-MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IHE habitual, as Goethe remarked, is apt to make us tame ; and it is curious how evzn the most imaginpive- and lively people derive a private satisfaction from doing the same things every morn- ing in exactly the same way. The psychologists, I suppose, would explain this phenomenon by stating that all human -beings derive pleasure from the economy of effort ; that the habitual and the repetitive save us from unaccustomed thought or movement ; and that the comfortable feelings which we experience when we repeat some daily movement arise, not from the quality of the movement itself, but from the consciousness that by adopting the accustomed in place of the unaccustomed we have saved ourselves the expenditure A unnecessary physical or psychic energy. It may be that this is a correct explanation, and that we should recognise that tidiness, being nainly composed of repetition, is in fact not a symptom of industry but a proof of enlightened laziness. It will be admitted, however, that in the repetition of daily actions there intrudes also a slight 'esthetic element, and that the identity of small accustomed move- nents provides sensations of rhythm and symmetry which create, in the aggregate, a delighted recognition of the familiar. A safety razor, or instance; is not in itself an object of 'aesthetic enjoyment ; when iismanded and laid• out to dry in three ungainly portions it loses :yen that functional beauty which, when screwed together, it may, :a. may not, possess ; yet who would deny that pain is caused to the )wner if the three pieces are jumbled together, whereas pleasure is :aused,to the owner if they are neatly polished and assembled in an icustomed row. Yet it still seems strange to me that, although not )3, temperament a tidy man, I should experience what are recognisable Feelings of satisfaction when I observe that my _ash-tray, my ink- stand and—my tobacco-jar remain in exactly the same place ; and that irritation and even anger should be caused if these objects lave been disarranged.
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It is interesting, moreover, to observe how the familiar and the )rderly arouse feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction according to the mood of the moment, or, as the materialists might say, according :o the momentary combinations of one's glandular. secretions. Most A us spend much of our time walking backwards and forwards along he same pavements, past the same doorsteps, on our way to and From the bus-stops or the underground stations Which serve our routes. On some mornings the pleasures of recognition, the comfort A the familiar, will predominate ; we like seeing the same empty nilk-bottle day after day outside the same green door ; we welcome he rock-buns, haddock, and cough mixture Which appear morning ifter morning in the same shop window's. On other days a great assitude descends upon u3; we feel an utter weariness at the con- emplation of these recurrent objects ; and we decide, even at the :ost of time and effort, to take some other road and to evade the .epetitions which at other times seem comforting and secure. Such foments of, reaction against the too familiar, of disgust with repeti- ion, are, I believe, our valuable moments. When I turn my back mon the bun-shop at the corner, when I make a wide detour in Order lot to be faced again with the milk-bottle waiting beside the green loor, I encourage myself by repeating Goethe% famous phrase : Was uns alle bandigt—das Gemeine." I am refusing to be tamed )3, the habitual or the common-place. And in such a mood of libera- ion even the crumbling porticos of Onslow Gardens glitter in the Aay sunshine as parapets of adventure and romance. Why journey o Persepolis or Bolthara if, with only slight deviation, one can dis- :over novelty between the Underground and one's own front door?
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These thoughts have been suggested to me by the gaiety, the ictuai lightening of spirit, which I experienced last week when I risited a part of London with which I am unfamiliar and in circum- aances which were festive and unusual. I took the bus to London 3ridge and walked to the base of the Monument. There, in what iad once been the churchyard of St. Margaret's, a few feet only rom where had once been Pudding Lane, rose'Wien's great column.
In the chemist's shop at the corner Oliver Goldsmith had worked as an apprentice when he first came to London. From the top of the column Marshal Bliicher in 1814 had surveyed the city and had remarked, in the true Prussian spirit," What a place to loot! " The little square around it was shadowed and congested ; the inscrip- tion and carvings on the base had been eaten by time ; it was silent in that dim alley, and the roar of London seemed distant and hushed. I made my way, under a dark archway, to New Fresh Wharf. And as I emerged from the'archway into the May sunshine there in fiont of me was a large white steamer, gay as the Bucentaur, resting beside the dark wharfs of London Bridge like a seagull in the gas- works. The gangway which led to this shining ship was draped in bunting ; flags fluttered in the sun ; and the black parapets of London Bridge were thick with crowded heads gazing in delight at this cleah visitor to our drab and damaged town. She was the s.s. Saga,' of the Swedish Lloyd, and she had sailed up there, into the very heart of ancient London, in order to display herself in all her finery and to pay homage to the city which had done and endured so much. She was moored there—so light, so solid—as the first product and presage of peace. New Fresh Wharf seemed very old and very dim in contrast to such radiant youthfulness ; the wireess in the several saloons relayed music which was both triumphant and soft ; the galleries and the verandahs were gay with azalea and tulip ; the guests 'were flattered, appreciative and amused.
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It is always a strange effect when the dynamic becomes static, when a steamer acts as a restaurant, or when a new type of sleeping- car is anchored in the hall of some engineering exhibition. The port..., holes and the windows, through which one expects to see spray or steam, look out upon palm trees set in tubs or upon the massive might of St. Paul's ; one watches a red bus crossing the bridge when one had expected to watch sea-gulls following ; the blue-carpeted corridors have ceased to throb ; only a few yards distant, under that archway, is the Underground which will take one to Sloane Square. This contrast between the mobile and the anchored, between the familiar and the exotic, between the habitual and the unaccustomed, is a salutary contrast. It prevents one from becoming tamed. But it was not this alone which on that May afternoon expanded our gaiety ; it was not even the Heidsieck Monopole, 1934, in which we toasted success to this new vessel ; it was the sense that something in this chaotic world was at last returning to normal. Here was a new and lovely steamer which will ply from Tilbury to Gothenburg and carry old people and young people, goods and services, backwards and forwards between Sweden and England. The wheels are beginning to turn again ; the red light which for so many years has blocked all traffic has changed, now to amber, and now to green ; useful and lovely things are being not merely pro- duted distantly, but actually made available; life begins again. From the upper deck of the ' Saga ' I looked out moss the City of London, noting its many scars, its dreadful gaps ; how often have I gazed upon those ruins in a mood of hopelessness! This white new ship below me rekindled hope.
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I am grateful to Sweden for many things. I am grateful to her because, when I went to Stockholm in the dark days of the war, I found light and confidence and faith. I am grateful to her for what she did for our prisoners and for the starving millions of Greece. But, above all, I am grateful to her because she shows us the middle way. For in that wise and lovely land they have discovered the true secret of social democracy ; they can teach us how to combine ancient traditions with a new social and economic order ; how to achieve public elegance without disparity in private fortunes ; how to establish the most detailed social services without crushing personal initiative or individual self-reliance ; and how to achieve a common standard of living without degrading life to "was uns alle beinchgt- das Gemeine."
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