Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

35 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

GERMAN FAILURE IN ATTACKS…

LATEST SUGAR HINTS. -I

QUEEN TO COMMAND W.A.A.C.s.I

STOLE COMRADES' PARCELS. j

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ITHE GALLANT CANADIANS.I

OVER 35,001 MEN SERVING IN…

GERMAN BURIAL GROUND. I

GENERAL BY SELECTION. I

P-100 FINE FOR OVERCHARGE.…

CARROTS FOR HORSES. I

IBAR TO WOMAN M.P. !

IIN LIGHTER VEIN 1

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

I IN LIGHTER VEIN 1 n I THOMAS JAY. ILLUSTRATED BY J. H. LUNN. i am interested in a contemporary's cam- paign against the pessimist. I rather like that question, which gets right home to our hearts, heralded by the "Daily Express." "Who's for Britain?" they ask, and I can well imagine the lusty shout from the trenches aaking for a through ticket. It is in this, the testing time of our nation, that we are all for Britain, and the waverers to the wall. It is the happy hunting-time of the pessimist, that quaint individual, that mixture of Bolo and Bolshevik, who is never happy unless he is miserable. The pessi- mist can never see the rose for the thorns.. The pessimist is the man who sees the price, while the optimist can only see the pork chop. I have met him. I have seen him in all his war-paint. I have watched him stroking his corrugated forehead and his top-storey chin, to say nothing of his second chin on the second landing. I have seen his eyes roll THE PESSIMIST. until he can hardly see his way home. He wears the look of a man who has been fighting a h i g h speed, cross cut circu- lar saw. He rolls his hands together as if washing in imaginary soap, writhing", as it were, i n his agony, or, to use a clasfffC of the street, "stewing in his own juice." The pessimist will start talking about the war. -He says he means well, but there never waa a well- meaning man who did not deserve a well- aimed kick. There is no room to-day for the gloomy fellow. Indeed, I can better put up with that other fiend, the perpetrator of practical jokes. I suppose, dear reader, it has happened to you as it has happened to the writer, that one of these well-meaning but dejected per- sons takes hold of your coat lapel and tries to tell you iust where we stand. We feel that we should like to take him by the back of the neck and show him where he is pushed. He presses his finger into your anatomy as if hw were thoughtfully but very carefully feeling for your spinal column, and then he lets go a volume of dejected talk about how the war is going. Ho indicates that we should face facts, that we should be miserable, and carry on. He even indicates that where the Boche is con- cerned we must give and take. We are pre- Eared to give—and we will jolly well see that the Hun takes it. Better to have to live- on barbed wire than give such fiends an inch. This kind of fiend catches you with your gun-bights lowered, as it were. He tells you that the old country is not only done Ut ought to be folded up and put away. He indicates tkat ruin not only stares us in the face but is making nasty, queer grimaces at us. Now, in any German city such a man would be taken by the hand, and, in severe cases, frog-marched to the nearest place with nioely-laid-out gardens, where he would be dra in a tight-fitting strait-jacket, and his tolks would be, sent. [ for. When the pesaimiat has finished telling you the gloomy facts, step back and say. Thanks, awfully, old chap, for the infor- mation you have given. As st mark of my respect hero is something for you." Then hit him with something hard right where he parts hie hair. Jump on his prostrate form, and if we all did that-if there were any more pessimists—well, they wcftiid have a sheet of glass over their faces, and they wouldn't be standing up. Great things can happen in the middle of A a great war. I notice that over two thou- sand pounds has been paid for six antique chairs. We have been developing a peculiar taste in our home decorations when such prices can be paid for ornamental things for the home. I have every respect for the old gentlemen who made theeeOlld chairs, but at a time like this, it troubles me not whether I sit down to my rationed dinner on a Queen Ann chair or a Tate sugar-box with a morning paper as serviette. I pre- sume this is a result of my early training. I date back to the Sand Floor School of In- terior Decoration. In a considerable way I am still wedded to my early ideals. I diatiuctly remember the time when upon the twalls our people used to hang, among other things, two staple oil paint- ings, a still life for the drawing-room, show- ing a dead fish on a plate, whose ambition seemed to be to indicate that it was dead- and thoroughly dead; and a pic- ture of Napoleon. with folded arms, leaning up a g a i m s t St. Htelena to kill .time. Those who could not afford 0 i I p a i ntings went in f o'r litho imitatioas of the real thing. Good, reliable old pictures they were, such as "Father at the Forge," while here and there would be a pic- HOME DECORATION. I ture of Napoleon crossing the Alps, snowing three soldiers, two plain and one coloured, while the snow was shooting down in straight dines, as if they were lumps of lgad instead of flake white. These things, I say, were part of my early education in art. And they. were sufficient* Indeed, I might even say they were more than sufficient. Along, with them I must not forget the family album, which fastened with a Dolt made of brass, like a hen-house. That album-and I daresay your family album was the same-showed pictures of old Aunt Tilly—jutit a small head with the rest of the picture blotted out with crinoline— and sitting by her side old Uncle William, wearing hia annual collar, side-whiskers. and tho old check suit. You could evidently not play any games on old Uncle William- except, perhaps, draughts or chees. They didn't mess about with old furni- ture in those days. I mean to say, they would buy old stuff on purpose. It was always well preserved, and when the win- dows were open on high occasions, such as a funeral, we could talk across to one another, but ourveicea wotdd be hoarse with beeswax. None of the -new-fangled notion* about furniture worried the old folk. They liked to have good furniture, with draweHi that would pull open without blasting or the use of the coalhammer. When I reflect on those days, I feel that if fortune had in. tended me for the maker of antiques, ) should positively and firmly refuse to maD antique furniture at all.

THE "THIN RED LINE." I

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IBOOKS AND -MAGAZINES. j

W.A.A.C.S IN THE GREAT BATTLE.…

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GREETINGS ON ANNIVERSARY OF…

BETTING CIRCULARS. I - I

GERMANY'S LAST COLONY.I

PROFITEERING IN SWEETMEAT.…

JUMPED FROM TRAIN. I

COLONEL'S THREE SONS KILLED.…

LORD TENNYSON'S SON KILLED.I

EAST TYRONE ELECTION. I

SON BORN TO LORD JELLICOE.…

A BISHOP'S RATIONS.I

EUPIIRATES CAPTURES. J

BEGGAR'S GOLD HOARD.1

M.M. WON THREE TIMES. I

THE IRISH CONVENTION. I

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