LIVE TRUISMS.
IN all times of distress dead truisms come alike. They confront the mind at every turn. We cannot get away from them. We are amazed at the vividness of our thoughts, and confounded at the banality of their expression. We imagined only fools helped themselves out with the musty wisdom of the copybooks, but it seems now that even a foot may speak to the purpose. There is nothing so new as trouble, and nothing so threadbare as its expression. We all seek the meaning of this new thing, even those of us who before it was upon us were proudly content to say that the meaning of trouble was beyond the sight of man. There is a saying (we think we have read that it conies to us from Prance), "Each cross bath its own inscription.". The wording of such inscriptions is always familiar, but the meaning is often startlingly new.
It is a contradiction,.in terms only to say that some truisms are false. "All is fair in love and war." How vividly that falsehood has been impressed upon us by our enemies. Yet how dull and indisputable it seemed such a little while ago. May they never convince us of it ! "He that sups with the Devil must have a long spoon" supplies but a specious argu- ment in its favour. "Needs must when the Devil drives," we say ; but right and wrong, thank God ! will remain when Germany is gone. Even those of us who have least personal stake in the war grow terribly impatient at its slow movement. .Almost every man who buys an after- noon paper thinks of the "watched pot." How many people lately have known the heart-sickness of "hope deferred" P In times of ease the saying is bandied about for fun. A late meal is occasion enough to make a man throw it at his wife's head, but the life cannot be knocked out of it, however often it is used as a plaything. What a terrible saying it is when anxiety reinspires it, when, like the Psalmist, our bread seems like ashes and we mingle our drink with weeping. "Dying is as natural as living." That is a dull enough expression of fact—when death is far off; but when it is near it cuts like a two-edged sword. It cuts when we go forward to the sacrifice, it cuts when we would hold back. There is nothing so common as death; but Nature herself has made it terrible, and, though reason and religion offer courage,* it must be terrible till all that is natural is gone. Another saying we play with when our hearts are light is the one which tells us to go on to " the bitter end." It is not a fit plaything really, although we use it as such ; but when the storm comes upon us, as it came upon the writer of Ecclesiastes, and we know that for a long time "fears shall be in the way," what a dreadful shape those few words take on In its original form the proverb spoke—so the learned tell us--of " the better end." This cheerful correction has been long before the public, but has not been adapted. Only a few people see what is better when they go down a bad road in the dark. The proverb lives in its more cruel form.
"Drowning men catch at straws." That is a horrible truism! Both in its literal and its figurative interpretation it sends a shiver through every one who feels himself within sight of despair. The men and women whose nearest and dearest are constantly facing the menace of the enemy's mines and submarines try to cast it out of their minds. It burns before one's eyes as one thinks of the awful futility of effort which it depicts. Twenty pictures of shipwrecks may make a less fearful impression on the mind than is made by this well- worn saying when it comes unbidden into the memory and overwhelms us with its living truth. It would be impossible to live always at the tension which of necessity accompanies the revival of dead phrases. It is strange how few of thorn are of a consoling character. " It's a poor heart that never rejoices" defends, rather than seeks to induce, cheerfulness. There is truth in the saying, quoted in Bohn's collection of proverbs, that " when danger is past God is forgotten." One cannot help wondering how much the present revival of religion in this country and in France has of permanence, and how much it is simply one outlet for overpowering emotion. That it is a natural outlet even among a crowd which, as in France, has little dogmatic conviction is now an established fact with very wide bearings.
