at, for a
music-hall song, "Tipperary" was unusually fresh and original. Contrast it
with the maudlin "Keep the home fires burning," which holds the field
to-day, and it touches great art. I never hear it even now on the street
organ without a certain pleasure--a pleasure mingled with pain, for its
happy lilt comes weighted with the tremendous emotions of those
unforgettable days. It is like a butterfly caught in a tornado, a catch of
song in the throat of death.

But it was only a music-hall song after all, and to put it in competition
with Luther's mighty hymn would be like putting a pop-gun against a 12-inch
howitzer. The thunder of Luther's hymn has come down through four
centuries, and it will go on echoing through the centuries till the end of
time. It is like the march of the elements to battle, like the heaving of
mountains and the surge of oceans. In nothing else is the sense of Power so
embodied in the pulse of song. And the words are as formidable as the tune.
Carlyle caught their massive, rugged strength in his great translation:

A safe stronghold our God is still,
A trusty shield and weapon;
He'll help us clear from all the ill
That hath us now o'ertaken....

Yes, on the face of it, it seemed a poor lookout for "Tipperary" against
such a foe. But it wasn't, and any one who knew the English temperament
knew it wasn't. I put aside the fact that for practical everyday uses a
cheerful tune is much better than a solemn tune. "Tipperary" quickens the
step and shortens the march. Luther's hymn, so far from lightening the
journey, would become an intolerable burden. The mind would sink under it.
You would either go mad or plunge into some violent excess to recover your
sanity. It is the craziest of philosophy to think that because you are
engaged in a serious business you have to live in a state of exaltation,
that the bow is never to be unstrung, that the top note is never to be
relaxed. You will not do your business better because you wear a long face
all the time; you will do it worse. If you are talking about your high
ideals all day you are not only a nuisance: you are either dishonest or
unbalanced. We are not creatures with wings. We are creatures who walk. We
have to "foot it" even to Mount Pisgah, and the more cheerful and jolly and
ordinary we are on the way the sooner we shall get over the journey. The
noblest Englishman that ever lived, and the most deeply serious, was as
full of inn