PATRICK KIDD
MERSES PROFUNDO; PULCHRIOR EVENIT. Nomatter how low things get, they return all the more glorious. The words of the poet Horace, not one of life’s gloomsters, were deployed by the historian H.S. Altham in the 1940 Wisden Cricketers’ to raise wartime spirits. He described visiting the , its treasures sent away for safekeeping, and looking out upon the “wondrous green” turf, with Old Father Time turning serenely above the Grand Stand. The sight brought him reassurance that misery would be transitory. “It would take more than totalitarian war to put an end to cricket,” Altham reflected.
