Editorial: Hearts Do Break (11-13-40)

The Pittsburgh Press (November 13, 1940)

I DARE SAY —

Hearts Do Break

By Florence Fisher Parry

If you are one who has never known heartbreak, skip this column, for you will not believe its contents. But if you are one who has, indeed, known symptoms of this malady, you will know as well as I, that what kills many mortals is a broken heart.

The death of Neville Chamberlain makes us remember others like him who died because the weight of disappointment was too much for their hearts to bear. Of course, the one that comes most quickly to mind is our own President Woodrow Wilson who, too, could not survive the terrible ordeal of having lived beyond his supreme hour.

It seems to me that if all the deaths that noble men can die, the saddest by far is the death that comes after one has outlived one’s fame.

Every day men die before their time – before their work is done. There seems to be in a death like this, a tragic waste of loss.

Perhaps the saddest death recorded is that of Abraham Lincoln; for never in history, surely, was a single man more needed and never did a death plunge a land into such utter darkness. Yet who is to say what added immortality Lincoln took on through being written down by history – a Martyr. One needs only think of what might have been the glory of Napoleon Bonaparte had he been killed before Waterloo. Or Wilson at Versailles.

A Broken Man

Neville Chamberlain died a broken man, a failure. Yet had his death come two years ago, he would have been saved ignominy, and would have gone to his grave serene in the conviction that he had been indeed the savior of the empire he loved so well. His belated death, pathetic as it is, reminds us all that we indeed trifle with the terrible vagaries of destiny when he would add one day to anyone’s life.

Oh, we do not need to cast about for notable names to be reminded of the great mercy of death. I dare say, there are few of you who, reading these words now, would not be reminded of someone very close and dear whose death seemed, at the time, the cruelest kind of blow, and yet, in the light of what has happened since, has been found to be the merciful act of a benignant Nature. Am I alone in this thought? I cannot believe so.

Here I sit deliberately conjuring faces of those I loved best, whose recall would mean the world and all, to me. Yet would I, if I could, have them returned? No, never.

What is wrong, I keep wondering, what is wrong with this world that we dare not even wish the dead back? What has happened since they died to turn the world so very much awry that we would not have them endure the shock that would be theirs if they were to return and see the plight that has come to us within a few brief years?

Ten-twelve years, that is not so long. But looking back we realize that it marked the end of the era, and that since then most of the standards that they lived by, our beloveds, and that made their lives productive and secure, have broken away like signposts in a wind.

Now, they were stronger than we; took hardships better; could fight more robustly. Then why do we keep saying of them as we do: I am glad they are not here… they could not have stood all this!

The Fault is Ours

These are defeatist words. They are not worthy of our forebears, and in our hearts we know they are not true. It is we who have not the courage for life. It is we who are letting it slip through our fingers. In our hearts we know that they had remained, they would have found a way. It is an indictment of ourselves when we dare not wish them back, for it is an admission that we are ashamed of the debacle which we have let overtake us.

So let us away with these defeatist signs. Let us acknowledge what we know to be true – that if those stalwarts were here now, they would be rolling up their sleeves and taking their bold stance before this tottering world; showing the same resolute will as that with which they cleared the land, built their cabins and tore a living from the soil; bequeathing, finally, a great industrial security to their progeny.

Yes, they could tackle this world again. Ans shame us with the strength and faith of their indomitable will.

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