LIFE’S ANXIETIES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4219, 4 December 1939, Page 2

LIFE’S ANXIETIES

RELIEVING THE TENSION. What is called tension is a strained condition of the mind, a feeling that something threatening has broken in upon life. However buoyant our temperament, we cannot at present entirely escape from a certain measure of anxiety. We do not allow ourselves to entertain any doubt as to the ultimate issue of the war, but between now and that desired consummation so many things may happen. We are living at the moment in what may prove to be one of the greatest crises in all history. To help in preserving our equanimity we may recall the practice of that extraordinary genius Abraham Lincoln. There were solemn and difficult days in the struggle which continued for about five years, and the northern Government was sorely pressed at times. •Cabinet would meet in the morning, and while waiting for the President were anything but cheery. Suddenly he would enter with a “Good morning, gentlemen. I’ve got a fine story for you.” Presently he had them rocking with laughter. The tension was relieved, the war was forgotten for the moment, and an atmosphere created in which the most serious problems could be tackled. Whether Lincoln knew his Horace or not, he believed with the poet that “joking decides great things stronglier and better oft than earnest can.” The inevitable wag in the army or navy can work miracles by merely saying something so delightfully ridiculous as to overwhelm the company with its humour and restore the equilibrium. Mr Kennedy Williamson, in his charming book “The Uncarven Timbers,” provides several illustrations of the happy art of relieving tension. One of them is that which describes the sence in the House of Commons when the warrant for the execution of Charles I. was lying on the table waiting signatures. Nerves were strung almost to breaking point. Henry Marten, one of the commissioners who had passed sentence, seemed to shrink before the awful task of signing it. “Suddenly a swift hand lifted a pen from the rest on the table, dipped it in the inkwell and drew it across Marten’s face. A ludicrous smear appeared, and an involuntary burst of laughter arose on all sides. . . . The spell was broken; men laughed and chatted freely again. Cromwell knew the art of relieving tension.” With other persons the act might have been taken as an unpardonable insult which demanded revenge, but the occasion and the friendship of the two men obviated disaster. The same author reminds us that in the early eighties of last century a riot took place in the House over the Home Rule Bill. The blood of some Irish members was up, and “they stampeded over the seats in an ugly rush, smashing the wood work in their onset.” The Speaker was sent for, and, grimly surveying the battlefield, he solemnly said: “We shall proceed with the Orders of the Day.” Sir Francis Palgrave (compiler of “The Golden Treasury”) rose as Clerk of the House and announced the next item of business, “The Pistols Bill.” The tumult hushed, and then in a moment broke out again in peals of ungovernable laughter. The Bill was a measure to prevent young people from obtaining firearms, and men thirsting for each other’s gore saw the humour of their dealing with such legislation. The tension disappeared. It will be remembered that at one of the most solemn passages in Macbeth the dramatist introduces the incident of the drunken porter hearing the knocking and imagining himself carrying out the duty of doorkeeper in the nether regions. Endless discussion has' taken place on the wisdom of any such intrusion upon the course of the play, but it seems its purpose was to relieve the strained minds of the audience. We are not all gifted with skill in this difficult work. We cannot produce the humorous word or comment which would transform the scene, but, on the other hand, we should not conclude there is no other way than that of humour. History may provide a substitute. In the Great War the submarine menace was serious, but the men of the navy met it with new weapons and mastered it. The danger created fresh initiative. That is not all that is possible. A backset in a campaign unites the nation as nothing else would, and lifts it to greater heights of self-sacrifice. Tension is relieved by action. It is on record that during a storm at sea a highly nervous person upset the sailors by getting in their way and begging to be allowed to help them. One of them gave him a dangling rope and told him to hold, on to it for dear life. He did so, felt he was doing something useful, and troubled other people no more. Action relieved the tension and created calm. The moral is obvious. A further and sure way of relieving the tension is to recall some of the great crises of our history and how Britain emerged from them and became what she is to-day. She may lose many a battle, but has a remarkable faculty for winning the last one. The Great War had its Retreat from Mons, its Gallipoli, its Somme and its unforgettable “Backs against the Wall” order, but it finally had. its Armistice day. It will help us through any war to remember our tradition and brace ourselves to maintain it. No less is it our duty to assist our Government by refraining from trivial

and carping criticism, by proving our loyalty and unanimity, and by uncomplainingly carrying the financial burden. King Solomon’s happy wording of his historic supplication may minister strength to us in the conflict, “If thy people go out to war against their enemies by the way that thou shalt send them.” Apparently there was such a thing as a righteous war, and those who engaged in it were taught to expect that, given a humble bearing, their cause would be maintained. Faith is the best reliever of tension. “Faith is a confident assurance of that for which we hope; a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see.”