24 MARCH 1939, Page 14

Many people moreover were startled to observe that their conception

of" the future" had suddenly been altered. Until that dreadful hour the thought of spring and summer had been illumined by gay enterprises and delights ; suddenly they found themselves wincing away from the' implications of May or June. The associations of their daily life became fraught with unforeseen anxiety ; the very fibres of their con- sciousness had been bruised and wrenched by some terrible lesion; they sought comfort in the placid continuity of Nature, rejoicing in the fact that (however Tiridates might threaten) he could not affect the annual flowering of the almond or the plum.