1HE EFFORT TO ' LOSE ATTENTION.
MOST men's experience of the toil of life begins with the effort to pay attention. Do we not remember in our earliest schooldays a weary struggle to keep the mind from wandering, varied by hopeless staring at a clock which the united power of a score of wills could not induce to move more quickly 1 The present writer imagines that he expresses a common experience when he says that later life has no monotony to offer which compares with the monotony of the schoolroom. In the end we are broken in to attending. In sheer despair, in a very agony of dullness, we force ourselves to consecutive thought. No lesson which can be learnt out of books is so difficult as learning to read, and as soon as the worst is past and the page means something we must begin all over again in a foreign tongue! Thesorrows of childhood, no matter what people say, are not nearly so bad as the sorrows of later life ; but the boredom of childhood and its mental struggles against lethargy are a nilllion times worse while yet the will-power is weak and work is without perceptible goal. To many men concentration is always hard to attain, even when thoughts of duty, ambition, money, or any great achievement spur the will or flash persuasive before the eyes. There are many strong minds as well as weak ones, which are difficult to set in regular motion, to which the necessity of earning bread is always something of a treadmilL When Burton describes the depths of melancholy he describes the life of one who from the cradle to the grave "beholds the same still; still, still the same, the same." This is how the field of many men's labour appears to them as they look forward or backward. There are those to whom familiarity is no endearment. There is, we have read, a small Tibetan seet, who vow themselves to perpetual wandering. Any tent serves them for a roof at night, and in the morning they start once more on their aimless journeying. Thus does the mad fanatic avoid monotony, and the madman is in us all. Not a few of the educated world, however, would be content to pass their - whole lives under their ancestral roof if only they might have mental freedoni not to concentrate.
One of the ironies of existence is that the only thing which is still more difficult than paying attention is losing it. This we do not know until we leant the meaning of anxiety. It is something hidden from the young. They do not know how men and women, a prey to care or fear, long for a cessation of the strain; how gladly, they feel sometimes, they would welcome even a change of identity to be rid of it. Anxiety is perhaps the only thing which makes a man willing to part from himself—his memory, his special powers, his intuitions, everything. Acute anxiety, however, cannot in the nature of things last very long. It is care which may seem nine times as long as a lifetime ; but from the preoccupation of our tares we can very often get away. The attention which once we gave with such an effort may now seem to be irremovably fixed upon our work, or our responsibility, or our efforts to forestall misfortune; but by another effort it can be wrenched away. We can "lose our- selves" by force of will in a book or in sonic other occupation, and forget for a time even the war. Probably more people are desiring to "lose attention" for a short while just now than ever desired it before. What, we wonder, will be the outcome of this desire? It can hardly be without its effect on literature. Despite the shortage of paper, the demand will 'supply itself. We are tired of hearing what the war will "throw up." The shores of the time are covered with the bodies of heroes, but no great teachers, no men of out- standing genius, have as yet appeared. Perhaps some slighter figures may soon be seen, the outcome of the desire of thousands for the " relief " which in real as in mimic tragedy appears part of the play. " Relief " in the greatest dramas has not much connexion with the main theme. We have had lately to keep our eyes fixed on " the realities," as the most terrible things of human life are called, with a strange instinctive pessimism. We should be glad to cease from these at intervals, and look at the realities which, for instance, Miss Austen painted. We shall he told that at present there is no demand for such books. Would it not be truer to say there is at the moment no supply of Miss Anstens ? What an immense relaxation it would be to see the picture of a quiet life reflecting our times as Miss Austen reflected hers. She too lived when the world was astir, when great eruptions and up- heavals were taking place, but she wrote to give pleasure, and she touched on nothing great. The spirit of the time is not critical Even those who account themselves literary are not inclined to look at a novel from the point of view of a human achieve- ment, still leas as embodying any man's philosophy. They are, we think, inclined to read new hooks as simpler people have always read them—for what they can get of refreshment of mind. They Want to like and dislike, and be angry With, and laugh at the people they meet in the author's pages, but about him and his art they are too tired much to care. Only, if they are to do this, the puppets must
be real to them, and that means creative power. A host of people find relaxation at the theatre. Will a public panting for mental refreshment call into being a new drama, not great, but of a kind to release our enchained attention from the endless sound of gunfire ? To enjoy comicality we want good spirits. We cannot do much abstract thinking in such a scene of prompt expedients as we live in. The power of fancy is weakened, and we should like to wander at will across the more delectable portions of the plane of ordinary existence. Will the war "throw up" a new dramatic painter of the pleasant side of life ? Do people read much history just now in their idle moments? We imagine not. It is strange from one point of view, seeing we all take upon ourselves to prophesy, and it would be natural that we should turn our attention to the one science which can help us to read the future. On the other hand, in this burning, living present it is difficult to enter into the spirit of a scholar who stands up to do indifferent justice to the personalities of a dead past.
Years ago a distraction used to be found in the writing of journals. Any intelligent journal written in the present crisis could hardly fail to interest at least its author in the days to come. Personally, however, we doubt if times of stress are productive of voluntary daily records. At moments of private anxiety few men have the courage to "write up "a full or intimate diary. They fear too much what the next entry may be. They fear as they turn over back pages that they may trace the hand of a sinister fate. Perhaps even in public affairs the stress is just now too great to be "written up" for private consumption. Very often the object of a journal would seem to be the lending of an interest to events rather than the recording of them. 13aoon gives colour to this notion when he writes : "It is a strange thing that in sea voyages, where there is nothing to be seen but sea and sky, men should make diaries ; but in land travel, wherein much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it." "Talk," in the older acceptation of the word, is hardly now a recognized pastime. We are too impatient, too much on edge. If one may say so, there is too much talk to give leisure for talking. To women dregs will always be a refreshing subject of thought. No sumptuary hews will ever prevent that. Outside feminine vahity, It offers the pleasures of buying and bargain- hunting. Too much has been made of the munition workers' finery. They work long hours and are in a constant condition of concentration. Every one must have some recreation. The possi- bilities, chances, risks, and varieties in the way of purchase hidden within a pound are endless. The fascination of cards is as nothing to it. Many patience-players despise the shopper. They seek change of thought amid the mild surprises of the pack. Their recreation is cheaper, but not perhaps on a higher mental line. It is more analogous to smoking—whioh, after all, is to men, and seems likely to become to Women, the most indispensable of all relaxations.
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