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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0018.PDF
\f& CHT JANUARY 6, 1916. I READ a short story the other day, quite an interesting little yarn, in which an author was supposed to be writing a serial, and sending inihis MS. as written, that is, week by week. And he was in awful trouble because he had got his characters so mixed that he could not unmix them in order to bring about the final happy ending as in tended. He was just considering whether to cause a Zeppelin to drop a bomb and make an untimely end of half his characters, so that he might retire gracefully from his muddle, when he received a telegram to say the paper had ceased publication, and that he would be compensated. Somehow that story reminded me of my old school master in the early days of my school-life. He was an exceedingly clever man up to a point, which point occurred some considerable time before the period at which boys leave school. Luckily no boy ever stayed there to finish his schooling, and so the master was saved the calamity which would undoubtedly have arisen had he been compelled to see the thing right through. He was somewhat of a scientific crank, and I think his learning did not go very deeply into any subject, yet the number of subjects on which he could teach, and teach well and truly until he began to get into deep water, was really amazing, and the deep water was quite a long way from the shore. He taught French, after a fashion, though I firmly believe he had had but little schooling in that direction, and used to rely upon learning it himself, and always keeping a few weeks ahead of his scholars in addition to spending his summer holidays in Paris in order to add to his vocabulary. I must tell you that these early years of my life were spent in a village school, as my father's business at that time kept him on a large estate of which he had the management, and there was no other school or town within many miles. The teaching staff consisted of the master, his wife, and two or three grown-up sons and daughters, and as all the latter were themselves taught by their father, the knowledge distributed throughout the family was somewhat restricted in its variety, both in quantity and quality. I firmly believe his lessons in chemistry and physics were practised overnight in his parlour, to be shown to the class next day. Yet he was never at a loss to make them successful, even had he to employ unfair means whilst standing between the class and the object. I remember his lesson on magnetic attraction and repulsion to this day. He had a piece of steel balanced on a pivot, and a bar magnet (home made) in his hand. It was something like this: " You see that when I approach this end of the magnet to the steel it attracts, and now when I approach this end it repels—I say it repels —repels," but it didn't, until he gave the bar a sly push with the magnet. He was great on Latin and Greek, so much as he knew of it. I learned that mono lith was taken from mono, one, litho stone—one stone. That telegraph was taken from tele, afar, grapho to write, I write afar. He had an enormous telescope with which he used to view the heavens, as he was keen on astronomy —even had a leaning towards astrology—and was never tired of showing this telescope in school, explaining that tele meant afar, and scopio, I see. Withal he taught me the rudiments of many things which have been of great use to me in after life, and a limited knowledge of the heavenly stars was one. I might digress to say that it was he who first called me a " Dreamer" which was no doubt cogent, taking my behaviour into consideration. Also, although I tell it against myself, he predicted that I should die on the scaffold (which has not come to pass—yet). But that was excusable, as it occurred after I had wrapped a No. 12 sporting cartridge in a lump of wet clay, and carefully deposited it in the very heart of the school-fire, to the ultimate consternation of the scholars who were not in the secret, and the joy of those in my confidence. But to return to astronomy. He taught me, as I say, a fair knowledge of the heavens, and so I am interested in those splendid little maps or charts of the heavenly bodies by E. Walter Maunder, F.R.A.S., which are published by the Daily News every month, and which give the night sky for the following four weeks. In the one for January, I notice that Mars is hanging in Leo. Mars, you know, is the god of war, and Leo we take as our national symbol—the Lion. Lord Tennyson wrote of Mars when hanging in Leo, "Glowing like a ruddy shield on the Lion's breast." That there is more in heaven and earth than our un derstanding is capable of grasping, all will admit. We know that heavenly bodies have an influence on this, our world, and I do not care to make too light of the sugges tion that certain planets may have a good or an evil influence on certain parts or peoples when they occupy certain positions. It is pleasing to me to think that when " Mars hangs its ruddy shield on Leo's breast " it is an emblem of protection. It is, perhaps, excusable in me, that having imbibed some of my old master's learning iri astronomy, I have also gone a little along the road of astrology in his company, and I like to think that when England is at war, and Mars is hanging in Leo, that it foretells success for our arms. It is quite possible, of course, that it foretells nothing of the sort, yet I learn from a recent lecture by Professor H. H. Turner that Mars hung in Leo during part of the Crimea—to be exact, on March 24th, 1854; that it was in the same position during the Boer war ; and that now, on January 1st, 1916, it hangs once more in Leo, to cheer me with the thought—and it does cheer me, whether there be anything in it or not—that the time is not far distant when that limb of hell and all his murderous associates shall be beaten to their knees, and our armies, and their gallant allies, shall return to their homes, the greatest conquerors in the greatest conflict the world has ever known.
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