Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1923-11-22
WITH THE
HIGH SCHOOL.
CLASSICS
By MARGARET BOYD
g by Margaret Boyd


60 by Margaret Boyd.)
"But when tell him he hates fiat
terers,
He says he does, being then most
fIattered."
Julius Caesar.
"Ay, ay, vanity is truly the motive
power that moves humanity. and it is
fattery that greases the wheels. !"
writes Jerome~K. Jerome in his most
entertaining dissertation on fattery.
Every one can be got over by fiat
tery-whatever particular kind of an
earl belted earl may be, he is, l as
sert, recoverable by Battery, just as
every other human being is from a
duchess to poet-and the poet far
easier than the plowboy, for butter
sinks better into wheaton bread than
into oaten cakes.
There are various ways Of hatter-
ing continues this author "and, Of
course, YOU must adapt your style to
your subject. Some people ike it laid
on with a trowel, and this requires
very little arts With sensible persons,
however, it needs to be done very deli
cately, and more by suggestion than
actual WOrdS-thOSe fine sturdy John
Bulls who hate fattery, sir. Never
let anybody get over me by fattery,
ETC., etc., are very simply managed.
Flatter them enough upon the absence
Of vanity and you can do what you
like with them"
Bacon, in writing Of the different
varieties of fatterers, says that if a
man "be cunning fiatterer, he will
follow the archfatterer, which is a
mans self and wherein man think
eth best Of himself, therein the fat
terer will uphold him most; but If he
be an impudent fatterer, look wherein
a man is conscious to himself that he
is most defective and is most out of
countenance in himself, that will the
f1atterer entitle him to perforce."
Aesop has fable Of a fox that
wanted a piece Of cheese that a crow
held in her beak. The fox began to
fiatter the latter upon her singing, and
the crow became so delighted that she
opened her beak to sing for the fox,
and SO let fall the bit of cheese that
the fox wanted.
Long before Aesop lived, writer's had
been warning mankind against the
dangers of fiattery Bacon, however,
points out one service done by fiat
terers when by telling men what
they are, they represent to them what
they should be- This is the variety
of fiattery in which women are espe-
cially adept-telling the small Lad
that he is too brave to cry, and so
stopping the tears that CULVER on his
eyelashes; and assuring the older lad
that he is able to conquer the world,
and so squirting him on to the attempt.
"This is slight unmeritabe mart,
Meet to be sent on errands: is it fit,
The three-fold world divided, he should
One Of the three to share it,"
Julius Caesar.
During a prolonged study of the
lives of various men both great and
small" writes Goethe, Il came upon
this thought In the web Of the world
the one may well be regarded as the
warp, the other as the wool. It Is
the little men, after all, who give
breadth to the web, and the great men
flrmness and solidity, also, the addi-
ton Of some sort Of pattern"
This figure is less forceful now than
it was during Goethe's day, when ev-
eryone was thoroughly familiar with
weaving and most homes had loom
in some corner or in the attic Then
everyone knew that a web was any
finished piece Of weaving, whether a
strip of rag carpet, blanket a table,
cloth, length of towelling, or pat
tern Of dress goods. Then everyone
knew that when a weaver began a
web, he first Of all fastened the
threads that were to run length
wise Of the web to the warp beam of
his loon-and they knew that he
called these threads the chain or the
warp of the web. They knew, too,
that the width Of the web was deter
mined by the number Of threads fas-
tened to the warp bean-so many
threads for cloth foot wide; twice
as many for cloth two feet wide; and
three times as many for cloth yard
wide. They knew, too, that when
the warp threads were in place, the
weaver began to cast back and forth,
from one side Of the loom to the
other, over one warp thread and I'M
der the next, a shuttle containing the
thread that was to run crosswise
of the web, the wool thread They
knew that the closer together the
wool threads were crowded, the firmer
the cloth.
Nowadays few people know much
of weaving, and the comparison is but
meaningless words unless one knows
what web and warp and wool are.
That understood, the comparison be-
comes one Of the most forceful in all
literature, and one sees the unmerit-
able man and the brilliant man in
their true relation to each other and
to the universe The slight unmerit-
able men that make up the warp of
the world are quite as essential as
the Shower poets, artists, musicians,
statesmen, inventors, business execu-
tives,. and others who make up the