The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1919-10-29
TURNING BACK

We have turned back the clocks and we are all an hour
younger. Would that we could turn back 80 or 40 years instead
OF 90 minutes. When Elizabeth Akers Allen wrote her famous
poem, beginning, Backward, turn backward, Q Time, in your
flight" she expressed a yearnng that everyone feels now and
then, and especially when the dials of time admonish us that the
sun has passed the meridian and is on its downward course. lhe
present. which we looked forward to with such high hopes, IS
tiresome and tawdry and we would have the tresh Vlgor OF
youth and manhood as our guest once more albeit we did not
fully appreciate it when it was with us.
Youth, health and strength! How poor and mean are money
and wealth as compared to these!
Life to most people is a labor OF Genus. According to tale
and fable Genus spent much time in twisting a hay rope which
ne threw behind him as soon as completed. 1t was seized and
dcvoured by an ass as fast as it was made lime OF ancient
Chronos devours our rope so that no matter what we do 1t enters
the nav OF the past and is gone forever. Nothing OF lie is ours
save the present moment. What is to come belongs to the future
What comes to us tarries but an instant, when 1t is gathered INTO
that other eternity. the past, and is forever gone from US what
the future withholds from us and what the past takes from us
leaves us on a narrow isthmus with small store, indeed uat we
may call ours. 1t bchooves us to make most OF What niue IS
given us for the moment, time included, because time Is also as
fleeing and will soon be gone from us. There is no turning
back the wheels of the years. The springs return to be followed
by summer, autumn and winter, but the springhme OF le' once
nassed. we see no more. There is no return. In the next lie
there NAV be perpetual youth among other blessings, let us nope
We solemniy passed a law requiring that we set forward our
timepieces one hour so that when six O'Clock arrived te ume-
piece would say seven and thus hasten us to our duties we
fooled ourselves in this manner for a year or so IKE chloren
playing the game of make-beneve. Then we tired OF the decep,
t;on nractced on ourselves and solemnly repealed the law and
returned to the old way, making our tinepieces point out the
hours as formerly. And, after all, marking time is an arbitrary
act. When the sun reaches a certain point in the heavens we
saw that il is Il O'Clock, We could call IT = or ~ o croe u any
other hour lust as we'll. The foolish part of the whole proceed
Inc i for sensible people TO attempt to dupe and deceive them
selves by a mechanical continuance called a clock or a watch
The calendars and alranacs tell us that the sun rises at a certain
ho,r and sets at a certain hour. We could name any other hours
out Of the "a and things would adjust themselv Ives in time Under
our Typographical division of time it sometimes happens tnt
when It is II o'clock in one side OF a city II is O'CLOCK IN inc
other. Annoying to people Ir a u"e uh'i "y
TO it. r.,
However, as only the present moment is ours. it matters little
whether we call il six or seven or any other number II IS worm
lace IN n unless w make good use OF II. Hours @ n MINUTES WHs
spent can never be recalled, no matter what Our hmepieces may
call them