IS THE TRUTH RESPECTABLE?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 410, 2 May 1947, Page 11

IS THE TRUTH RESPECTABLE?

Problem for Critics To the Editor-Sir,-When a controversy flares up like the one you have just declared closed, over a piece of unafraid criticism, some people write to you as if they felt the world was getting wickeder and wickeder every day and nothing as bad as this had ever happened before. I look back over the letters that appeared, and I can’t quite put a finger on what it is that makes them seem like that-but I think it’s partly true, all the same. The offended ones, offended because for some reason or other they identify themselves with those criticised (in this case the new orchestra) seem to need to regard the critic’s words as some new threat to their security. I get the same feeling when I hear people talk sadly (if they ever do) about the position of criticism in. New Zealand. Both sides, in other words, tend to look on what they deplore» as some modern depravity. In this context, 40 years ago is ancient times, and’ therefore I think it would be a good thing (if it would give you any pleasure) if you would recall the fact that critical invective was freely splashed about the place here as much as 40 years ago, in C. N. Baeyertz’s monthly paper, the Triad. I think you have once before quoted a sample of Baeyertz’s musical criticism (when he called "Old John Fuller’s" voice "a pig’s whistle" and John Fuller took him to

court over it, thinking a pig’s whistle was some kind of offensive noise, and flatly denouncing the dictionary when he was told it only meant "a low whisper’’). But if you would refer to the Triad of September 1908, you would find a paragraph in Baeyertz’s Obiter Dicta which shows that it has for some time been necessary for a critic in New Zealand to spend much of his energy in defending his own position. Here it is: "The critic must be discreet. You see, it is not enough to tell the truth merely: you must tell it luminously and wisely, not too much at a time. I don’t think that I have ever yet been so unkind as to tell the whole truth about any performer who has pained me. None of us could live a week (or deserve to) if he went about the world telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about everything and everybody. The naked truth is really not respectable. Truth is kept at the bottom of a well because, despite the slanders of her fellow women, she is far too comely to be exhibited with decency to a grinning public in the nude. If her circumstances

did not keep her cold and clammy, her embraces» would be much more eagerly sought after. As it is, although you may have her company for nothing, there are few bidders at the price. As a rule, men leave her severely alone; but if you ever see a man leaning over the coping to pelt her with mud, you may take it that he is a professional reformer. And if you smite him violently on the mouth for such. unchivalrous conduct, be sure that he will go forth in a mad world craving sympathy for one who has been assaulted by an infidel. Wheg you hear a man boast of his intimacy with Truth, you can safely flout him for a liar. When you meet one who swears he has had issue by her, you must silently steal away and leave him yabbering, for his cloth pro‘tects him. If you have an attachment for her yourself, don’t chortle about it; it is always wrong to compromise a lady, and a man must consider his own reputation." It would also be entertaining if you would print the photograph the same Baeyertz had taken of himself when he was judging at the Dunedin competitions in 1906. This also, would be Consoling to Critics, I am sure. And you might put in the plain portrait of himself that was on the back of the same page, which shows he was really a nice kind man all the time. This might prove Consoling to Critics’ Critics (if anything can). And finally, for your own consolation, you might lift from the Triad of April 1906 the following little cry from an editorial heart: "Editing a magazine is a nice thing. If we publish jokes, people say we are rattle brained. If we don’t, we are fossils. If we publish original matter they say we don’t give them enough selections. If we give them selections they say we are too lazy to write. If we don’t go to church we are heathens. If we go we are hypocrites. Now, what are we to do? Just as likely as not someone will say we stole this from an exchange. So we

did:

C. E.

G.

Auckland)