A Spectator's Notebook
* * 5 * I thoUght I detected in a recent visit to the north of England a new hopefulness in the air, something which could not yet be justified by results, but a different attitude of mind. Optimism and pessimism constantly change their definition. In normal times we are cynical about both ; we define an optimist as one who bears with equanimity the misfortunes of others, and a pessimist as one who lives with an optimist. In bad times optimism becomes only a modified pessimism: " In another year we shall be begging our bread," says the optiniist. " From whom ? " asks the pessimist. But when the skies clear a little, pessimism becomes in turn a more cautious optimism.
* * * * The third volume of Mr. H. G. Wells' trilogy, published yesterday, is in many ways the most wonderful of the three, for it represents a more sustained effort of personal analysis. It has all Mr. Wells' foibles—hia suspicion of accepted reputations, his dislike of everything that is not tidily efficient, and his contempt for the imponderables of tradition. But it has immense merits in its eager curiosity, its candour, and a style of which the limpid effortless ,flow conceals a rare art. He is our only encyclopaedist, and to he an encyclopaedist in these days requires courage. It was easy enough for Aristotle to take all knowledge for his prOvince, and not very diffienit for Diderot to attempt a conspectus of human activities ; but it is another matter nowadays, when , specialization has been carried to such a pitch, and when
at the same time the frontiers of most subjects are in- determinate. Mr. Wells is a great popular educator, for without such an occasional synoptic view we live in 'a twilight. Any synthesis, however imperfect, is invalu- able: Being poet at heart he has done a poet's work.
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He is. severe on our Parliamentary institutions, par- ticularly on the physical defects of the House of Commons, The Palace of Westminster he likens aptly to the result of an illegitimate union between a late Gothic cathedral and a Flemish town hall ; and he dwells lovingly on its manifold discomforts. These do not decrease with time. Owing to the crowd in the Government lobby- a division to-day takes nearly twenty minutes, and Members still suffer from chilly feet and hot beads. But would the shiny palace of Mr. Wells' fancy produce better results than we get from our untidy relic ? The experience of other lands does not suggest this. It would appear that physical comfort has not, much to do with the efficiency of popular government. , • , • _ The resignation of Mr. H. A. Roberts from the secretaryship of the Cambridge Appiaintments Board, after nearly thirty years of invaluable work, reminds us of the new attitude of the Universities' towards their alumni. Cambridge was the pioneer, and similar organizations have now been established in most Universities. Formerly an alma mater gave her children her blessing and turned them loose on the world, but now she strives to find a niche for them. The choice of a career for an educated man is now infinitely varied, but he needs advice if he is not to be a misfit. The old professions, the Church, the Law and the Services, can look after themselves,' hat there is room for guidande in the many new scientific callings, and above all in commerce and industry. ' Most business men are now agreed that a University graduate has a real value if he crowns his general culture with the right kind of specialist training. As the number of University men in business increases, they should be able, with the assistance of the Appointments Boards, to blaze a trail between the University and the City.
* * * * A well-known dramatic critic announced the other day that Shakespeare was beginning to pay again. For ten years theatrical managers have been racking their brains to achieve this. We have had magnificent pro- duction in the Reinhardt manner and earnest, high- thinking performances against blank curtains. We have had him in French, German, Italian (there was a notion that he might sound better in Italian), and in American. We have seen women in the great male parts, a negro as Othello, and Hamlet in plus fours. Now, invention being exhausted, managers have returned to the old tradition. Once more Hamlet takes the stage in rusty black of no particular period, the Capulets are allowed some dining-room furniture, and Julius Caesar dies in the high antique fashion familiar to our grandfathers.
* * * * Carlyle said that history was best learned in a portrait gallery. The plea of the National Portrait Gallery for good drawings of living celebrities is timely and wise. It is no longer the fashion for people to have their portraits painted and to present replicas to their friends, and the Gallery, whose aim is primarily historical, is faced with the risk of gaps in its records. A fund which would enable it to obtain drawings of contemporaries would be a welcome security. A drawing is often the truest likeness. Those, for example, which George Richmond did of the members of Grillion's Club seem to me far the best pictorial record of the great figures of the later nineteenth century.
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One does not look for humour in a Disarmament Conference, but the present one at Geneva has produced one dry joke. M. Litvinoff, in commenting on the French proposal for an international bombing force under the League, pointed out that it was often hard to tell who was the aggressor in a dispute, and announced blandly that he presumed that both sides would be bombed, so that at all events the aggressor should not escape. And there was comedy in the attendance of an Afghan delegation. When asked why they were present, Afghanistan not being a member of the League, they replied that they were suffering from a serious shortage of arms, that this was a Disarmament Conference, and they hoped, if it succeeded, that armaments .might be
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