Original gatehouse, no longer extant, at present day gate of abbey property
In this talk given September 28, 1973, the author Daniel Sargent asks us to consider “Galloping Time” – in a perhaps ironic and unanticipated way, as we now “gallop” back 50 years, returning to the publication of his talk in the Winter Bulletin of 1974, to relive the moment as if it were yesterday. He himself gallops back yet further in is talk, to an encounter in 1919 with an eponymous Sargent (Father Leonard). The piece provides for us now an animated verbal window into his visits to Portsmouth, and a vivid picture of some of the evolution of the monastery and school.
The title of my talk is "Galloping Time," and those of you who have heard the title may ask me to apologize for saying that time gallops. Don't I know that our chief grudge against time is that it doesn't budge? Rich and poor have this grudge, young and old, saints and sinners. Have I forgotten that Saint Teresa of Avila, when she set up an hour-glass and started to meditate for an hour, became so exasperated with the sands that did not move, that she took up the glass and shook it angrily? - She has told us she did. – I am not apologizing. Time does gallop. We all know it. Because we have immortal longings and can't get immediately what we long for, we do sometimes blame time, saying it halts. But we know better. Nothing can we be more sure of than that time gallops.