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BY THE WAY, 1

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BY THE WAY, 1 About Ndthing.* I I have just received a little volume from the pen of a distinguished Welsh Border writer •—none other, in fact, than the author of The Life of a Prig and many another book well known to my readers—which in- terests me much, because it is about Nothing. True, the title also says and other things," which, of course, covers infinity, but it is the first word which particularly appeals to me. As one whose fate it is, week by week, to endeavour to discover a subject worthy of treatment in this col- umn and often left with the Egyptian task of making bricks out of uncommonly little straw, I turn with absorbing interest to learn how a far cleverer pencil than mine accom- plishes the undertaking. I say pencil advisedly because, as the author explains in his brief preface, he offers a thousand apol- ogies for publishing a book, written with a lead pencil in bed, far from books of refer- ence,' by a very old invalid, solely for his own amusement." But I need hardly add that apologies from such a quarter are wholly unnecessary. The best of clever men, as someone has well put it, is that they can turn things they do for their own amusement into a very rich entertainment for others, and this effort of the author, on finding himself with nothing to write about at once to set to work to deal with that interesting topic is no exception to the rule. < tt Indeed, it only goes to show that when the poor essayist exclaims in despair to his sym- pathetic friends A column to fill and nothing to write about," he is very grossly exagger- ating his intellectual impoverishment. For out of "Nothing" what volumes might be made? Even the very phrase Nothing provides material for a dissertation in philos- ophy which carries many a man who prides himself on his knowledge of everything out of his depths in no time. Where is the wise- acre who has yet furnished us with a satis- factory and comprehensive definition, of Nothing?" Poets have written Odes On Nothing," like Rochester (quoted by our author): — "•Nothing! thou elder brother ev'n to shade, That hadst a being ere the world was made, And (well fixed) art alone of ending not afraid. Yet this of thee the wise may freely say, Thou from the virtuous nothing tak'st awav, And to be part with thee the wicked wisely pray"; but that really carries us little further. The schoolmen have argued about it, and as in most arguments, ended much where they began. The cynics have bidden us believe that to admire Nothing is almost the one and only thing which can make and keep a man happy," but does anybody ever believe what the cynics say? Indeed, to chase a de- finitibn of Nothing is as segue will o' the wisp, which carries us ever deeper and deeper into the intellectual bog, and we have to flounder back as best we may and try to start over again. "What is Nothing? As to physical science, it can'analyse, detect, or isolate, as much as it pleases; but, hitherto, it has always been brought to a standstill by the air, by a gas, by an electron, by the ether, or by the ultimate unit,' without ever ar- riving at Nothing. Astronomy would ap- pear to be principally employed in driving Nothing farther and farther away, instead of discovering it; for astronomers continue to search for more and more stars, and also to nnd them, where there had 1 ;en supposed to be Nothing." It is not unlike- ly that men and women, and even educated men and women, could be found, who, if asked what exists in the vast spaces between the stars, would answer Nothing." Yet Sir Oliver Lodge tells us that the ether, which occupies all space, is "by far the most substantial thing perhaps the only substantial thing in the material universe." And that as to i^s density, it must be faf greater than that of any form of matter, millions of times denser than lead." So much for one conception of Nothing. Even to profess to be thinking of Nothing generally means that you are thinking of a great deal. What do you mean by that?" exclaims Brown bridling, when Jones makes a rather nasty insinuation, and Brown, to defend himself from the trouble of explain- ing or perhaps because he dare not explain, answers evasively "Oh nothing," and Jones must be an extraordinarily complacent fellow if be accepts the assurance as altogether satis- factory. He's thinking aboot nothing, like mony mighty men," is the apt text with which our author intror duces his subject, and it is a Very profound sermon in itself. You remember the old village man in Punch who explained to a, sympathetic lady visitor anxious to know how he whiled away the long winter evenings, Well, sometimes I sits and thinks, and again I just sits," and if only we were honest enough I fancy we should all of us confess that it is when we just sits we dream our brightest dreams and see our clear- est visions, because we have no cares or worries to distract our minds from the endless vista of Nothing. What, in such or any other case, let us repeat, is Nothing? Reduced to algebraical te»ms 'we might put it thus;— 0 = X, and X, as we learnt at school may be almost anything. It may be much or it may be little. If a man tells you that he has nothing to give or has nothing to get out of a certain enterprise you wisely reserve your judgment" as to what interpretation to put on the word, (Continued at bottom of next column

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I Sir Francis Lloyd. J

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BY THE WAY, 1