The Singleton

ILISTENED the other day to two men arguing about giants. One was an old man, and he maintained that the reason why, when we look about us, we see no giants is because giants are recognisable as such only to the young. As we advance in years we acquire a sense of perspective. We may admire or respect an outstanding figure in this walk of life or in that, but we do not take him for a giant, since we have learnt that giants—like unicorns and Father Christmas—exist only in legends to entertain and edify the young.

To this the younger man retorted stoutly that it was no good begging the question; the plain fact was that there used to be quite a lot of giants, who were regarded as giants by young and old alike, and now there were almost none. You could not (he suggested) maintain that there was no such thing as a giant unless you also maintained that there was no such thing as Sir Winston Churchill. If one giant could exist, why could not others?

His companion took refuge in digression.

I feel myself that the younger man was right, and I would like to know what has become of the giants. It is idle to pretend that there is not a difference in stature between Hutton and W. G. Grace, between Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir Henry Irving, between Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery and Field- Marshal Lord Roberts, between Mr. Selwyn Lloyd and Palmerston. The four former may be better men over their own lines of country than the four latter were. But they are not bigger men; they are smaller men.

Wherever you look—towards literature, the law, the Church, teaching, diplomacy, golf$ pugilism, or art—you get the same impression : a number of imposing and well-proportioned figures, but no giants. Why?

* *

Different people, I find, return different answers to this question. One school of thought holds that it is all to do with beards and whiskers, and it is quite true that on the whole people look less portentous than they used to. If one judges purely by externals, Mr. Gladstone is bound to appear a more considerable figure than Sir Anthony Eden; but I doubt if externals really come into it very much, and in this particular case it can hardly be said that they seriously distort our perspective.

Perhaps publicity, whose aim is to project enlarged and multiple images of the individual, is in fact a less gigantoferous medium than might have been expected, and has the same ultimate effect on reputations as an overdose of fertiliser on corn. It is true that publicity is apt to defeat its own ends, and that in many cases we should be more deeply impressed by public figures if we were confronted with them less frequently in the papers and on the newsreels. In this connection I would say that television is inimical to gianthood. Fond as I am of Mr. Gilbert Harding, I suspect that his true status is a freak's rather than a giant's; and, in general, television, although it can make people almost infinitely famous, seems to make them at the same time rather small.

* * *

It could be argued that giants have disappeared because there is no place for them in what has revoltingly been called the Century of the Common Man; and if giants owed part of their stature to unapproachability, to behaving like Lord Curzon, there would be no need to wonder why they have become virtually extinct. But I do not think that aloofness is an essential attribute of gianthood, though it may—like a beard —be a useful accessory. Nor do I believe that the Common Man (if this dreary biped exists) disapproves of giants, still less that he somehow, subconsciously, sabotages their develop- ment.

It may, of course, be that the next batch of giants will be scientific giants, and that it is merely because oafs like me do not understand about science that we are unaware of the young entry, crouched even now over their steaming crucibles, waiting only for one or two calculations to be rechecked be- fore they astound mankind. This would be a logical and congruous development; but there is something vaguely academic about scientific giants, and it would be nice to have some of the ordinary kind as well, like Doctor Johnson or Wellington or Nansen.

How, incidentally, does one define a giant? Not by the size of his deeds alone, for men can do great things, and even be great men, without being giants. Mr. Nehru, for instance, is not a giant, whereas I imagine Gandhi was. Stalin was a giant; Mr. Khrushchev is not. Livingstone was, Stanley wasn't. Wavell, yes; Rommel, no. . . . Although I find it impossible to demarcate the irregular frontier which separates gianthood from eminence, I seldom seem to have any difficulty in deciding who belongs on which side of it.

* * *

But all this gets us no nearer to the reason why giants have almost disappeared in these islands. In theory there ought to be more of them than there used to be. Better health, better (or anyhow more) education, more security, more leisure—all these amenities ought to be improving the breed, raising the standard of character, ability and wisdom, and thus throwing up more giants. Why are things not working out in this way?

We must; of course, have lost a good many potential giants in the last two wars; but wars are giant-makers as well as giant-killers, and I do not believe that the whole explanation is to be found in the casualty lists. Perhaps we are merely going through a bad patch, and are better off than various other generations, who didn't have even a single giant to their name. Or are we, in fact, getting gradually dimmer, declining gently into mediocrity as colleges and regiments sometimes do, and as other Empires have before us?

I do not know the answer. Perhaps to ask the question is a symptom of senility; perhaps the islands teem, or at least are dotted with, giants whom younger men than I have no difficulty in recognising. But I somehow doubt whether this is the case. There may be a lot of people who think of themselves as giants, but is there more than one who has the right to do so?

STItlX