New Year Reflections
BY JOHN PULLEN.
• " WE measure man's life by years, and it is a solemn knell that warns -us we have passed another of the landmarks which stand between us and the grave." So wrote Charles' Dickens nearly a hundred years ago ; somewhat sententiously perhaps, but Dickens lived at a time when sententiousness was permitted and indeed encouraged. Moralizing was a popular game, and none played it better than the popular novelists. To improve the occasion (as the phrase went)—to draw the obvious lesson frOM the obvious circumstance—was an intellectual exercise of which our grandfathers seemed never to grow tired: We may smile at their obsessiOn ; but it is one-- let us remind Ourselves—from which our own sterner and More disillusioned age has not wholly escaped.
Thousands of people in this year of grace 1932, will sit up till midnight on Saturday, December 31st, " to see the New Year in." What do they expect to sec ? " The year is dying in the night ; ring out, wild bells, and let him die." Ring out, wild bells, by all means ; and may your ringing be attended by all the happy consequences to which the poet looked forward and which were never in more urgent demand than at the present time. But it is no. use asking the year to die in the night, because it will quite certainly do nothing of the kind. The year is like the Sovereign : it never dies. Regarded as a fixed chronological epoch, there is no such thing. A year is merely the amount of time required for the earth to travel round the sun—a species of circular traffic of the non-stop variety,. without beginning and without end. Our calendar division is purely arbitrary. Choose any date you pleaSe—say the first of April or the 12th of August, or any one of those endless Sundays after Trinity—and call it the first day of the year. It would be just as defensible—or as indefensible—as our present system.
But let that pass. We have learnt to reckon by these " landmarks which stand between us and the grave," and it is always a solemn thought that another of them has disappeared for ever. One more stage in the journey has been completed, one more milestone has vanished beyond the bend of the road. The most careless may pause a moment to reconnoitre the ground. That last mile was heavy going ; will the next be any better ? It does not look too promising ; there is an ugly hill straight ahead, standing out dark and forbidding across the landscape. Shall we make a bee-line for it, or try the by-road that edges away so temptingly to the left ? Or is it worth while pushing on any further to-night ? It is getting late, and after all there is no such desperate hurry. There was a pleasant inn in the last village street that we passed : very snug and cosy, to all appearances. Why not turn back and spend the night there in peace ? We have got all to-morrow before us. Anyhow, give me time to ,light a pipe and think it over.
. " We have got all to-morrow before us " ; a comforting reflection, and yet—and yet—when to-morrow comes, it may fall sadly short of overnight anticipation. To-morrow, like to-day and yesterday and the day before, will consist of twenty-four hours, each sixty minutes long—no more and no less. Of that we may be quite certain ; but of what else ? Will the day's journey be rough or smooth, toilsome or easy ? To what new taskg must we bend our strength, what fresh trials of nerve or courage or fortitude shall we be required to meet ? All that is mercifully hidden from us. If it were not, the prospect would be beyond endurance ; the grim burden of foreknowledge would drive us all demented. Better to wander for -ever through the shadowy spaces of the night than face the awful certainty of the grey dawn.
But after all, is there any valid reason why speculation about the future should depress the spirits ? Let us look on the brighter side. The New Year may have all kinds of good things in store for us. Mr. Jardine may bring back the " ashes " from Australia ; trade may revive ; sixpence may come off the income tax ; somebody (but perhaps this is asking too much of the gods) may actually produce a comedy that will run for more than a fortnight.
In any case there are sure to be surprises. What the inventors mean to spring upon us, is a point on which tht unscientific layman would be rash to prophesy. But there is certain to be something ; you can almost see the rabbit wriggling under the conjurer's hat and spot the pack of cards peeping coyly out of his sleeve. Hey presto ! and the mystery will be mystery no longer. The audience will know all about it ; after the first gasp of amazement, they may even grow a little bored with it. The new miracle will share the fate of its predecessors and dwindle into a commonplace. Meanwhile, it may be permissible to offer the inventively-minded a few suggestions for 1988.
First and foremost, let them discover how to fly. Yes, it sounds idiotic, doesn't it ? Is not the air full of aeroplanes already—squadrons and legions of them - - flying in every conceivable direction ; scouring Europe to its inmost retreats ; hopping across the Atlantic ; speeding eastward over the bare deserts of Arabia and along the torrid shores of the Persian Gulf ? Did not Mrs. Mollison fly to Australia ; did she not reach the Cape in five days ? All perfectly true ; but that is not flying ; it is just lumbering through the air in clumsy mechanical contrap- tions, noisy, malodorous, and unreliable. Watch the birds and butterflies. Is that how they fly ? What use have they for propeller or petrol-fed engine ? Even the inanimate thistledown, drifting lightly down the autumn breeze, puts the boldest of human airmen to shame. When we can do without machinery, when we can spread our arms and rise gracefully from the ground of our own motion (who has not done it in dreams ?), then we may fairly claim that we can fly. Till then we must bear the scorn that the birds of Cloudeuckooland felt for humankind ; for the shadowy race of men that fall as the leaves fall ; poor feeble creatures of clay ; wretched wingless mortals, the idle phantoms of a dream. Inventors, please note.
That is the great task that lies before our scientific pundits, their magnum opus for 1983. But there arc other and minor problems to which they might also turn their minds if they have the leisure or the inclination. For example, they might discover a method of shaving without a razor ; some subtle unguent which, rubbed gently over the chin, will leave it hairless for twenty-four hours. Perhaps for longer, but twenty-four hours would do as a start. Or an umbrella that will roll itself up, a banking account incapable of becoming overdrawn, even a fountain pen that will turn out its thousand words without extraneous assistance. There are possibilities without number for such as aspire to the title of public benefactors. Si quaeret pater urbium subscribi statuis—well, here are some suggestions as to the best means of satisfying that laudable ambition. You will think it over, wont you ? For the rest,. to you and to everybody the best of wishes for a Happy New Year.
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