THE PERSONAL COLUMN
Thebig events of the world, the things so remote from most of us, float serenely down the midstream of the day’s news, little heeded, I confess, by me; but the flotsam of life is brought to one’s very feet by the undercurrents and eddies of the Personal Column.
The news headings of one’s morning paper deal with subjects whole worlds away from one’s own humble existence. The movements of Marshal Foch; the Japanese Earthquake; the Recognition of Russia. Even (long since) when the “Date of the Peace Celebrations” was announced, it was a comparatively lifeless statement. To vitalise it, to humanise it, one had to go to the neighbourhood of the Personal Column. Thus:—
“Champagne. Approaching Peace Celebrations.Advertiser representing principals holding stocks of the best known brands of Champagne, etc., etc.... Apply to ‘Benefactor.’”
“Champagne. Approaching Peace Celebrations.Advertiser representing principals holding stocks of the best known brands of Champagne, etc., etc.... Apply to ‘Benefactor.’”
Here at last we were in the heart of things. “Stocks of the best known brands of champagne.” This unlocked the tongue, set speculation working. What brands? What is your favourite brand? One reviewed a pageant of sparklingnames such as Ayala, Irroy, Heidsieck, Mumm, Moet, Pommery, Roederer and the Widow, the dainty Clicquot.... And then arose the question what to do on Peace Night—Jazz? Theatre? Opera? Or should it be a quiet dinner (preferably at home) with Jones, who shared one’s last Xmas in the Salient, and Smith the Silent, who never let one down, and Robinson?... I seem to remember that I wrote to “Benefactor.”
Actually “Benefactor” was not, so to speak, a Member of the Personal Column, though he dwelt very near to it. His announcement abutted on a poignant appeal for a “Suitable Place to Stop” from a young minesweeping lieutenant who, having exhausted his patience in ransacking London for a bed, had lit upon the discovery that a large part of the hotel accommodation in this city was still in the clutches of Sir Alfred Mond and his Merry Men; but it was published (wrongly, of course) under the heading: “Business Opportunities.” What creature would sink so low as to make a business opportunity out of the sale of that golden drink, of those “best brands of Champagne”—and in the Peace season, too? Perish the thought! To the Personal Column let “Benefactor” be admitted.
The Personal Column is the quintessence ofjournalism, an inexhaustible lucky-bag of strange communications and curious announcements. Do you want a furnished caravan? Napoleon relics? Are you a philatelist? Would you like a summer outing in Kew Gardens? Have you a haunted house? These, after all, are things that touch one’s daily life. Marshal Foch might go to the Sandwich Islands, and the philatelist and I would wish him God-speed, and think of it no more; but a haunted house (even if it be only haunted by mice) brings one “up against it!” Are you bored with your life? The Personal Column is a constant provocation to plunge into the whirlpool of the unknown. Thus at random: An officer, aged 20, of cheerful artistic and musical tastes, wishes to correspond with somebody with a view to “real friendship.” There’s your chance. And what dark story, think you, is concealed behind the following:
“The Black Cat is watching: green eyes. S?”
What tale of a temptation spurned lurks in:
“Scalo: I may be poor but I love truth far better than gold—Misk?”
Under the influence of what jealous pangs came this to be penned:
“Ralph—Who is BABS—Remember Olga?” (The following, in a happier vein, tells presumably of a lovers’ quarrel made up:
“Whitewings. Darling you know really you are the only thing on earth I love. Snowdrop.”)
The big news columns tell us what our intellectuals consider it good for us to know, in the manner in which they consider it good for us to be told. The Ruhr Occupation, denounced by Mr. Garvin, upheld by Lord Rothermere—The Betrayal of the Country to Labour (in the Gospel according to Mr. Churchill)—The League of Nations—Bootlegging and Prohibition. But the Personal Column—ah!—the Personal Column gives us a peep into the throbbing lives of our neighbours; we become partakers in the bliss of Whitewings and Snowdrop, we share “S’s” apprehension of the Black Cat, and our hearts go out to Misk and Olga—poor forgotten Olga. Here are no world politics dished up by statesmenmanqué, or camouflaged by great journalists, no subjects to be discussed in catchwords and manufactured phrases, but the myriad voices, from the streets around, crying out at the impulse of the eternal verities.