“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.