"Yes, fundamentally one must remain neutral, but in relation to present
circumstances one cannot remain neutral. It is our business to arraign
England, our own country, and not Germany. It is for every nation to
discover its own faults. There are many Germans of courage and honesty
who will condemn their country for the crimes she has committed. But
condemnation from outside is useless and is always discredited. In all
probability the Allies and the Central Powers are both equally bad, and
to denounce the enemy only is mere yelping with the rest of the savage,
vindictive pack."
"That is true, but what is the good of saying it, or thinking it!
Ignorance, prejudice, and intellectual dishonesty are far stronger than
you are. The depravity of mankind is such that only failure and
humiliation will carry conviction. Mere words are only wasted. If any
nation is completely defeated in this war, then its people will rise
against its rulers, whether they are guilty or not, and they will fix
all the responsibility of war upon them and upon themselves. There will
be a frenzy of self-accusation--whether just or unjust it doesn't
matter--and as for the victors, they will say: 'Our enemies admit their
guilt, so what further proof is needed?' Where the _real_ guilt is, that
is an irrelevant and trivial question. Success or failure will be the
sole ultimate criterion. There is only one hope for the world--that
failure will be so evenly distributed that there will be anxious
heart-searchings in every country. Failure alone makes ignorant people
think. Success is taken for granted. Even after a single battle lost,
the Press is full of explanations and excuses, but after a battle won,
there is only complacency and self-glorification, and questions as to
the why and wherefore are considered out of place or even treasonable."
When we parted I was seized with a feeling of intense loneliness, but
nevertheless I realized with satisfaction that I was not entirely alone.
I also gave up the idea of enjoying my leave and conceived a deep
aversion for all pleasures and amusements.
The next day I wandered into the British Museum. The 600,000 volumes
that surrounded me on the shelves of the reading-room had a depressing
effect. I took out a few books, but was too distracted for serious
study.
I almost smiled with self-contempt when I thought how I had set out the
previous morning in order to conquer my old world, and how it was now
receding further and further from me. I looked at the other readers.
They were mostly old men, engrossed in their studies, just as they had
been in peace time. I wondered what they thought about the war. I knew
they would not allow it to disturb them much or interfere with their
studies and their sleep. And after all, why should they care? It was
only youth that was being slaughtered on the battlefields and not old
age.
The sleepy dullness of the museum became unbearable and I walked out
into the street.
I spent the evening with a member of the National Liberal Club, an
intimate family friend, whose intellectual arrogance was one of the evil
memories of my childhood, when many eager impulses and aspirations had
been turned to bitterness by his lofty depreciation and his
imperturbable assumption of superiority based on maturer years and
experience. Having at different times received material kindnesses at
his hands, I knew I could not tell him what I really thought, and the
prospect of meeting him filled me with uneasiness. Moreover, in his
presence I felt a kind of pride which I did not usually feel in the
presence of others--a pride that forbade me to express any sentiment or
to reveal my inner mind. And yet my inner mind was clamouring
intolerably for revelation. I realized the advantage he would derive
from his simple attitude and from his lack of mental integrity, which
enabled him to ignore any considerations that did not conform to his
preconceived notions, and I realized the disadvantage of my complex
attitude, made up as it was of so many conflicting impulses, at war with
each other and with the world around me.
My fears were justified.
At first the conversation was commonplace, and I related various
experiences in a desultory fashion. Those that were mildly amusing were
most appreciated. But gradually we drifted towards more vital issues and
then the long and futile argument began. The weapons of sarcasm and
denunciation were denied to me by the laws of politeness and etiquette.
I beat in vain against the solid walls of obstinate prejudice and
superficiality. His statements were uttered with dogmatic emphasis. They
expressed beliefs held with all the self-assurance born of ignorance.
They were based on no independent reasoning or observation, but had been
assimilated either directly from the daily Press or from a circle of
acquaintances whose entire political outlook was the creation of the
Press. It was only then that I realized the immense power of newspapers.
For most people "thinking" is just the discovery of convenient phrases
or labels, such as "pessimist," or "socialist," or "pacifist" or
"Bolshevik." When any puzzling mental attitude comes before their
notice, they pin one of their labels to it, and, having labelled it,
they think they understand it. The Press supplies them with these
labels, and, consciously or unconsciously, they store them up in their
minds and always have a few ready for immediate use.
So familiar and commonplace were the phrases which my opponent selected
from his store in order to reply to my every utterance, that I could
almost tell what he was going to say before he said it. Moreover, the
fact that he had travelled abroad and had associated with foreigners,
instead of widening his view had only narrowed it. Had he never
travelled he might have been sufficiently modest to admit that he knew
nothing of foreign countries and he might have suspended judgment about
them; but the mere fact that he had travelled filled him with a deep
conviction that he knew all about the places he had visited, and this
conviction, enunciated with pompous emphasis, supplanted the real
knowledge and understanding derived from honest observation. Like so
many people who do not possess the faculty of experiencing, he
continually appealed to his own experience and continually referred to
his maturer years, as though old age of itself brought wisdom.
