The Washington times., 1917-02-01
Saving Daxlixht.


This Saving Daylight idea may be
all right, for some people. Some peo-
pie may like to rise. twittering, from
the downy when the opalescent. pale
absinthe Of dawn fills that inverted
cocktail glass we call the sky. Per
sonalIy, we have always regarded this
haste to be up and doing with q
heart for any fate as ungentlemanly.
And, as Tony Lumpkin, or somebody,
remarked to somebody else. damn
anything as amt genteel.
There is too much daylight already
in the world for our taste. 1t hurts
our eyes in the mornings when We
are trying to sleep. And 1t lasts too
long in the afternoons when we are
hoping that 1t will soon be time to
quit work
We couldn't object to the daylight
In itself IL there did not persist in
the world a disposition to make work
ing hours more or less Approximate
has the sort of job that he can toss
off in q couple OF hours of daylight
runs counter to public opinion IL he
doesn't somehow manage to act busy
during the rest OF the day.
The mania for work and the desire
to get more done in the daylight
hours can be readily traced back to
a misconception OF the relative values
of time and eternity. There is .
theory that time Is SO precious that
II should all be consumed in activity.
Nothing could be more mischievous
nor more essentially irreligious. The
only value of time Is to prepare the
human spirit for eternity. And the
only preparation the human spirit
needs for eternity is to grasp three
or four great truths. A person who
works at learning these truths an
hour or so every day has done all
that should be reasonably expected
of him The thing that is really val
liable is not time at all, but eternity.
Eternity, according to all accounts,
is going to last a long while; one
thing that we should learn from time
is the capacity for leisure. SO that
we will know how to behave becom-
ingIy when we reach eternity.
What could be more ridiculous or
offensive to the sight OF gods or an
gels than a breathless human soul
rushing headlong from time into eter-
nifty all grossly believed with the
sweat of overwork? The calm i'm
mortals would set II aside to cool
before deigning to converse with 1t.
The essence of optimism Is a belief
in tomorrow. II you believe in to-
morrow, you will not hurry to get
things done, but will accommodate
your ardor to the pace of the deliber-
ate universe. And IL you do not be-
lIeya in tomorrow, why hasten to get
things done? For II there is to be no
tomorrow, what you do amounts to
nothing.
There Is a vast deal of activity In
the world that does not contribute to
any real progress; there is about IL
only a temporal illusion OF progress.
Nine-tenths of our endeavor is of
this sort. Our study should be to do
only the tenth that Is of real value
and do It very slowly and In harmony
with the great slow movements of
the cosmos. The nine-tenths OF our
time that is now wasted in fruitless
and hampering activity should be de-
voted to rest and to observing the
cosmos so that we can be sure that
the other tenth is used discriminating
lS
The idea of an hour more OF day
light in the world is horrible to us.
For no matter what they say, the peo-
pIe who advocate II really want II
for the purpose of putting more pep,
punch, ginger, vim, efficiency, kick,
gin into the world-into a world that
IA already so full OF these qualities
that we find It increasingly difficult
TO live in II and retain our serenity.
Saving daylight Saving It for
what? why, to work in! We have
gone I'D against a lot of these
schemes in the past; people are for
ever telling us that we should do so
and so; and every last one of these
svstems has turned out to be some
demnabIe device to get more work
out of US. We have got to the place
where we can't be fooled any longer;
when we see an idea of this sort bob
bling UP we feel instinctively that II
is an enemy of ours. and we draw a
long breath and strafe It on its bony
occiput. DON MARQUIS.