The Ivy-Covered Porch by Dr F W Boreham.

Another essay from F W Boreham's desk.

On the manuscript it appears that F W Boreham read this essay as a talk on radio. In pencil he has written: 3LO [the name of the Melbourne radio station], 6.30, May 15, No.1 [the first talk in a series?] and Duration 8’00”.

Who that has spent delicious hours exploring the idyllic grace of the English countryside, has not been charmed by the quaint and simple beauty of the porches, by which the wayside cottages are invariably adorned? Even in tiny hamlets in which the thoroughfare is destitute of pavements, these pretty porches, draped with ivy, or honeysuckle, or rambler roses, jut out into the roadway, imparting a spice of romance to a scene that might otherwise have verged upon the commonplace. And in those more frequent cases in which you view the rural home across an old-fashioned garden of hollyhocks, delphinium, carnations, marguerites, lobelias, nasturtium, wallflowers, sweet williams and clematis, the porch is still the most intriguing object on the picturesque horizon.

Now a porch is far more than a porch. It has a history. Indeed, it has made history.  in the old days, before newspapers were introduced, and before wireless were dreamed of, village Hampdens sat with their cronies in these porches to discuss the fate of the throne and the destiny of the nation. The British Empire, it has been said, was built in a chimney-corner. But the chimney corner was essentially a winter-time institution. Nobody wanted to sit in a chimney-corner in the long summer evenings, when one could hear the shouts of the boys at play on the village green and watch the bats fluttering around the eaves in the gathering twilight.  On those soft, fragrant evenings, three or four men sat and smoked, and talked in these crazy old porches; and in the porches, they determined the rise and fall of rival administrations.

It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that all the associations connected with the porch are concerned with those solemn occasions, on which it was occupied by three or four. Even the oldest of the old people were young once, although you might not think so. And, in those days, there were times when the rose-covered porch was monopolised by two, and when any third-comer, would have felt instinctively that there was no room for him.  The memories of the old folks may be failing; but they do not forget those honeyed hours, and it is because of such golden recollections, in memory’s hallowed background that the thought of the porch is to them so instinct with the atmosphere of romance.

The porch represents a tradition. It is a monument to our genius for prefaces, prologues and preliminary flourishes. It is typical of our formal and ceremonious way of approaching a thing. In passing through the porch, you entered the house gradually; in the absence of a porch, you entered the house abruptly. The porch somehow appeal to your faculty for preparation. In the porch, you involuntarily reminded yourself of the respect due to the people on whom you were calling, and refreshed your mind as to the business that had brought you to their door.  The porch created an atmosphere; and the creation of that atmosphere, gave tone to the interview that followed. They liked a porch.

But we have dispensed with the necessity for such formalities. We see no more need for a porch to a house than for a preface to a book; and has the twentieth century ever caught itself reading a preface?  We demand that our orators shall plunge right away into the very heart of their subjects. There must be no beating about the bush; no hovering on the brink; no preparatory scraping of the violin. If the joint is ready for carving, why waste time in toying with the knives and forks?

The matter has social implications of some importance. What of the formal introduction by means of which a mutual friend acts as sponsor for the two people whom he brings together?  I once heard Mr Menzies tell a story of eight men who had been marooned for a year on a desert island. When rescued, they were asked how they had spent their time. The two Irishman had spent the year fighting; the two Scotsman had been occupied with the formation of a Caledonian society;  The two Australians had, if I remember rightly, spent their time laying out a football ground; whilst the two Englishman had not spoken, for, unfortunately, they had never been introduced! They insisted, that is to say, on entering the domain of friendship by means of the conventional porch; and rather than enter, save through the porch, they would not enter at all!

In his New Machiavelli, Mr H G Wells has a passage in which he contrast the old days of the indispensable introduction with the modern code by which anybody can speak to anybody. A young fellow sees on the street a girl who attracts him: he pauses, tosses away his cigarette, diffidently approaches, raises his hat, smiles, and the thing is done. We have cut out the preliminaries; we have dispensed with the old-fashioned porch; we no longer insist upon a formal introduction; but it is not quite clear, whether we are the richer, or the poorer, the better or the worse, for the change.

Or glance at another porch. Is there anything more delightful than to watch a young couple who have recently become engaged? There is a sense in which the engagement makes no difference; they felt that they belong to each other before their troth was actually plighted, or the engagement would never have been made. And yet on the other hand, there is a sense in which the engagement makes all the difference. But yesterday there was a shadow of shyness, a suspicion of embarrassment, when, in the presence of others, they were thrown together. Today they appropriate each other with a proud and pleasing confidence; they are even gratified, rather than confused, when other eyes are on them. When, with her lady friends, she loves to show an exaggerated and almost matronly interest in all kinds of household and domestic affairs;  he, in the presence of other gentleman, displays pleasure when the conversation turns to architecture, horticulture, and similar themes. In a way, life is just as it was: in a way, it is positively transfigured. They are not where they were – on the public thoroughfare; they are not where they will be – in the home. They are in the porch; and the porch, to them, at any rate, is smothered, with sweet-smelling honeysuckle, and the most fragrant roses.

And, for that matter, is it not by way of a porch that we enter into life itself? We do not burst suddenly out of the everywhere into here. There are long months during which we hover shyly on the threshold.  It is a time full of mystery and wonder and fluttering anticipation on the part of those whose home we are about to enter. What thoughtful preparations for our entrance are there going forward.

Little caps in secrets sewn,
And hid in many a quiet nook.

And what dream-faces haunt their fancy as they try to conjure up the likeness of the form, they will soon embrace. The newcomer is in the porch, and a fresh sacredness enters into life at the very thought of his entrance. It is part of life‘s deep and awful sanctity.

But whilst a part of that mystery, it is only a part. For one of the most insistent instincts of our humanity assures us that, just as the prenatal existence was the portal of this life, so this life itself is but the vestibule of a still grander one.  We say with Addison –

It must be so! Plato thou reasonest well;
Else win this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
’Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
’Tis heaven itself that points out a hereafter
And intimates eternity to man.

That subtle sense is the one passion within us that grows stronger as others weaken and decay. We dumbly feel, too, that a passion is a promise. We hold with Emerson that, as the migratory instinct of the swallow is evidence of lands beyond the sea, so this wistful awareness of infinity is proof of a splendour of which we are at present standing on the threshold.