supreme example of the iioiv-- n:-,.. thyme. '..wis Carroll's: — "I sent a message to the fish; I told them''That is what I wish Tho iittle fishes of the sea, They sent an answer back to me. The little fishes' answer was, 'We cannot do it, sir because —" " "l't is quite perfect" exclaims Lord Alfred Douglas of this, "it is absolute nonsense, untainted by the least trace of satire or parody or caricature." Some items of 'Tails with a 'Twist' I feel bound to protest, writes Mr Gerald Gould, in a Home paper come perilously near to sense —this, for instance of the hyena: — "It really does you good to hear Kit; laughter ringing loud Oud eltar But when he bites \our leg in hah' You don't feel mut.'-. inciVr.-'u to laugh"

Wliv. tint last couplet is almost utilitarian! ' It implies a warning! Far better is the description of the elephant: "No beast with him can well compare, Except, of course the Belgian hare." That "of course" is the right tradition. t The author of 'Tails with a Twist tells us that it was Avritten before Mr Beiloc's 'Bad Child's Book of Beasts.' But noble as that, hook is, it is not tlitre that I should look for examples .-.£ Mr Belloc at his most nonsensical. Is not the Bad Child told (I speak from memory): — "We shoot the hippopotamus With bullets made of platinum, Because, if wo use leaden ones' His hide is sure to flatten 'em?" This, surely, is mere common sense. I don't assert that what Mr Belloc says about the need Cor platinum is true. My hippopotamus-shooting days are over, and I have not lwnt in touch with the subject. But truth is neither here nor there; nonsense is neither true, nor false. Tile world ol nonsense is that map by which the ship was sailed in 'The Hunting ol the Shark"—"A perfect and absolute blank." We see with increasing clearnesshow high, how difficult our ideal is. Air Belloc has achieved il. I think, if not in the 'Bad Child's Book 01. Beasts,' at any rate in his 'Moral Alphabet.* Here is a poem, not enormously long, but how complete:— "C stands for Cobra; when the cobra bites An Indian judge, the judge has restless nights." , . Lord Alfred Douglas says that he is not aware of any nonsense verses in English earlier than Lear. And when one tries to summon up instances, it must be confessed they are hard to find. There is Dr. Johnson's:— "If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.