A Spectator's Notebook
T ORD ROWTON, when I used to see him in his later -1-4 years, would quote sentences from Disraeli's table- talk. One of these was that the real trouble about demo- cratic government was the cumbrousness of its technique. The remedy, as we found in -the War, is for a nation to give a free hand to its leaders when rapid decisions are necessary ; a free people has a great capacity for trust. But, apart 'from a crisis where the need is urgent and easily intelligible, to convince many millions may be a lengthy affair. We see this in America to-day. The recent troubles have taught the world a good deal of elementary economics, particularly the great truth that nothing has any intrinsic value. But America, which .till yesterday stood outside the compulsory education of misfortune, appears to be still unenlightened. The recent -debates in Congress reveal a strange ignorance of the causes of the world's difficulties, which are also the causes of America's own. She cannot sell unless she is prepared to buy, and she has cut deep trenches across the natural highroad of commerce. It is impossible to believe that various distinguished Senators could talk in such a strain, unless they felt hound to express the convictions of a multitude behind them, for the American Congressman has always been more of a delegate than a representative.
• The chief problem to-day is how to get the Mass of the American people into a different frame of mind. You may convert a Cabinet within a reasonable time, but mass persuasion is a slow business, and a distracted world cannot afford to wait.
* * * * Those who busy themselves with preserving public amenities sometimes spoil their case by a shallow 'aestheticism. • Our islands are crowded and people must somehow live and work and get about : all we can do is to see that these facilities arc provided with a minimum of disfigurement. " Where no oxen are, the crib is clean ; but much increase is by the strength of the ox." But for the invention of sky-writing I can see no justifica- tion on any ground of public interest. The objectors to it have been compared by its supporters to the objectors to the first railways ; but there is no parallel. The railways met a genuine public need, but what benefit to the public can there be in disfiguring the night sky with advertisements of X'S corsets . or Y's patent medicines ? The advertiser has plenty of other channels for his trade, and, since advertising is a competitive business, if the thing were once permitted it would be indefinitely extended. Whether in town or country it can only be a foolish vandalism,which—apart from scientific experiments —should be discouraged in the interests of everybody.
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I see that Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes has retired from the Supreme Court of the United States. He is ninety-one years of age, and considers that his health may suffer from further continuance in office ! May he have years of leisure still before him, for he is the most wonderful old man in the world. His career bridges the generations, for he fought for the North in the Civil War. He has been a distinguished professor, a writer Of classic text-books, and a judge whose influence upon the law of his country is comparable to. that of Story and John Marshall. But, above all, he was the beSt of hosts and the most delightful of companions—still is, as those who have recently visited him in Washington km*. The older generation in America produced many brilliant talkers—I need only cite Choate and Henry Adanisbut I should put Mr. Justice Holmes' conversation above that of any American I have ever niet-; and on this side his- oily rivals were Lord ,Rosebery and Arthur Balfour at their best. He had wit, wide khowledge, and the most delicate urbanity. -Perhaps a great lawyer is the best talker, for his mind has flexibility and precision,, and when he turns from his dry speciality to matters of general
interest he has often a curiously boyish gusto.• * * *
The news that Mr. Smyth, the conqueror of Kamet, is Organizing an expedition- to attempt Nanga Parbat is .of the first importance to mountaineers. For the great Kashmir peak which guards the Upper Indus, though only sixth in actual height, is one of the most spectacular mountains in the world, and its north .face, With its 24,000 feet of rock and glacier, is searcely,excelled in, the Himalayas for savage majesty. .A. F. Mummery,. one of the greatest of modern climbers,- went there.with Professor Norman Collie in 1895, and after-reaching 20,000 feet in a solitary ascent—he had one Gurkha with him—perished mysteriously in crossing a pass, probably from an ava- lanche. Mountaineers have always believed the Nanga Parbat could be climbed, but it will be a stiff job, for the technical difficulties are severe. These, and not thb altitude, arc the barrier, for the recent German .exile, dition to Kanchenjunga reached approximately- the height of the summit-26,000 odd feet. Everest will probably yield to the first strong party who are favoured by the weather; Kanchenjunga, it is generally agreed, Will not . be climbed by our present methods ; but Nanga Parbat is a hopeful proposition. The conquest of • So fain:m.1s and beautiful a peak would have more in it to interest the world than the attainment of a. greater altitude on some shapeless lump like IC2 hidden in .the recesses of the Karakoram.
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It is very rare to find anyone who has not written a book. Such is the result of a widely diffused education. Most of them are novels, and since everybody is said to he capable of writing one good novel, there is 'no reason to complain of the universality of the practice. I should have thought that the increase of the output would have meant a stiffening of the canons of judgement; just as our standards in golf are far higher than, in the days when the game was confined to a few red-coated gentlemen at St. Andrews. But the opposite seems to be the -case. When I glance at the ugly, black-type advertisements of new novels in the Sunday papers, I find that almost every week produces a volume which some more 'or less reputable critic has pronounced to be a masterpiece and a work of genius. Our critics are notably benevolent nowadays, which may not be a bad thing. But I am a little alarmed by the dilapidation of our critical termino- logy which the fashion implies. If we .dispense these apocalyptic compliments to work of average talent, we can write at no higher power of a new Dickens or Tolstoy. The alternative view is that we are really living in an epoch of unparalleled creative genius—which I would like
to believe, but cannot. * * * *
What is the most biting thing ever said by a statesman about a political opponent ? I have always put 'bighest Disraeli's description of John Stuart Mill as a finishing governess, and the saying, usually attributed to Lord Balfour, that if a certain politician had a little more. brains he might-be described as half-witted. But here is-an acid comment from an unexpected quarter. Gladstone's style was too torrential as a rule to permit. of 'epigram. But he once observed of a man whom he- distr,usted that " he was of 'a composition to which water- ,would add Stability,'
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