“It is worth the effort”

Time as a river seen from an airplane: one can make out “mountain caves of the mammoth-hunters,” “the smouldering ruins of Carthage,” “smoke rising from factory chimneys,” “the guns of the Great War.” Ahead, “nothing but mist” as the river moves toward an unknown sea:

But now let us quickly drop down in our plane towards the river. From close up, we can see it is a real river, with rippling waves like the sea. A strong wind is blowing and there are little crests of foam on the waves. Look carefully at the millions of shimmering white bubbles rising and then vanishing with each wave. Over and over again, new bubbles come to the surface and then vanish in time with the waves. For a brief instant they are lifted on the wave’s crest and then they sink down and are seen no more. We are like that. Each one of us no more than a tiny glimmering thing, a sparkling droplet on the waves of time which flow past beneath us into an unknown, misty future. We leap up, look around us and, before we know it, we vanish again. We can hardly be seen in the great river of time. New drops keep rising to the surface. And what we call our fate is no more than our struggle in that great multitude of droplets in the rise and fall of one wave. But we must make use of that moment. It is worth the effort.

E.H. Gombrich, A Little History of the World, trans. Caroline Mustill (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).

Gombrich’s book was first published in 1936 as Eine furze Weltgeschichte für jungle Leser [A short world history for young readers]. This passage ends (or appears to end) the original text. Translating and revising at the end of his life, Gombrich added a chapter on the later horrors of the twentieth century, with an affirmation of hope for the future.

Related posts
“Betty’s Graduation” : In the Dark Ages