LOOKING AT LIFE

Evening Star, Issue 21621, 17 January 1934, Page 8

LOOKING AT LIFE

TWO NOVELISTS TALK “EXPERIENCE WORTH WHILE" Mr Hugh Walpole, the novelist, recently addressed the Women’s Institute Conference at Carlisle, and another novelist, Mr John Buchan, also spoke at a women’s function in the city. Both speeches were reported in the Carlisle ‘ Journal.’ Mr Hugh Walpole said;—

1 am sure that in this room to-day you are mainly divided into optimists or else, I will not say a pessimist, because that is a thing altogether of the past, but what i might call despairist. ’ , . , , The thing about the despainst is that he comes a great deal more closely than he imagines to the optimist. .1 am an optimist. The real difference between the optimist and, shall we say, the pessimist, is that, on the whole, the former feels that life—for experience and for some definite reason you can give—is worth while. The other individuals, sometimes with a very fine bony and sarcasm, consider on the whole that life is not worth while. . , There are three ways of examining the possibilities that can be set up by the denial of life and the feeling that it is not worth while. There is, firstly, your own attitude to iit'ej secondly , there is your attitude to life with regard to the social state in. which you may be; and, thirdly, there is your relationship which has in the past twenty years been somewhat forgotten —to the universe or to God. Those three reasons, if studied for a moment, will show /us very quickly whether there is any kind of reason tor supporting belief in that curious adventure in which we are concerned. A TIME OF TRANSITION. In regard to ourselves 1 doubt whether anything we feel to-day is in any way different from what every individual has felt in the last 2,UOU years of civilisation. The pessimist has grown to feel that, after all the thousands of years of advanced civilisation, there is no longer any moral law to which any individual must be responsible. Lite at one end has been reduced to the struggling of mere thousands ot atoms, and at the other it has grown to the* vast planetary sysThc pessimist asks whether human beings in all those years have learned a single thing or learned even the first thing, that of loving one’s neighbours. They point to the Germans, Japanese. Chinese, Russians,, Americans, and British living under a constant and increasingly dangerous state of fear, despair, and dismay. So says the pessimist, and he will lead you on to the question of destiny, God, and purpose Now I am going to tell you what J feel after looking at things from all sides, to be true. I would say that 1920-40 is a time of great historical transition, and these times occur again and again in history. The first step towards being an optimist is to encourage and develop in one’s self a sense of proportion. . ... , All the people who write gloomy articles in the newspapers look at things at the immediate moment, or five oi ten years back. They look to the war, to the young men who do not care, to the mass savagery of nations,' and to the expulsion of Jews from Germany The first thing an optimist must do is to look backwards and forwards in proportion. . . . FORTUNATE EXPERIENCE. There has never been a time when so much of the world has been so actively aliye. You see, for example, the crusadh against slums. Now it seems that the whole world is aware that it must do something about its destiny, lhat is one reason why I aiu an optimist. Religion seems to be at the heart and base of every single question. I believe people are more honest about religion than ever before. That is also a good reason for optimism. _ Looking back, and looking forward, and taking a long enough reach, I defy anyone who really studies history and the testimony of the wise men who have lived, to deny that life is an experience it is fortunate to have.

Mr John Buchan, M.P., speaking at the Carlisle Women’s Luncheon Club, said:—

The interests of human life are endless, and the more voracious a human boing is about them the better for him. It is better that a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, because that-kmd of curiosity is the best thing to keep one y There are two sides of life in which 1 think all of us must be interested in our leisure moments. The first is that world-wide realm which we enter by reading. All our lives are necessarily circumscribed, but through the medium of books we can enter into a thousand different worlds and see a thousand new types of character. , , The busiest men I have known have been men who have known how to put their leisure to the best possible use in this way. I know a very eminent engineer who has made himself a firstclass philosopher by his private reading ; an eminent civil servant, who, in the same way, has made valuable contributions to mathematical science, and by far the best ornithologist I know is a member of the present Cabinet. TOO MANY NOVELS. Too many of us read too many novels. I say, although I write them, that to read too many novels is like making one’s meals off the kind of wafers that are served with ices. If you want to serve your leisure with good reading you must really get more solid fare. • The other proper use of leisure is to keep in touch with the natural world. We are all getting terribly learned today, and the more learned we get we discover our loss and begin to yearn fpr the other side. We have got now and again to get the dust of our civilisation shaken out of us, and to get into touch with that other and simple world which was long before we were and will be long after we have gone. Games will not give it to you. Games will give you exercise and fresh air, but even great games like polo in youth and golf in your old age will not give it to you. Sports of the right kind will. You need not have a gun in your hand to get it. The wilderness is next door, it is across the road to those who really hear its call. It is always waiting. We all live to-day pretty hustled lives, but in the great crises of life we must be alone. We are all alone in death, and I think that perhaps the Greatest of all the fruits of leisure is to e able to make terms with our soiils, to understand ourselves and to get our sense of values put right.