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Page Eight
P ERRS P EC TI V ES
OF TIME AND TIDE
By SYLVIA HUXTABLE
CULTURES IN CONFLICT
There is a particularly relentless ring
to these otherwise harmless words:
"Time and tide wait for no man." It
is as though a cross country bus were
leaving for parts unknown, for a haly-
con destination that will involve thous-
ands of delightful days and nights: in
short, a bus you simply must take; and
suddenly, as you puff -breathlessly into
the terminal, it pulls out majestically
and superciliously and is gone forever.
And though you come tomorrow and
the next day to the station and peer
in all directions-and now you are
early-that particular bus never comes
again. Time-and-Tide is not a ie-
mesis, but a talisman that calls forth
a splendid display of fancy, but back
of the glorious tide one sees a dusty,
forbidding figure, Wait-for-no-man.
All the proud maxims: "Time and
tide-" "Time is money" and "Pro-
crastination is the thief of time" go
hand in hand with those awful words
of the ages, "It might have been." When
you stop to think about it, there is little
that is inspiring here. The maximeers
meant well, of course, but why, why need
they have been so dogmatic? Why
bring in Time and plant it so squarely
before us? The Empire Builder who
shoutd "Go west, young man!" must
have said in the same breath, "Procrasti-
nation is the thief of time.". One can
well imagine the moneyed magnates
of our time in their respective counting
houses-er, their offices-gloating over
the millions in their bank books, and
despite the cares that go with such
wealth, saying loudly and proudly,
"Time is money." Yes, indeed, time is
money." Yes, indeed, time is money,
and I shall be a happy beggar all my
life.
"Procrastination" is a lovely word and
it definitely is not a highwayman. "The
thief of time," forsooth! Procrastina-
tion is the spice of time, the spice of
life. Think! To stare out of a win-
dow and see a stray sparrow hop onto
a roof, to see that roof fade into a
blurred nothingness and the sparrow
remain, blithe and brave. To read a
novel of Dickens and listen to Gersh-
win's rhapsodies, to feel all worlds fade
and shadowy personages, neither Agnes
nor David, move in dignified precision
to some unreal harmony in an unreal
half-world of the mind. That, reader,
is the art of procrastination,
We, the day-dreamers, the procrasti-
nators, live all the romance and adven-
ture that ever happened. Antony lays
his laurels at our feet. It is to us that
Romeo softly whispers, "Thou, thou
art the sun," and we are Elaine, lying
chaste and white upon the barge that
moves slowly down to Camelot. We
stake our last franc on the turn of the
wheel at roulette, and lose-only to
have some unknown admirer back us
on 'red,' and Eureka! our fortunes are
made! We step off the boat train in
London to meet a long-time corres-
pondent whom we have never seen, and
we are identified only by the fragrant
flower we wear in our lapel. The dis-
guised student prince fights a duel for
us in old Heidelberg and he wins! he
wins! We are Edith Cavell, bravely fac-
ing a firing squad in a cold, gray dawn;
we are Florence Nightingale smoothing
the foreheads of dying men; we are
Mata Hari on her dangerous quests,
Sometimes, though not often, we are
even Mrs. Wallis Simpson.
We dream and dream and waken to
a world of indifferent reality that can
never be quite so gray as it was before.
In our dreams time is indeed money, a
shining, priceless coin that we may
spend and spend and still keep to hoard'
forever. Time and tide is not a ruthless
current, but a colored veil that we wrap
about our faces and our thoughts to
make us look beguiling and legendary
like Lohengrin and the swan. Time
and tide is a rosary that we tell over
and over again to our eager hearts.
(Continued from Page 2)
entitles him to the reputation of an
undoubted orator."
The Frenchman loves his country; the
very soil is dear to him. It is a differ-
ent kind of love from the German's love
of nature; and there is not the German
idealism which identifies God with na-
ture. It is his mother; a country with
ages of civilization behind it; Gallic,
Roman, Frank.
IV The Rational French
The French are adept at handling
ideas, the English at handling men; the
Frenchman is a man of thought, the
Englishman a man of action. In the
present conflict in Europe one sees the
French subdued by the Germans, and
the English fighting it out with charac-
teristic British bulldog determination,
and asks "Why?" The fact that the
intellectual French are men of abstract
ideas and the "anti-intellectual" Eng-
lish are men of action will not fully ex-
plain the present West-European situa-
tion, but one can make it help to ex-
plain a great deal.
