N O one who has lived in London through the various
air raids can any longer believe the platitudinous pretension that human fear can only be held in check by discipline and duty. Excitement, curiosity, sheer irresponsibility, the mysterious attrac- tion of risk, the mysterious desire to got to the centre (to be " in it "), and the off-chanco of being useful are each sufficient to overcome fear in the Cockney. The Londoner may call out for official protection, but he will not take common precautions. The authorities complain that if warning be given, it will be regarded as a signal to rush into the streets, see what- can be seen, increase one's experience, add to ones: memories, and have a tale to tell when it is over. NC)1{' it cannot be denied that there is a side to all this light-hearted pluck
with which we have no special need to be pleased. On the other hand, how terribly ashamed we should be if it were otherwise—if the hostile aeroplanes could drive us all to our holes, empty the streets, and -lead every man, woman, and child to take the precautions which it is the duty of all officials to scold and persuade them into. This light-hearted courage of the public must sometimes, we think, seem to those upon whom the fearful thunderbolt has fallen—those who have seen the shattered bodies of their children carried out from the debris of a ruined school--as callousness. Common courage, the sort untinged by conscious sacrifice, has in it such a streak. There is so little refined gold in human nature. It glitters in the quartz. We must not expect to find it in the lump. Complete sympathy and careless courage are found in great natures only ; but it must be remembered that the coward's sympathy is useless, even where it exists. Any- how, there are vast numbers to whom the excitement of a new danger would appear pleasurable, and many others whose ordinary composure it is powerless to ruffle.
During the raid which took place on June 13th a young Lieutenant standing on one of the bridges read a motoring paper in the intervals of looking out for the raiders and listening to the explosions. Women with babies in perambulators charged along • the pavement apparently as merry as their infants, just as wo have all seen nurses at the seaside run to avoid a big wave, and as though a wetting, not destruction, was what the roaring noise portended. Stout old gentlemen as well as boys climbed on to a wall to see what they could, instead of taking cover. " Hardly safe in the streets now!" said a workman, in a tone of something like exultation, in a 'bus, listening with a face of cheerful interest to the quick- travelling news which explained the thundery noise he had been describing. He was an elderly man, and seemed to feel that now he was " in it " like the youngest of them—almost at the front as it were. A very real, if hardly conscious, desire to share the troubles of the soldiers lies very near the spring of this feeling, which is not, however, unconnected with the alert determination of the Londoner not to be bored, to enjoy whatever variety life sends him, even though it be the risk of death. We do not want to be grudging of praise, but we should fall into the danger of sentimentality if we regarded this state of feeling as wholly new or wholly fine. It is partly new and partly laudable, but something of the same kind caused our grandfathers to attend executions.
Another fact strikes us as bearing upon the fearless atti-
tude towards raids which is betrayed in the streets. Deep
interest in a scientific novelty plays its part, especially among mature people. Even righteous rage is for the moment masked by it. The ignorant share to a great extent the time-spirit of the instructed. They know nothing about science, but they arc fascinated, just as the scientific men are fascinated, by all mechanical means of defying what seemed the laws of Nature.
Miracles may be over, but not the appetite of the populace for signs and wonders. Our own aeroplanes have, of course, become a familiar enough sight, but we do not see them at such fell work. That a thing in the sky, not much bigger than a bird, should be able to work havoc in a town thousands of feet below it is a phe- nomenon to strike both pity and fear into momentary abeyance. We are inclined to think that the wonders of the world strike the very young less than they strike the mature. They have not lived in a
world which denied the possibility of what has now happened. Their• memory does not carry them back to a time when such hap- penings were regarded by the old-fashioned as impossible, or by the more open-minded as very far off. In the young curiosity takes the place of astonishment. Watch children at a conjurer's entertain- ment. They would like to find out how he does it, but the marvel does not strike them. The sight of the familiar rabbit is greeted with more cheers than the most wonderful examples of sleight-of- hand. Youth longs for experience, but is often fearfully shocked by it. The sights they have risked their lives to see make a nerve- shattering impression upon them. In many ways they are more sympathetic than the old. " What fearful things are in the world," t hey say to themselves in horror. They cannot add, as their elders do : " But that grim knowledge is nothing new ; it has been with us for years." With the curiosity of the good young goes an ardent desire to be of service. The old realize their own unimportance or impotence against fate.
In considering the facts and emotions which may explain the form of gallantry which the civilian population of London seem always ready to evince one cannot leave out of count the attraction of the tragic, which shows far more in the uneducated than the educated. It has something to do with the spirit of art, which finds other outlets in the learned. It has roots, too, which we dare not dig up, some-
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