BRAVE HUMOURS OF THE WAR.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 109, 9 May 1916, Page 6

BRAVE HUMOURS OF THE WAR.

AMERICAN WRITER'S COMMENTS. The "Spectator" publishes some extracts from an article in the "Alumni Register" of the University of Pennsylvania, Avritten by Miss Agnes Repplier: "War, as a natural and recurrent feature of human life, has ahvays presented its humourous aspect to the world. We are well acquainted with historic jests, born of courage and coAvardice, of main's inborn desire to fight, and inborn impulse to run aAvay. Sometimes these jests are of a savage character, as when Frederick the Great shouted to his \vavering soldiers: 'Come on, you scondrels! Do ycu expect to live for ever?' Sometimes they have a purely national flavour, as when a British officer in the War of the Peninsula said feelingly to his regiment: 'You Englishmen, avlio are fed upon beef don't surely mean to be beaten by a d d lot of Spaniards avlio live on oranges." "Sometimes they are wholly delightful, as when Marshal Saxe, too ill to Avalk, Avas driven Avith his physician, Senac, within range of the cannon; and, observing the** doctor's nervousness, said to him kindly: 'lf you are afraid of the guns, pray close the windOAv.'

"Every great national crisis gives birth to certain phrases which live

for ever in the minds and on the tongues c-f men. Cromwell's 'Fear God, and keep you<r poAvder dry,' is such a phrase; and so is 'C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.' The present Avar offers tA\ r o permanent contributions: 'A scrap of paper' and 'Too proud to fight,' The first will be repeated as long as history is taught; the second has endeared itself to music-halls and fits \vith charming precision into an infinite * variety of jests. Perhaps the 'morning hate' may take third rank and achieve immortality."