The less-known proverbs—those, we mean, which find a place in all collections, but are not on the lips of the multitude and are not spread abroad in children's primers—have many of them a startling bearing upon the present situation. "Every man will shoot at an enemy, but few will fetch the shafts," suggests that human nature was much the same before the introduction of gunpowder. Men were ready enough to go to the front and fight, but not very enthusiastic about sending supplies to the fighters. Perhaps, oven, they were inclined to go on strike a long time ago when war was a simpler thing than it is now. Fetching the shafts must always have been dull work with no honour attaching to it. "Do not have your cloak to make when the rain begins" might well replace some of the more threadbare saws in County Council copybooks when the war is over. It is a " copy " little John Bull might well write out a few times as a punishment for past sins of negligence. A special Providence does appear to watch over careless people, it is true. "Some ships come in that are not steered"; but that is a saying unfitted for the contemplation of youth. They ought not to know that we may sometimes leave the helm without disaster. That " everything depends on yourself " is a very valuable mistake natural to adolescence which only a, very bold man will seek to correct too early. It is a nice question—that of the value of mistakes. The present writer lately came across the following saying in a list of proverbial phrases : " Follow truth too close at the heels and it will strike out your teeth." That is indeed a warning worth thinking about. But ought a brave man ever to fear to follow truth P Just now it is a question which continually presents itself to every thought- ful person. In days of great enthusiasm there is danger of great illusions. Have we not all now and then been visited by a moment's certainty that we are hiding from some fearful spectre as we turn to look at what pleases us best in the panorama which stretches before so many frighted and so many dancing and excited eyes P Are we bound to look at the naked truth of what is before us as steadily as we can, or may we deliberately pick up rose-coloured spectacles if we truly believe that through them we shall best see our way to a great and righteous goal P It is a question which in a small way comes constantly before every one. The danger is that in keeping at a safe distance from Truth—in keeping clear of her heels, to continue the wise man's metaphor—we may lose sight of her altogether. It is true that whoever follows her near must be prepared for a blow in the face. Only a man very far gone in optimism could deny that. It is also true that whoever gets too far off may miss his way once and for all.
"He that gets forgets, but he that wants thinks on," is another proverbial saying surprisingly little known. Its sense, at any rate, will be in many Men's minds when struggles end and settlements begin. That, again, is true to every man's personal experience. The men who rise in the world often pride themselves on their freedom from all bitterness. They do not exactly make a virtue of necessity, but they make a virtue of good fortune—a beautiful thing which very often resembles virtue with wonderful closeness. It is so easy to grudge nothing when a man has everything. Time heals wounds only in conjunction with some amount of good for- tune. All the popular sayings about time have a certain charm. "Time is the rider that breaks youth" is a peculiarly interesting one, sad and consoling by turns. Now and then the spirit of youth is too strong even for time ; but proverbial philosophy does not deal in exceptions. " When God pleases it rains with every wind" is a delightful sentence. It fits all moods, and may have a cheerful or a sad significance according as we fear drought or flood. The dark or the rose-coloured prophecies of "the goosequill gentlemen" who agitate us at breakfast lose weight as we consider it. "Disputations leave truth in the middle and a party at both ends" is a saying which deserves to be more familiar than it is. Unfortunately no one can believe it till he has done disputing. It is a suit- able subject of consideration for all men who indulge in petty contentions during "a tug-of-war."
The "Homeric boast" has become a byword—" We pride ourselves on being far better men than our fathers." Every generation vaunts itself better than the last. When Elijah realized that he was no better than his fathers he prayed that he might die. It is impossible not to wonder what will be the attitude of the young men who come borne from the front towards the older men who by no choice of their own have stayed at home. A generation "bred to an easy chair " will be confronted with one which has seen human nature stripped of all the restraints of civilization, which has lived in the presence of primitive man and imminent death, and has sojourned in an Inferno whose horrors are the outcome of the very civilization which they seem designed to overthrow. Will a huge contempt arise in the heart of youth for the man over forty who has not soon these things P To a certain extent it must be so. The value of experience is a fixed thing. On the other hand, a, pro- portion—and not a negligible proportion—of the men at the front are fighting in order that their sons may be without this experience ; that they may have peace in their time and live as their grandfathers lived. The reunion of the generations lies in the hands of babes and sucklings, and rests with children yet unborn.
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