FUGUE ON GLOOM PROPHETS

Evening Star, Issue 21036, 25 February 1932, Page 12

FUGUE ON GLOOM PROPHETS

A DICKENSIAN CONTRAST Wo have been satiated with summaries of the bad year of 1931, and now we are all eagerly contemplating the possibilities and probabilities of this year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and thirty-two (writes Gray Quill, in the Liverpool ‘ Post ’). ) I have my own thoughts about them; but then I reserve them. Time will tell, to use a remark which some thousands of other original minds have used before. In the closing minutes of the old year I have been studying the opinions of two very great old masters on this eternal subject: Charles Dickons and—Old Moore. I have often lighted my candle at Dickens’s mighty torch. I do it now, and leave you to judge of the values of these remarkable words:— “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it ivas the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despear; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way —in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.” When that was written, and about which period? It is the opening paragraph of ‘ A Tale of Two Cities,’ and was written about the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. It might have been written yesterday, for it sums up the optimistic and pessimistic notes of 1932. Yet, after w r orld-throes such as oven the great Dickens' never realised—for the French Revolution was a minor matter to the cataclysms of 1914-1918 wo are still alive, and fairly fit to meet all troubles. THE DISMAL JIMMIES. We have more respect for law and authority than the men whose limbs were made in the days of George 111, The Lord Mayor of London may safely take a drive in his State coach to a suburb of London without being held up by highwaymen, as was his predecessor in 1775. Life is safer, despite the sad number of untraced murders. The workhouses are no longer prisons for poverty, but have, been humanised, and unemployed insurance pay remains the sheet anchor of safety and sanity of the nation. But Dismal Jimmy is always with us. He is descended from the friends who “ comforted Job, but we do not answer him in the piteous words of the great patriarch. “If your soul were in my soul’s stead, then I could heap up words against you and shako mine head at you.” We just laugh at him. And when Dismal Jimmy assumes the mantle of a prophet and ekes out his wild, obscure alarms with weird, badly-drawn hieroglyphics, then we buy his prophecies at 2d a time and laugh all the more. MIRTHLESS MOMENTS. To any man who is down in the dumps, to whom Dickens is naught and H. G. 1 Wells as if he were not, 1 would recommend the study of ‘ Old Moore’s Almanac.’ Listen to these precious words, which tell us what the New Year will be like: “ Much will be spent on pleasure by the people.” Did every man march into the various Government buildings yesterday and say to the hungry-handed income tax collectors: “ This is the merriest moment of my life! Here you are, old son, this is my life’s earnings! Take it, and be as happy as I am!” Although I am an optimist, I doubt it. Then the prophet tells us that “ India still troubles, but there is now some hope of a satisfactory settlement.” 0 God! 0 Montreal! With agitators being shot down in the street, and the publicity merchant, Gandhi, who should never have been advertised into political existence, doing his damnedest to ruin Lancashire by putting further boycotts on her mills, “ satisfactory ” seems an appropriate word. But, then, it may be pointed out, that is one Old Moore. There is another.

He proclaims himself to be the genuine Empire article. He lets us down with storms in the Atlantic, a safe prophecy for January and February, but not, I hope, with an Imperial spirit chucks a chunk of. grief at the United States where a bridge is to fall during the passage of a railway train across a river. Still, we are to know that “ Death will be busy in our midst removing the bearers of honoured and revered names whose places will be hard to fill.” Well, the Archangel Azrael is usually busy in the early months of the year, and he usually takes a fair toll of great old men and women. But they, as a rule, have done their life’s work, and have been taking an earthly rest. The venerable author of ‘ Father O’Flynn ” took his final jest and departure from life in the last days of the old year. I wonder did he read Old Moore! If ho did, he must have laughed. The real Mac Coy Old Moore tells us that in February “ the question of the Lords versus the Commons will again become a burning topic, discussion in the Lower House becoming more acrimonious.” This is real rich, as Sam Weller would say. When one considers that the House of Lords os the obsequious _ servant of the present majority in the_ Commons, the question of acrimony is good. “ One who is a household word, and is beloved by all, will become seriously ill, and become better,’’ .with public an-

xioty allayed. More trouble in India; better trade with South America, and a valuable chemical discovery; and a terrible shipwreck on our coast with heroic feats by our life boatmen and coastguards—this is February’s budget. Ain’t it orful! But we are promised a full twopennyworth of excitement for the month of March. Hollywood (perhaps jealous of the growing fame of Elstree) will be busy in the courts. There will be a trial in one of the courts of the Western Statesu and it will be shown that drastic efforts are ne'eded to purify America of undesirables. So there now. Trouble with the police; labour troubles in Australia; railway accidents abroad, with one or two earthquakes thrown in, that is what the prophet gives us for March. There is to be a brutal murder in March, and the murderer will escape through the laxity of the police. “ When you see a copper ’eave arf a brick at ’im!” A southern team is to be one of the finalists in the cup. So there, Mr Bee! That is one for Everton, and you, too! HUMAN CREDULITY. I have no time or patience to go through a list of the prophet’s guesses. The marvel is that there are some fools who believe in them, and think that because they are born under one star they are bound to make their fortune, and under another to break their necks! Shepherds, and other workers on the land, have learned , the art of reading the heavens for signs of storms. But these wise observers of Nature never dream of reading political and mundane events in the skies. We know that Pharoah and the Great Kings of Babylon and Persia had their astrologers. But these early astronomers were wise readers of their age, and they could always shape their stories so as to fit them for the ears of kings. One thing is certain. Of human credulity there is no end, It is only the old—and by the old I mean the old of heart and mind—who look at human affairs with any other eyes than the eyes of belief. We all believe that to-morrow will be better than to-day, and, certainly, better than yesterday. For belief is the sunshine of the human heart, shining all the stronger in gloomy weather. No, I am not superstitious. And now, haring paid my income tax, I apt going out to buy a ticket in the Irish Sweep!