WORK AND THE MIND

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 153, 29 June 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

WORK AND THE MIND

By Cyrano

WHO prop, thou ask'st, in these bad days, my mind?" So runs the bad first line of a famous sonnet by Matthew Arnold, which contains the oft'quoted and adapted saying that Sophocles "saw life steadily and saw it whole." The line has been used by that most delightful of quarterlies, the' English "Countryman," as a title for its collections of what distinguished people are reading in these days of trial. If an undistinguished. may tack on to this company, I niiist confess tliat I read, a good deal of lighter, stuff these days.. A week or two ago • I raided the shelves of a neighbour, and carried away, among other books, a tattered cheap edition of A. E. W. Mason's "The Sum- • moits." It is not one of Mason's best books, but lie is always worth reading. Ho -.writes like a gentleman. • If this

sounds snobbish, let me say that I heard the phrase used about another writer by ii strong member of tlie Left. It has been said that there is profit to be got from every book, however bad, and "The Summons" is very far from being a bad book. Apart from the in* terests of the table, there are often things in books that strike the attention and sometimes point a moral. "The Summons" is a book a.bout the last war, but it keeps away from the battlefield. There is some secret service, a glimpse of the Sudan, and some country-house life. : ' v It was a woman at home and not the exciting "adventures of the central character, in Spain and the Mediterranean, that Get me writing this article. Stella Croyle is a type strewn through English novels and plays. Unhappily married, she left her husband, was divorced, and was separated from her child. Site and a young' English Army officer formed an attachment, but he went off to the Sudan for the good of his soul, and Stella, a neurotic woman, was left brooding on the affair, and was ready to pursue the man when he re-

turned. When, however, lie did return, lie fell completely in love with someone else, and Stella committed, suicide. One is sorry for Stella, a waif in life, but not deeply. She is a weak creature,, with nothing much to recommend her but looks and a certain amount of charm. The point about her that I .wish to emphasise, however, and it is germane to ' our present trials, is that she has nothing to do. She is the typo of idle ■ woman familiar to all readers of English fiction, and perhaps even more common in modern English drama. . Wearied with the. triangular situations in well-to-do households, one exclaims impatiently that if these men and womenespecially the women, because the men often have a profession or a calling a . real job of work, like their more fortunate sisters lower down, they wouldn't have time or inclination for such adventures. Stella Croyle is comfortably off and keeps a maid. Apparently she does nothing at all except go through a routine of meals and sleep and social affairs, which, in her case, it would be compliment, to call amusement. She has not been 'trained to do anything, and she has- no intellectual interests. Probably she never as much as made a cup of tea for herself in her life. The Scottish doctor who was called in when she died puts it bluntly: "I tell you frankly I

have no great pity ' for poor neurotic bodies like the' young lady upstairs. If she had had a little of my work to do she would have been too" tired in the evening to think; about her': -worries." " Fortunately for England) this class has., greatly decreased, during the : last two.' generations. The stupid' Victorian ideal' that it wasn't lady-like to work has largely been broken down. In the last war women did a very wide range of jobs, and part of their reward was to get the franchise. They are doing even more to-day, and they arc all the happier for it. I believe it was found in the last war that nervous diseases, apart from those suffered by combatants, decreased, for the reason that people had something to occupy their minds. A distinguished English woman doctor, once " said that she had had a great number of cases of nervous breakdown through her hands, but in hardly any Instances had these been caused by over-work; nearly always they had come from lack of occupation. In.a struggle as critical as this, it is essential for peace of mind to have something absorbing and-satisfying to do, and if it is connected with war effort, nil the better. True it is that they also serve who only stand and wait, but, to adapt a saying from a forgotten American ■ farce, they have to hustle while they wait. He or she is in unhappy state who, feeling most keenly what is in-

volvcd in the -war, has nothing to do, sven in spare time only, but brood upon it. Those who are in the fighting services may go through hell, but they have the immense satisfaction of knowing that they are making their maximum effort to the common cause. In a special sense, in the midst of war they are at peace. Ihe decision has been taken, and' the rest.remains -with fate. Their daily work fills- their minds ■ and occupies their energies; the task at hand ,is all or most of their world. This applies also to civilians who find something to do connected with the war, and the .number of such occupations is very large, and they are to be found as far'behind the firing line as we are in this country.' Such workers have enrolled in a vast army, mid feel themselves members of a worldwide brotherhood. The.moral effect of this is profound. Mr. J. B. Priestley asked his American friends the other dav not to be sorry for people in." England. There was, he said, this difference between Americans and the' English; Americans felt very keenly .the"- tragedy of Europe, but they suffered as 'spectators, whereas the. English suffered as participants who, were, striving '.'their hardest to redress the balance. ' The English were more fortunate in '.being able to act, and action braced : them morally, •■ ~ ', - -;