Intelligence is one of the chief traits
of the French. The French historian
Taine says, "In France the chief power
is intellect." The English would brob-
ably add that practical common sense
sometimes serves to better purpose. Wis-
dom, to the French, is a higher virtue
than bravery.
It was the intellectual French mind
that served as fertile soil in which to
cultivate the rationalism founded by
Rene Descartes. The French accept the
thesis that reason is the highest factor
in the human mind. Rationalism in-
volves mental clarity, and that is ac-
quired through logical analysis.
More sentimentality in the French
nature would probably mean higher de-
velopment in the arts. Racine and Mo-
liere, as high as they are in the realm
of literature, cannot be placed above
Shakespeare and Goethe. France has
her great painters, but Leonardo da
Vinci and Raphael were the masters
whom the French copied in the Renais-
sance. No one would deny Germany
rank above France in nusic, except per-
haps French patriots blinded by emo-
tionalism. In France the great com-
posers have written for the intellectuals
only. In France music is not universally
loved and understood as it is in Ger-
many.
The theme, simplicity and clarity,
runs through the harmony and discord
of French politics. Note the evidence:
The basis of republican France lies in
three simple words that ring out above
the din and confusion of the Great
Revolution of 1789; they are "Equality,
Liberty, and Fraternity." In their po-
litical theories, the French remain true
to their rationalism.
V. The Good Englishman
England has a conscience. The
Frenchman is guided by the dictates of
society, the German is guided sometimes
by a philosophy of worldliness, but the
Englishman is guided by the dictates of
an inner voice which he calls con-
science.
Good, to the Englishman, means mor-
ality. Morality reached a very high
point in England during the period of
the Puritan Commonwealth. The rug-
ged endurance of hardships enters into
the Puritan ideal of plain living. That
is a noble virtue, but the asceticism of
the Puritans sometimes went to ridicu-
lous extremes. It led to a belief that
piety depends upon inconvenience. The
English would not be comfortable with-
out a number of inconveniences.
A fine element of morality is modesty.
In modesty the English and Germans
share, but the French do not under-
stand the word as well as their Saxon
neighbors. Andr6 Maurois, in his "Ad-
vice to a Young Frenchman Starting
for England," calls attention first of all
to the modesty of the English in dress,
in speech, and in claiming honors.
Another element in the English na-
ture is the ideal of the gentleman. The
test of the gentleman lies in the ability
to demand respect of others; this the
Englishman does by building up a re-
spect for himself. He dresses as a gen-
tleman regardless of the circumstances,
be it in Parliament or in the jungle; he
acts the gentleman, be it in the drawing
room or in an athletic contest.
The gentleman "plays the game."
The English have a strong sence of
fair-play. It was they who taught Eur-
ope the value of sports in the nineteenth
century. But none learned the rules of
fair-play as well as the English.
The English are a generous people.
George Santayana, in trying to find
what governs the Englishman, passes up
intelligence, passion, and selfishness,
and concludes that it is generosity
which controls his life. Washington
Irving says John Bull "is always more
generous than wise."
The English are brave, but they are
also tender. Emerson says they "de-
light in the antagonism which combines
in one person the extremes of courage
and tenderness.
Good, as applied to the Englishman,
means that he is a man of common
sense, a practical man, a man of action.
Thomas Carlyle said, "What a depth of
practical sense in thee great England!
A depth of sense, of justice, and cour-
age ... . " The Frenchman talks, the
Englishman acts.
The Englishman is a man of action,
especially if the action involves a mat-
ter of business such as acquiring a fa-
vorable trade agreement, or acquiring
an island, or the business of striking a
death-blow to a twentieth century
dragon with Swastikas upon his wings.
Vf. The Conservative Englishman
"God grant us patience!" The words
are Shakespeare's, but it is an English
prayer; and God has answered it. Sax-
ons, Danes, Normans, never learned
patience until they left their Nordic
home and established themselves on the
Isles. There, watching the thunderous,
waves beating constantly against Eng-
land's rocky coast, they learned two les-
sons: courage and patience; courage un-
surpassed by the nations of the world,
and patience surpassed only by oriental
peoples.
