Books, Arts & Manners: Time Remembered

Historical Consciousness: Or the Remembered Past, by John Lukacs (Schocken Books, 409 pp., $13.95)

It was sometimes said of Evelyn Waugh that nearly always, when he looked at his watch, he was disappointed to find the time no later than it actually was. In this, Waugh betrayed a most unhistorical impatience. After all, what else has history to draw upon but time? And what is time but eternity’s reprieve, lest everything happen all at once? Only in Heaven will time be stilled, in that perpetual present that is God’s time. Meanwhile, as every creed of Christendom confirms, between the opening words that speak of God without beginning, and the closing ones that speak of world without end, what is there but time?

RM

About the Author

Regis Martin

Featured Tags

Historical Consciousness: Or the Remembered Past, by John Lukacs (Schocken Books, 409 pp., $13.95)

It was sometimes said of Evelyn Waugh that nearly always, when he looked at his watch, he was disappointed to find the time no later than it actually was. In this, Waugh betrayed a most unhistorical impatience. After all, what else has history to draw upon but time? And what is time but eternity’s reprieve, lest everything happen all at once? Only in Heaven will time be stilled, in that perpetual present that is God’s time. Meanwhile, as every creed of Christendom confirms, between the opening words that speak of God without beginning, and the closing ones that speak of world without end, what is there but time?