FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 954, 23 April 1930, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN

A GOOD BILLET “Situations vacant.—Large kitchen table, 7s 6d.”—A new note in the want-ad columns. If you want a situation That will keep you firm and stable, It will pay you to examine This delightful kitchen table. Why go hunting jobs and billets From the suburbs to the city? Take, instead, a kitchen table. Learn the joy of sitting pretty. Life is real, life is earnest. Work is robbery and rooking. Shun the toiling and the moiling— Stick around and watch the cooking. * * * GETTING THE BLtfES Mr. P. S. de Q. Cabot, who may or may not be a lineal descendant of tbe discoverers of Newfoundland, has allowed himself to be quoted very strongly about tbe temerity of the New Zealand University Rowing Council In unconstitutionally recommending'certain of the college crews for “blues.” Yet there does not seem to have been any great harm done. The curious part is that, whatever its sins, the New Zealand University Rowing Council has by its own efforts created a new and popular form of University sport. Before the council started things moving three or four years ago, uo student body seemed to bother much about rowing. Now it promises to become the most popular spectacle of all. DEAD LAUREATE The poetry of Robert Bridges made little impression on the rank and file of British readers, hut Robert Bridges did not write for the rank and file. The appointment of Kipling as laureate might have been more popular, but nothing in Kipling’s robust sentiments could quite equal the serene philosophy of Bridges. His last work,'“The Testament of Beauty,” a philosophical work of some 5,600 lines, is concerned with the poet’s life experiences and his faith in spiritual evolution. The poem is cast in such a highly specialised form that few may scan its lines, as they are meant to be scanned. But it is full of beautiful passages, and one line of it is considered among the most beautiful of the language: “Time eateth away at many an old delusion.” “KING’S CANARY ” The Testament of Beauty is dedicated to his Majesty the King. But of all the lines of laureates, which has included Dryden, Southey, Wordsworth and Tennyson, Robert Bridges has written the least official poetry. For his annual stipend of £72, and £27 in lieu of the traditional butt of Canary wine, he produced but one thin official volume. Unlike tbe late Lord Tennyson, he refused to vamp up verses for royal birthdays and patriotic occasions. When he visited the United States in 1924 and refused to commemorate the event in rhyme, a New York newspaper carried on its front page what good judges among newspaper men consider the classic headline of all time: “KING’S CANARY WILL NOT CHIRP.” PURE ENGLISH * Until he was 38, the late Poet Laureate practised medicine. Then he began publishing poetry, and succeeded Alfred Austin as laureate iu 1913, when he was already 69 years old. Tall, white-bearded, leonine, he lived a quiet, scholarly, reflective life at Boar’s Hill, Oxford. Careless of social niceties, when his tea was too hot he would pour it into his saucer, blow on it to cool it. He had been known to stamp out of a tobacconist’s shop in high dudgeon if he thought the pipe tobacco a halfpenny dearer than it should have been. His death of itself, may create no great stir, yet it may precipitate the greatest' stir of all, for sonj£ time ago the present Labour Government announced that if the laureateship fell vacant during its term it would consider abolishing the office. Robert Bridges may prove to have been the last of the Laureates. EVERY KNOCK A BOOST Devonport believes in looking on the bright side of tilings, and seeing “good in everything.” The vigorous little local paper, “The North Shore Gazette,” of last week, reports that — “During the year no less than 19 cases of scarlet fever, 10 cases of diphtheria and seven each of tuberculosis and pneumonia, were reported in Devonport, and these divided among a population of 12,000 people is (sic) extraordinarily good.” But if ever these things become bad for Devonport, the Borough Coun cil will no doubt pass a by-law making it unlawful to harbour them, or to keep them ou any section less than 30 x 100. It seems futile to talk of a cottage hospital for the marine boroughs when the local organ of public opinion welcomes a healthy crop of scarlet fever, diphtheria, T. 8., and pneumonia