Page:Lesbia Newman - Dalton - 1889.djvu/321

 September and of October arrive before the game has got properly strong on the wing; in short, every old custom, and every time-honoured association, has been thrown out of gear, for no good or practical purpose whatever. Russia and Greece only have had the good sense to stand firm and resist an innovation which represented nothing in the way of genuine improvement, but only a fidgety pedantry.’

‘Still, Mr Bristley,’ observed Friga, ‘there are dates connected with the Gregorian style which are associated with much we set store by in our national history, such as Waterloo on the 18th of June, Trafalgar on the 5th of October—’

‘Or Queenstown on the 13th, to finish,’ returned the vicar. ‘Yes, but would not these several dates be equally ‘glorious’ if they were called the 6th of June, the 23rd of September, and the 1st of October, as they are called in Russia? You see the date of an event, such as a battle, a birth, or what not, is as good for one nominal date as for another: old style or new style is no matter. But we are accustomed to associate the progress of the calendar months with that of the seasons, the growth of light and heat, or of darkness and cold, and with the effects of those changes on vegetation. That is why I complain that the change of style has uselessly taken much of the poetry out of life. By all means, I grant you, let us have a rigorous, strict, thoroughly exact, and scientific mode of reckoning and marking time, such as the sidereal system, one which by its irrefragable mathematical certainty shall command the assent of all educated mankind and be wholly independent of creeds and traditions. Be it so, by all means; the sooner the better. As rational beings, we are bound to give up our cherished fancies, when the question is between them and the proclamation to all the world of a clear, common truth which sheds light and creates stability. That of