Patience has produced in the English
nation a conservatism which stamps the
English as a solid people with a perma-
nence equal to the durability of Gibral-
tar-a rock which is still British!
England changes, but changes very
slowly; and therein lies the secret of
her success. While other nations are
destroying, in a restless moment of agi-
tation, all that they have been building
up through years of toil, England com-
promises just enough with the demands
made upon her to prevent revolution,
and yet at the same time to prevent her
conservatism from being shaken tod
much.
The English have an attitude of re-
serve toward foreigners and strangers,
even an attitude of mistrust.
A well-known example both of Eng-
lish conservatism in dress and English
prejudice is the case of Benjamin Dis-
raeli. When that eccentric Jew rose to
make his maiden speech in Parliament,
just a few years after that Parliament
had passed a law admitting Jews into
its ancient chamber, he was dressed so
extravagantly that he shocked the con-
servatism of the members and they
laughed him down. Crying in anger
and humiliation, the Jew shouted at
them, "The time will come when you
will be glad to hear me." The time did
come, for he became Prime Minister of
England as leader of the Conservative
Party, but not until he grew much more
conservative both in his dress and in
his politics.
The English have more emotional
control than either the French or the
Germans. There could never be a dic-
tator in England in the sense of Nazi
dictatorship in Germany.
The English cling tenaciously to
tradition. They obey the laws of con-
- vention as faithfully as they obey the
legal statutes of the land. They like
policies which have been tested and
tried. English law is the outgrowth of
custom and usage. The monarchy itself
is the survival of tradition.
England's permanent foreign policy,
the attempt to preserve a balance of
power on the Continent, is in a way a
compromise, but when the balance
breaks, England goes into action. That
is the reason England fought Napoleon,
and that is the reason England is fight-
ing Hitler. In diplomacy it is England's
traditional habit to muddle through,
but she always muddles through.
The art of compromise almost .cost
Britain her life when Prime Minister
Chamberlain tried to solve the European
problem by appeasing the dictators. In
the early 'thirties the art of compromise
was passivism, and in the late 'thirties
it became appeasement. Happily' for
Britain there was a man of action ready
to lead her in her hour of crisis. That
man is Winston Churchill. His name
is upon every tongue in the English
speaking world, and every praying
tongue in the English speaking world is
saying a prayer for Winston Churchill.
Queen Margaret speaks these lines in
Shakespeare's Henry VI:
Why, courage then! What cannot
be avoided
'Twere childish weakness to lament
or fear.
It were as though she spoke them
to Winston Churchill. It were as
though Wordsworth were speaking
again through Churchill: "We must be
free or die!" It were as though Byron
were speaking to Churchill and to the
people of England a modern version
from "Don Juan":
The bombing planes look on London,
And London looks on the sea.
And musing there is an air-raid
shelter
I dreamed that England might still
be free!
THE CIRCUS
(Continued from Page 1)
"I volunteered," answered the prison-
er. "I didn't like the way you people
were letting your foreman run things on
this side of the lot."
"Thre are many in your country who
do not like them. But we will not need
to bother shooting at them," retorted the
aide,
"I thought you liked America and were
going to stay," said Red.
"I didn't go over to stay. I was there
to study the circus. The art of the cir-
cus which you did not recognize. That
art of quick transportation. Do you
laugh at it now?"
A sharp command from farther down
the line turned the aide and he saluted,
then hurried on. His officer gave him
a second order.
As Red stood among his fellow pris-
oners he heard some of the trucks drive
up closer. There was something familiar
about the way the trucks were steered
to such precise positions. There was a
familiar manner in the way the aide
spoke to his men. There was a familiar
manner in which the truckload was
being unloaded. It was like his own
manner of directing the hands around
the circus lot. It sounded almost like
his own voice which was ordering the
machine guns to be setup in a row be-
fore the wall of the old farm house,
From the "Washington Merry-
Go-Round" July 10, 1941: "The
Nazis learned the art of quick trans-
portation by coming to the United
States and studying the American
circus."
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