A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
WHEN I first read in Tuesday's Daily Mail the statement that " Lord Elton said at Westminster yesterday Whoever wins this war will be in a position to shape the pattern of post-war civilisation for a thousand years ' " I was doubtful whether to ascribe fallibility to the reporter or mental instability to the speaker. For consider what a thousand years means. We can gauge it better. by the past, which is history, than by the future, which is speculation. It carries us to 943, more than a hundred years before the Norman Conquest. Were events of that day or earlier capable of shaping the pattern of civilisation today? Here comes the case for second thoughts. One event in history, the life and death of Christ, un- questionably was. But it would be hard to think of any other of which it can be said certainly that but for it life today would be totally different. It might have been—but Lord Elton was speaking dogmatically of his thousand years. On the other hand there have been times—say in 1805, after Austerlitz, or 18o6, after Jena, when a Lord Elton of those days might have been pardoned for using language identical with that reported in the Daily Mail ; yet what was left of Napoleon's conquest of Europe by a t6? Still, there is a case to be made for the thousand-year influence, with the career of Charlemagne, the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution as possible instances ; but of these only Charlemagne. can yet be viewed at a thousand-years' distance. Actually, I have chanced this very day, in a book on German history, on the state- • ment " Louis the Pious (son of Charlemagne) set forces in motion that were to shape the whole future course of European history."
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Is Mr. Wendell Willkie's book Our World achieving its astonish- ing sale in America-750,000 in a few weeks—because of its authorship or on its inherent merits? Some basis for a reply to that is provided by the extracts from the book which the Daily Telegraph has just begun to publish. In assessing them it must be remembered that they have been selected as outstanding passages by some competent judge ; they may be assumed, therefore, to represent something above the avenge standard of the book. Their quality is good. They are the work of a man who has had special opportunities—opportunities such as few, if any, professional writers have enjoyed—of immediate, and sometimes of prolonged, contact with the. men who are at the heart of things in the military and political spheres, and knows how to put his information and im- pressions into clear and unpretentious English. Whether, if Mr. Winkle had not been one of the leading figures in the public life of a great country, Our World would have been, what it is obviously going to be, the book of the year in the United States and possibly elsewhere, is doubtful. But it can be well understood that it is a book that everybody everywhere will want to read.
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By following Lord Vansittart into the realm of theology, I have, as was perhaps to be expected,. started more hares than can be adequately chased in this confined space. VO's aear1>isrsivil,"4". little one, it is suggested that the fact that the Deuteronomic " Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark " has been adopted in the Conunination Service justifies its klestattion as " a Christian curse." Seeing that the introductory wordg 'of that Service specifically describe the various imprecations as " gathered out of the seven and twentieth chapter of Deuteronomy and other places of Scripture," it is obvious that they are mere citations. This curse is essentially DeuVronomic and essentially pre-Christian—by some six or seven centuries. The question of the relation of forgivene and repentance is more serious and not to be discussed adequate! in a paragraph—as perhaps I should have recognised last wee I will only say this. Texts can be quoted, and have been, agains my view that human forgiveness cannot be made dependent o repentance, and I cannot complain, for I started that myself. Bu it still seems to me a higher Christian virtue to forgive an enem who is not repentant than one who is, and an impossible task • many cases to decide whether a professed repentance is genuin or not. (" The Devil himself kr.oweth not what is in the h of man.") I am not satisfied that our own fallible judgement, whet the data for conclusive judgement is lacking, ought to' determin our attitude in the matter of forgiveness—which, in any case, d not imply condonation. Was Edith Cavell quixotic in saying, on t eve of her death at the hands of enemies who were obviously n repentant, " I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone "
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Lord Hewart's career has had a special interest for me personall since the former Lord Chief Justice was leading counsel for t defence in the only libel action in which my own writings have far involved me. Since his junior was the late Mr. Justice McCard and the judge Lord Darling (and Lord Reading in the Appeal Court the proceedings were not without a general as well as a perso interest. How far the verdict for the defendant, returned in t lower court and affirmed in the higher, was due to the ability counsel, and hoW far to my manifest and patent blamelessness i not for me to determine ; but I have always admired the dexteri with which Sir Gordon Hewart, as he then was, got past the laws evidence (which I was assured could have been invoked against it a document which clearly had a considerable effect on the jury.
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The Society of Individualists appears to be an enterprising body A letter for publication (expressing views adverse to the Beveridg Report) has reached The Spectator, with a covering note from th writer explaining its genesis. Some time ago, he mentions, received a letter from a Mr. Derek Abel, from the Society d Individualists, which ran: " I am wondering whether you would care to w• rite a lett of something like 400 words on your subject for The Spectator 9r, Gower Street, W.C. If so, our Press Department is gladi at your disposal."
I am not quite clear, adds bur correspondent intelligibly enou if Mr. Abel is also the editor of The Spectator or not. The answe is in the negative—at present, but you never know what ma happen. I don't, in fact, know who Mr. Abel is ; but intern evidence suggests that he may be the Society of Individualis private .Goebbels, and that that admirable concern, despite its pr claimed hostility to planning, has been doing a little subtle unsuccessful) planning—or shall we say suggested spontaneity? on its own.
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These ambiguous headings.
WIND BEAT SPITFIRES, NOT ZEROS,
says the Star. Did the wind beat the Spitfires and not beat th Zeros, or did the wind, not the Zeros, beat the Spitfires? U fortunately, both appear to be true. But I doubt whether the su
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