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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0334.PDF
l/OIED APRIL 20, 1914 Tms morning it became necessary for me at a given hour, as it becomes necessary six mornings in the week, to leave for the office. An umbrella-ring is not an article of such grave importance that it should upset a man's sense of proportion to the extent that he work him self into a pother over the loss of it; yet we know well enough that such trifling circumstances do give us great annoyance, and vex us unnaturally. Why is it these petty happenings tease us out of our ordinary patience? I cannot attempt to explain the workings of the human mind. Great writers on meta physics have attempted the explanation; philosophical works bring us but a glimmering of understanding. Hume, so long ago as late in the eighteenth century, published his TREATISE ON HUMAN NATURE, yet, as he himself tells us, it "Fell still-born from the press." The great and the little have no doubt their places and really exist in the nature of things, yet the smaller happenings are the ones which annoy us most. Is it because they catch us all unprepared? We are pre pared for the big things in life; they are of our daily thoughts. We are conscious of their proximity, of their likelihood to happen for good or ill, and we take due measures. Fortunes are made and lost, stocks rise and fall, men succeed and fail, and because we know of these things as part of life and living, we take them stolidly. We can tabulate the facts and work out conclu sions, seeing clearly that events might easily have terminated otherwise had certain things been done or left .undone, but an umbrella-ring left on an umbrella at night should be there in the morning, unless some body has taken it off. It is unexplainable; we cannot argue it out to a logical conclusion acceptable to our understanding, and we come to loose ends and lose our equanimity in extent out of all proportion to the trouble. There can be no shadow of a doubt in the mind of any man in this country that we are fighting for our very existence. That being so, every man should be doing his uttermost to help on to a glorious victory, for in the great things, what greater can there be than life itself ? And if every man having power in the administration of our resources for attack and defence were asked, he would tell that it is so, that we are of but a single mind, that all that can be done is being done, yet it would appear otherwise. I do not go all out for Parliamentary Reform, yet it would seem as if Parliamentary Reform were the only solution. Parliamentary Reform may be a very good thing, a very good idea, so far as I know. It has been the one thing shouted for adown the ages when trouble was afoot, yet it presents itself to me as having never made very much difference when it has come about. The men in power know quite well what is wanted, how could they do otherwise ? Yet on the face of it, it would appear that they are all set one against the other, to thwart, to bother, to worry, to vex. It creates the idea that each and every one wants to win the war, but thinks to win it single handed, and by his own methods, dis daining the help or suggestions of others. How is it, other wise, that, for instance, such men as Pemberton Billing have to fight tooth and nail to get so much as a straight forward answer to questions of moment? It would certainly seem that Lord Derby and Lord Montagu have resigned from the Joint Air Committee because they set the impossibility of doing any good by remaining. Whatever can be said for or against the present Government, I cannot regard it as a business Government I cannot conceive any one of our great stores being run successfully by a board of directors working on the methods of our Government, yet the business of running a nation successfully must surely be one of greater moment, and one calling for greater unity of purpose in its directors. Nevertheless I am obliged to wait and see. I am obliged to have faith, and to believe blindly. It is con veyed to me as one of the great British public that all is well, that it is not for me to attempt to inquire into the workings of the mighty minds of the men at the helm; that the petty differences of opinion of which I am allowed to read in the daily press have no sub stantial foundation, no real existence, and are but the glimmering reflections of the great work being done beyond the horizon of that which it is permissible to make public. Yet these small matters vex me because they are beyond my understanding, even as the questions of Mr. Billing vex those to whom they are put Not all the questions of " P.B." are material in the fact that the answers to them are essential, but they all matter as little things that vex, and it is only by vexing by a continual bombardment of questions, backed up by a serene and unperturbed temper when receiving evasive answers, or no answer at all, that he may hope to become one who MUST be taken notice of. I was more put about by the loss of that umbrella ring than I might have been over something of far more importance, because it had no right to happen. The House is much put about by ." P.B." because he ought never to have happened, and he would not, could the ruling " party system " have prevented it, and it is one of the small things that vex. Little things unexpected, and continually happening, break down the serenest com posure, even as the little drops of water wear away the stone. The thing most evident to be done is to stop the water. Women, with all their lack of logic, have an in- fallible remedy with fastidious husbands in " Feed the brute." I hop? and think, that " P.B." is not of the sort that can be quieted by feeding, yet I feel sure it will be tried. They will find him a job. And if " P.B." is the man of our opinion, he won't take it. 334
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