THE EMPIRE'S CHIMES

Evening Star, Issue 21743, 11 June 1934, Page 11

THE EMPIRE'S CHIMES

Wireless having brought the voice of Big. Ben into so many millions of homes in. this and other lands, it would have been-a matter for surprise had the two months of silence which, in the interests of the clock, is being imposed upon! it not been the occasion of controversy,” says the ‘Glasgow Herald.’ . “ The Vicar of, St. Augustine’s, Highgate, would have us agree the bell is the worst of its, size in the world. _ Not only is its shape wrong, but _ it is cracked, and there is (so the vicar alleges) a large piece of the fabric missing. “ The voice of Big Ben is eloquent of", these infirmities, and (so runs the case of detractors), it ill becomes the first city of what is still the first Empire of the world that it should be content with a. hell so obviously second rate.

“ Against this thesis, the founders who have both cast and recast the bell raise a protest so reasonable that we cannot but join them in it. Big Ben, they admit, could be cast again. What blemishes it has could be purged with fire,' the metal could be made to flow again into a new mould. “But—and here, indeed', lies the yery crux of the case against recasting bell which would emerge when the mould was- broken would not. however manifold its perfections of shape and sound, be Big Ben. There would he a sweet-voiced alien at the Empire’s very heart. “No longer would its heavy stroking of six, heard on the edge of the Sahara at, let the astronomicallyminded tell us what hour, conjure up the clock’s round moon of a face and carry the exile’s thoughts round to the wet winter pavements of the Embankment gleaming under the long chain of lemon lamps. George Herbert admonishes us that we should. “ ‘ Think when the bells do chime

’Tis angels’ music.’ Those who, far away, hear Big Ben chime hear cadences less celestial, but who .shall say the sound is less deeply moving? “ The bellfounders, while admitting that dfefects exist, seek to place them in proportion. The crack is there, but it is a small crack. A piece of the bell is wanting, but it is a _ small piece, and one deliberately excised lest the crack should spread. • “Is there no. human parallel to be drawn from this ? Not all of us are sonorous, not all of us even sweet. But may not our defects be like Big Ben’s, slight imperfections which make us personal and therefore valuable? Only a foolish preacher would want all humanity cast anew. “The wise one recognises, like the bellfounders, that in minor cacophonies there is much that may be loved and respected. The consolation of imperfect humanity must always be that oven in faults there are merits, that each of us in his own small way is a Big Ben.”