THE GRUFF VOICE OF BIG BEN

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 18, 21 July 1934, Page 25

THE GRUFF VOICE OF BIG BEN

g*v»*?> :: Vicar "of St. Augustine's, Highgate, would have us :: JL agree that Big Ben is the worst bell of its size in the " world," says the "Glasgow Herald." "Not enly is its Z shape wrong, but it is cracked, and there is (so the Vicar alleges) " a large piece of the fabric missing. "The voice of Big Ben is eloquent of these infirmities and "-' (so runsthe case of the detractors) it ill becomes the first city - ot what is still the first Empire of ihe world that il should be " content with a bell so obviously second rale. "/ "Against this thesis, the founders \vh6 have bolh cast and V recast the bell raise a protest so reasonable>fhat we cannot but ■ £ join them in it. Big Ben, they admit,'could be cast again. What "-'■ blemishes it has could be puurged with fire, the metal could be " made to flow again into 'a new mould. . '' "But—and here, indeed, lies the very crux of the case against " recasting—the bell which would emerge when the mould was "-'- ---broken would not, however manifold its perfections of shape and II sound, be Big Ben. There would be a sweet-voiced alien at the " Empires very heart. .Just now the voice is gruff, but it is the' -: sort of voice one might expect to come from a figure so sturdy " and uncompromising as John Bull. A lack'of grace, indeed, is " pig Bens most positive merit. . i " ■'France'has sonorous bells> in which the listener may hear, " as Mr. Bernard Shaw makes Saint Joan to do, the call of heaven -- to earthly duty. Germany has elegant little chimes that accom- " -pany mechanical saints as they process round mechanical deities, r rew bells are less noble or loss sweet than Big Ben. Big Ben -■ is dull, but Big Ben made sprightly would lose completely its " power of evocation. And what then? ' " "No longer would its heavy stroking of six, heard on the edge 1 of the Sahara at let the astronomically-minded tell us what hour, "' conjure up the clock's round moon of a face and carry the ": exile's thoughts round to the wet winter pavements of the Em- t bankment. . ■+ "The bellfounders, while admitting" that defects exist, seek to ± place them in proportion. The crack is there, but it is a small f crack. A piece of the bell is wanting, but il is a small piece, t and one deliberately excised lest the crack should spread. 1 "Is there no human parallel to be drawn from this? Not all -' of us are sonorous, not all of us even sweet. "But may not our ** defects be like Big Ben's, slight imperfections which make us + personal and therefore valuable? Only a foolish preacher would -- want all humanity cast anew.

';Xhe wise one recognises, like the bellfounders, that in minor 1 cacophonies;there is much;that may be loved and respected. The consolation of imperfect humanity must always be that even in -" faults there are merits, that each of us in his own small way is a " Big Ben. ' . v ' , ■' ■■ ■ . ' ■..;■■' - r '■■,■■ .)■ H > ♦ M.M HHimiUHItHMIMHJUIII M » H HI H H ♦ M