New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-07-02
British Pageant of Fate
Watched in Stole Calm
How England Is Meeting Climax of National Drama Told
by J. l.. OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES Feel Like Figures
Of Play Within Play.
by ]. |. GARNIN.

by J. l. GARVIN.
London, June 90 Not until IL is nj
over shall We understand these times
when. with serious souls but with a
pulse hardly moved by the best Of JOY
or the worst Of i'll, we passed through
things that will seem strange and in
credible while the world lasts. After
ward they will be remembered forever
Now nothing is Il nine-days' wonder
so crowded is this pageant of fate
with national drama and per
sona tragedy; so hard do events
tread on one another's heels; so urgent
is the necessity. no matter what hap
pens, Of giving instant thought to
what may succeed. | suppose this
summer, perhaps this month. will be
as momentous as any month or any
summer since man imagined calendars
or the sun rose and set.
In one week We missed another
Trafalgar but flung back the whole
battered German fleet into its har.
bors; and we lost Lord Kitchener in
circumstances more like an early saga
or a medieval chronicle than any cpl
sode we ever expected to see in mod
ern life.
What themes for tho Shakespeare
Of the future, if the human mind
throws off like night the monotony
Of all its modern routine and some
new morning change in the whole
thought and spirit of white civiliza-
ton brings with utter freshness a
Shakespeare again! | say this because
the more we know that we are part
of these mighty agencies disturbing
the earth the more we feel like shad-
ows and figures Of a play within a
play
Reality and Illusion.
Let me leave in passing a curious
psychological impression which may
arrest some one far hence In another
generation. turning over some old, old
files of The Tribune TO find materials
for the writing of considered history
on Gibbons scale. The more real
things are. and the more prodigious IN
reality the less we feel them 10 be
truc Men who went through the
hellish din and destruction OF the
naval battle off Skagerrak confess 70
having been in similar mood wnile
the action lasted. We have no time
IN no sclf-conscious. We feel IKE
detached spectators Of our own al
fairs and the illusion is that we are
massive and infinitely remote beings
tbough we know in fact that IN our
different spheres we are workihs WIZ"
o,.orv fbre of body and mind.
The Young 60 as the leaves tall. by
600 and land. since | wrote last, thou,
sende Of our brayest have gone, ana az
80 ms who are older Wonder oddly why
,,,o oro left we wonder. that is, wheH
Voc have moment 10 turn our mlnd.
rom the immediate business that mus'
60 on.
Equality of the Sexes.
We, sorrow is calm, stoicism IN
.haten nurpose unmoyed, judgment
- efort not abated but increased
ord If ANYTHING, better and more
C,,;otl, ordered than before. lrqlyi
I'm H. n rcdoubtable being, unaware AT
o-d;,arv times of his own capacity
And with man ! name woman OhS
r,otbers the wives, the sisters ana
JauChters. who are stricken. but MAKE max,
~ 1ause in their duty. No one taIhs
inequality Of the sexes now. 80.
one thing more let me say. Nnen
ro think that there is country Ike
t,o limited States, where there Is no
y.ar we have another illusion, OuI
senso of physical distance seems al
.orod and the United States seems as
So. awav as jupiter or Saturn from
tbis convulsed side Of the earth, wnere
The destinies of all civilization are
n there were any chance before that
pri+oir would finch before this WORK
has been put clean through to toi,
crabIe issue there is none now An
Int has hammered by land and sea mas
ba~1onod the Allies temper IN the
st,poglo and. above all, has hardened
Rr;tain's temper. She would hght on
,,.;,bout moments hesitation II she
nod "a fight alone More and more
10 ,ve know her to be what she always
was.
Tests Strengthen Britain.
sec around me here something as
imprcssiye as that when - caileq
German efficiency something whlch
think will gradually prove itselI 20 De
deeper and a greater thing. AlteI a.,
we are intellectually strengthened D!
our knowledge that Britain IN inc pas
won't through sterner tests than an!
There was a period when Pitt had
90 cone not only against the rising
conius Of Napoleon on land, but agalnsII
etronc faction In Parliament ana
ovo, mutinv in the feet, though the
i,,,,as;on of ireland was threatened and
rebellion approaching. There was an,
Thor time when we lost Nelson and
pitt Fox following not so long after
whom tho fortunes Of the Continental
war we're AT their very worst, ana
,.ben after more than ten years
struggle. Waterloo was still nearly an
other ten years away.
Such memories 30 unawares 70 frame
q moral habit in people. ne MS
torical experiences Of a nation are part
of its life. like the personal experience
If an Individual. So much TO explain
the singular mood Of calmness and al
rnost Of detachment with which the ma
ton has received the alterations oil
Good and bad in the events OF recent
days.
Sadness for Kitchener.
Underneath there Is an infinite 50 l.
ness for Kitchener. In the rougp
~" - u clnnr rirht along the