A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE New Year's Honours list is more calculated to inspire meditation on the principle of honours in general than on the award of these honours in particular. It is a prosaic list, but so, on the whole, most of such lists are. In the case of civil servants, whose pecuniary reward is often less than their services merit, it is useful to have this convenient and acceptable method of recognizing years of conscientious and competent work with a step in some such order as the Bath or St. Michael and St. George. For the rest I am not at all sure that the self-denying ordinance of the Canadians (still largely though not completely observed) is not the better way. One congratulates A on his appearance in the list, knowing perfectly well that he has no more claim to be there than B or C or D, and not as much as E or F or G, none of whom figure in it, nor ever will. After all a great writer's real honour is his writing, not a handle before his name, or letters after it. Literary values would not be substantially changed if we had to think of Sir Charles Dickens or Sir William Thackeray and plain Mr. Walter Scott.
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