ON DIT.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 163, 27 October 1883, Page 11

ON DIT.

" They sat that Mr and Mrs A. are far from happy together, and that the cause is Mr B. — They say my friend Jack C. is going to the dogs ; of course I don't believe it.— They say Ella D. has thrown Jim E. over for Tom F. — They say Bob G-.'s business is ' shaky,' and that the banks look askance at his 'paper' now. — They say Gertie H. is going a little too-too, you know, with her flirtations, though what gentlemen see in that girl I can't tell. — They say Charlie J. is up to the eves in debt. Bad book last meeting of the A.R.C. Awkward job for the young fellow. — Thmi sat/ Mrs K. is baiting her hook for Alf. L. \V'.'-- 1 . '1-^es an old widow like that want with iinotin-i'' li'isimnd ? &c, &c." 0 ohiul ' siiniii'c ..<>t little personal pronoun they! tT!:,iious of Indeuniteness, right trusty •>? \\v : /;:.lse friend, secure panoply of th»> smooth-! ungued d --'rat-tor, venerable suiireue: of reputations, we \-;-- <; v '.MHly bid Uiee luui. Great dosolulor of iVii-'M'Hnj; nnd general eitvuKoiv-v of :-.n'riotiou ; far be it <Torn u,\" of us to question tLt Universal F 1 ...:,;.. r-"foi'e u'liicu that of all Cz''.rn, Kaisers, S'liUm), IvV.^rt^ Tycoons, or Dalai-Lamas i,..i]es into c..:;:.t.HuHouii! | liberty. From manifold experience of isi v marvellous omniscience of every detail in out lifo walk, and conversation, even beyond what it h;u entered into our own heart to conceive, great : Zeno of Society, we humbly worship and — fear. ***** " On dit — they say" — comes at times to the lips of all of us as a comfortable cover for I innuendo. It is altogether too much to be ! required to give our authority for every little detraction we poke under the fifth rib of our ' neighbour — in fact, it is a positive infringement ] of the right of Freedom of Speech, worthy only i of such primitive times as the Apostolic, when their yea was yea, and their nay, nay. | Nothing betrays the advance of Society so palpably as its conscientious disregard of Truth. The noble army of Impostors has in all ages of the world been a strong one, but to the latter ! half of the progressive 19th century lias been i reserved the proud distinction of formulating the J irrefragible dictum, " To he true is human, but to \ lie divine." Any fool can tell the truth, but it '< needs a clever man to tell a lie, — that is, a respectable He, with some degree of probability in j its falsehood. It is that hoary joker, Aristophanes, who remarks that our Imaginative Faculty (i.e., our faculty of lying) makes us iv some degree akin to the gods. Now to those earnest seekers after Falsehood, whose nawaes are ! legion, and who covet a relationship with the gods in heaven or those in — ah, well, its Antipodes, we recommend the use of on dit as the sure and easy path to Immortality. But, to a full-blown M.A. in on dit, two conditions of mind are absolutely essential— to admire nothing, and to wonder at everything. To the feeble reason of such a humble individual as I, Tobias Polly wag, am, it has always seemed that the immaculate classic, Mr Horatius Flaccus, in his Nil Admirari satire, was perpetrating a pun, or vtdgariter (!) dictu, " taking a rise " out of his friends, Romans, and countrymen generally, when he told his patron that to admire nothing was the only way to be happy. Of course, he implied by the ambiguous use of his verb the necessary converse of the proposition, "to wonder at everything ;" and to the thoughtful consideration of Professor Tucker as a distinguished Teacher of Auckland's Young Idea how to shoot, we recommend as subject for lecture " Horatius Flaccus as a punster." To admire nothing, to wonder at everything— in other words, to discredit all the good axid believe all the evil you hear about your neighbour, is the creed of the consistent professor of on dit. Under what a aafe panoply of anonymity do you

rest when you say regarding your friend Jack C. that " they say he is going to the dogs, but of course you don't believe it." Of course not ; but singular it is that your saving clause seems to have in no wise impressed your auditor, who announces a3 a fact the canine pilgrimage of your mutual friend to a third party : and so the world of scandal wags. And has Jack any redress? Not a whit. You never circulated the report : you only repeated what the mysterious they had said, and probably earn Jack's gratitude by standing up for him in your saving clause O, blessed they say, panoply surer to the false friend than the Vulcan-wrought shield of Achilles. The spinsterial tea-struggles of modern society, after much cogitation and innumerable stimulating pipes (vinous or nicotian, we leave to the vivid fancy of the reader), we have decided to be the relics of the Druidical human sacrifices. To the thorough enjoyment of such a struggle, a reputation, masculine or feminine, must be sacrificed. It may be that the married life of Mr and Mrs A. is laid upon the altar side by side with the' asserted delinquencies of Mr B. (who, by the way, happens to be Mrs A.'s brother), and the case is voted shocking, and u'orthy of all reprobation. " But are definite charges laid ?" I ask, with my native guilelessness — a feature of character inherited from jny remote ancestor Nathaniel. "What a fool you are, Tobias Poily wag," is the stunning reply from my guileful friend ; '' do you really think fin assembly of reasonably acidulous vestals would ever conduct their love-feasts in so unskilful a manner ? Why, Auckland Society would be by the ears in a week. Miss Tabitha Vinaigre only repeats to Miss Dolly Trofcabout what they say regarding Mr and Mrs A. and Mr 8., nob, of course, what she herself believes." I retire beneath my vine and fig-tree with a " sad, sweet smile," as all the heroines in ' Mr Eosetti's poems do, and meditate upon the dignity of Falsehood. Like many another bird of passage, on dit loses much of its plumage in its transit from lip to lip ; but the f eathers of Truth are alwaj s those which, are left behind. For Truth is such a disagreeable cover for any nature to wear that occasions to slough it are never far to seek. Falsehood, like Churity, suffers long, and is kind ; but Truth must always be impertinently asserting itself to be what it is. Truth is a most dogmatic, choleric, pig-headed gentleman, with an enormous bump o£ self-esteem, and a knock-me-down logic intolerant of opposition. Falsehood, especially in its on dit form, is an extremely suave personage, full of unctuous charity and interested sympathy, fond of assumptive pros and cons, and weopingly civil to all with whom it has the misfortune to differ. Thus tho world is arm-in-arm with aristocratic Falsehood with its ensy suaviter in modo t but has well-bred abjections to plebeian Truth witli its rough fortiter in re. What an uncomfortable fellow to have anything to do with is that Tom Downright, who will call a spade a spade in place of a rake, as I have repeatedly requested him to do. Notwithstanding that I have again and again propounded to him the startling conundrum, " What's in a name ?" and assured him on my honour that ft rose by any other name would smell as sweet, ho will persist in that odious vice of truthfulness bo obnoxious in all polished and fashionable society, and actually had the audacity to call that excellent institution, " The Association of Acidulous Vestals for the Propagation of Scandal,"' of which, -' my sainted sister Priscilla Maphibothesba is a. member, a gathering of female cut-throats. Of course, " where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," and my sister Priscilla tells me they say he is a very improper person indeed. The reason ■a )v I cannot tell, only — they say it.