NIBBLES FROM NEW BOOKS.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 35, 12 November 1920, Page 15

NIBBLES FROM NEW BOOKS.

If ever the Red Flag is hoisted in r-ng-land one may safely assume tliat it will be found to be of a very delicate shade of pink, and even then, after a little while, some of those very people who hoist it will most likely come along and suggest that the flag wculd be much improved by the addition of sonio stripes of white and blue. A man who is tied to an office-stool all day long may in himself enjoy far more complete liberty than that oi the iclle rich man wliose time is all his own. Liberty is an affair of the soul, not of the body. He knew now that there are moments in which it is a miracle to behave prop.erly, when life becomes simply too cruel to care aboift. He left that there was a power which sometimes saved people at these moiaents, but it was not a virtue inherent in themselves. "A Servant of Reality," by Phyllis Bottome. The German gave it as his opinion that America is bouuded on the North by the North Pole, 011 the South by the South Pole, and on the East and West by the rising and setting of the sun. Tne rrishman was not to he outdone. Said li.e : "America is bountled on the North by the Aurora Borealis, on the Soutn oy the precessing Equmoxes, 011 the East by the Garden of Eden, and 011 the W;est by the Day of Judgment."— "Tlie Better YTarn," By Arthur Greening. And life — Geoffrey was still young enough to think abcut life, or at least to talk about it — life, he was ready to maintain, is what you feel and think, not what you do. — "True Love," 'oy Ailan Monkhouse. When Barrie and Galsworthy go, what will the situation be? One or two men who care to write clean plays will b,e left to fight those giant syndicates who employ young men of the literary underworld to write filth and earn the applause of a rising generation of men and women "about town." . So, the poinl is that to have what she calls a "good time, a girl's got to behave and talk in the new fashion. She must bo able to chat about all the latest nonsens,e in the theatres, and she must be shameless. 'JLhen men take her out — young officrs chiefly. PeopJe talk about a "demand" for rottexr stuff. It's not that. It's because the chief purveyors have no ideals. They foist bad things on the public until the public is used to them. Then they say tn.ere's a demand for what they supply. — "The Barber of Putney," by J. B. Morton. Though crimson red is the colour of anger, there is a heautiful soft rbso which is the colour of love. "The "greeneyed monster" of jealousy Tiistoiy has handed down to us from the ancient seers also the "jaundiced" appearance of envy. A gloomy, grumbling person has a very lcaden grey atmosphere, and one who nas " a fit of the blues" shows he is "off colour" in his dull, muddy-blue aura. But there is a b'eautiiul sky-blue to be seen in the auras of mauy artists and scientists. Very material, earthly people have generally a deep, dull orange tinge in their astral ,envelope, and there is a glorious golden yellow surrounding tho heads of the spiritually joyful, and nighly intellectual. Purple is the colour of power, greatness. Children have an aura of crystal whiteness, which develops colour after the age of seven. — "Ghosts I Have Seen," by Violet Tweedale. I would rather have a day in the trenches than make a speech. Once i get up on the platform, or whatever it is, I feel better, but in that ten minutes before I go on, I tremble like a blanc-mange in an east wind. All the little things which I have previously decided to say, and which I have repeated to tlie bedroom looking-glass with enormous success, are of course completely forgotten ; instead some lukewarm phrases are exuded through trembling lips and chattering teeth, and, finally, by some miraculous piece of luck I squirt out a lucky, pithy, and, perhaps, pertinent or humorous remark. . . . then sit down in a bath of perspiration. — From "Mud t-o Mufti," by Bruce Bairnsfather.