Tu-Whit, Tu-Whoo!

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Title:     Tu-Whit, Tu-Whoo!
Author: A. G. Gardiner [More Titles by Gardiner]

There are two voices that are most familiar to me on this hillside. One is the voice of the day, the other of the night. Throughout the day the robin sings his song with unflagging spirit. It is not a very brilliant song, but it is indomitably cheerful. Wet or fine, warm or cold, it goes on through the November day from sunrise to sunset. The little fellow hops about, in his bright red waistcoat, from tree to tree. He flutters to the fence, and from the fence to the garden path, and so to the door and into the kitchen. If you will give him decent encouragement he will come on to your hand and take his meal with absolute confidence in your good faith. Then he will trip away and resume his song on the fence.

There are some people who say hard things about the robin--that he is selfish and "gey ill to live wi'" and so on--but to me he seems the most cheerful and constant companion in nature. He is a bringer of good tidings--a philosopher who insists that we are masters of our fate and that winter is just the time when there is some sense in being an optimist. Anybody, he seems to say, can be an optimist when the days are long and the air is warm and worms are plentiful; but it is just when things are looking a little black and the other fellows begin to grouse that I put on my brightest waistcoat, tune up my best whistle, and come and tell you that the unconquerable soul is greater than circumstance.

The other voice comes when night has descended and the valley below is blotted out by the darkness. Then from the copse beyond the orchard there sounds the mournful threnody of the owl. The day is over, he says, and all is lost. "Tu-whit, tu-whoo." I only am left to tell the end of all things. "Tu-whit, tu-whoo." I've told it all before a thousand times, but you wouldn't believe me. "Tu-whit, tu-whoo." Now, you can't deny it, for the night is dark and the wind is cold and all the earth is a graveyard. "Tu-whit, tu-whoo." Where are the songs of spring and the leaves of summer? "Tu-whit, tu-whoo." Where the red-cheeked apple that hung on the bough and the butterfly that fluttered in the sunshine? All, all are gone. "Tu-whit, tu-whoo ... Tu-whit, tu-whoo ... Tu-whit, tu-whoo...."

A cheerless fellow. Some people find him an intolerable companion. I was talking at dinner in London a few nights ago to a woman who has a house in Sussex, and I found that she had not been there for some time.

"I used to find the owl endurable," said she, "but since the war I have found him unbearable. He hoots all night and makes me so depressed that I feel that I shall go mad."

"And so you come and listen to the owl in London?" I said.

"The owl in London?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "the owl that hoots in Carmelite Street and Printing House Square."

"Ah," she said, "but he is such an absurd owl. Now the owl down in the country is such a solemn creature."

"He says a very foolish thing
In such a solemn way,"

I murmured.

"Yes, but in the silence and the darkness there doesn't seem any answer to him."

"Madame," I said, "if you will look up at the stars you will find a very complete answer."

I confess that I find the owl not only tolerable but stimulating. I like to hear the pessimist really let himself go. It is the nameless and unformed fears of the mind that paralyse, but when my owl comes along and states the position at its blackest I begin to cheer up and feel defiant and combative. Is this the worst that can be said? Then let us see what the best is, and set about accomplishing it. "The thing is impossible," said the pessimist to Cobden. "Indeed," said that great man. "Then the sooner we set about doing it the better." Oh, oh, say I to my owl, all is lost, is it? You wait till the dawn comes, and hear what that little chap in the red waistcoat has to say about it. He's got quite another tale to tell, and it's a much more likely tale than yours. I shall go to bed and leave you to Gummidge in the trees until the sun comes up and tells you what a dismal fraud you are.

"Tu-whit, tu-whoo," hoots the owl back at me.

Yes, my dear sir, but you said that last night, and you have been saying it every night I have known you, and always the sun comes up and the spring comes round again and the flowers bloom, and the fields are golden with harvest.

"Tu-whit, tu-whoo."

Oh, bother you. You ought to be a Daily Mail placard.

No doubt the owl is quite happy in his way. Louis XV. expressed the owlish philosophy when he said, "Let us amuse ourselves by making ourselves miserable." I have no doubt the wretched creature did amuse himself after his fashion. I have always thought that, secretly, Mrs. Gummidge had a roaring time. She really enjoyed being miserable and making everybody about her miserable. I have known such people, and I daresay you have known them, too--people who nurse unhappiness with the passion of a miser. They are having the time of their lives now. They go about saying, "Tu-whit, tu-whoo! The Russians are beaten again, or if they are not beaten they will be. Tu-whit, tu-whoo! We're slackers and slouchers and the Germans are too many for us. Tu-whit, tu-whoo. They're on the way to India and Egypt, and nothing will stop them. All, all is lost." But I notice that they enjoy a beef-steak as much as anybody, and do not refuse their soup though they salt it with their tears.

I like that story of Stonewall Jackson and the owl. The owl was a general, and he rushed up to Jackson in the crisis of the first battle of Bull's Run, crying "All is lost! We're beaten!" "Oh," said Jackson, "if that's so I'd advise you to keep it to yourself." Half-an-hour later the charge of Jackson's brigade had won the battle. I do not know what happened to the owl, but I daresay he went on "Tu-whit-ing" and "Tu-whoo-ing" to the end. The owl can't help being an owl.

Ah, there is little red waistcoat singing on the fence. Let us find a worm for the philosopher....

[The end]
A. G. Gardiner's essay: Tu-Whit, Tu-Whoo!

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