As for the war itself he took no deep interest in it, although he
glanced at the war news every day. But to understand it, to analyse its
causes, to grasp its significance, to realize its true nature, that he
never attempted to do. His labels and his alleged experiences and his
years were sufficient to cope with the entire question and answer it
satisfactorily for himself. I almost envied him for his
self-sufficiency. He would never suffer acutely from any mental strife
or agitation due to any but immediate and personal causes. Perhaps such
a stable mentality that can without effort reject all inconvenient data
is the most desirable of all and the most conducive to happiness.
Certain it is that the stability of society and the very existence of
civilization itself depend upon the preponderance of that particular
type.
I knew that the argument was hopeless. Indeed, it was no argument. It
was no exchange of ideas. It was no mutual attempt at discovering truths
by an impartial comparison of two different attitudes.
At times there were signs of heat on both sides. My opponent spoke of
"our democratic army" (familiar phrase!) and the overbearing manner in
which he connected this dictum with a number of false, irrelevant or
arbitrary generalizations made me feel a momentary pang of anger and I
wished he could experience a term of military service. Nevertheless,
there was no actual display of bad temper or emotion and we parted with
all the habitual formulae imposed by social decorum.
I knew I had come into contact with the truly representative man. His
opinion and the opinions of those like him, they all made up popular
opinion. All other opinion was abnormal and negligible. It was with
despair that I realized the hopelessness of my own position and that of
my friends.
The public did not understand the war and did not want to understand it.
It was far away from them and they did not realize the amount of
suffering caused by it. It also brought wealth to many who would
therefore have regretted its sudden termination. This seems a hard thing
to say, but nevertheless it is true. The so-called "working-classes" had
developed an appetite for wealth and power that nothing could satisfy.
This appetite was being fed continually, but the more it devoured the
more voracious it became. Nor did the shameless profiteering of the
wealthy tend to allay it in any way. Protests against the war never went
beyond the passing of mere resolutions. Those who had sufficient
humanity and imagination to hate the war in its entirety and to suffer
from it, although not necessarily taking any part in it, were too few
and too scattered and isolated to take any effective action.
The extent to which a man can suffer is the precise measure of his
merit, and thus it was that our patriots and war-enthusiasts being
incapable, by reason of their grossness and vulgarity, of suffering in a
spiritual sense, were immune from the misery caused by the war and yet
it was they above all others upon whose support the continuance of the
war depended.
This was the terrible fatality. The more a man suffered from the war the
smaller was his control over it.
Everywhere, those who deserved to suffer did not suffer and those who
did not deserve to suffer suffered. And that was why the war went on.
Most people were so indifferent that it was impossible to talk to them
without anger. I could think of nothing else but the war. I could not
escape from its invisible presence. The streets and houses seemed the
immaterial creations of some dream, and somewhere behind them the
slaughter was going on, and amid the noise of the traffic the throbbing
of the bombardment was plainly audible.
Sometimes I felt an impulse to shout from the house-tops like a Hebrew
prophet and denounce this most wicked of generations. But the very
futility of the idea filled me with mortification.
Our enlightened twentieth century has no use for prophets. Christ
Himself would have been arrested as a pacifist or a lunatic if He had
spoken His mind in the streets of London. And the clergy would have
applauded the imprisonment of a dangerous "pro-German." The scribes and
Pharisees were more numerous and more powerful than ever before.
Particularly the scribes.
There never was in all the world an infamy as great as the infamy of our
war-time Press. A horde of unscrupulous liars and hirelings spat hatred
and malice from safe and comfortable positions. They played the hero
when no danger threatened. They defied an enemy who could not reach
them. They boasted of the deeds they had not done. They gloried in the
victories they did not win. They mouthed frantic protestations of
injured innocence when they should have felt the burden of guilty shame.
They were mawkishly sentimental when they should have felt keen grief
and horror. They denounced murder and they urged others to commit
murder. They spewed their venomous slime into every spring of healing
water. At a time when clear thinking and balanced judgments were needed
more desperately than ever before, they squirted into the air thick
clouds of lies, and half-truths, and misleading phrases, and judgments
distorted by hatred and warped by malice. And as for those who were
either lured on to perpetrate the great iniquity by grandiose and
seductive falsehoods or were dragged from their homes and families and
sent unwilling to the slaughter, these miserable slaves the Press of all
countries urged on, one against the other, brutally deaf to their
misery, representing them as glad and cheerful when they had reached the
extreme of human suffering, magnifying them into heroes of epic
proportions (before they donned their dingy garb of war they were "lice"
that had to be "combed out"), endowing them with absurdly impossible
virtues--when they were just ordinary human beings in misfortune with no
ambition except to live in peace and comfort--and at the same time
bestowing lofty patronage upon them and calling them "Tommies" and
sending them cigarettes, chocolates and advice, as though they were
children to be petted, with no will or intelligence of their own.
The Press, the cinema, the atrocity placards, and propagandist leaflets,
they all practised the same deliberate and colossal deceit and kindled
hatred against the enemy. And so successful was this diabolical
conspiracy that hatred became second nature to vast masses of people. To
think evil of the enemy was an article of national faith, and to
question this faith, or still more to repudiate it, that was heresy of
the most heinous kind. Religion died long ago, but the cult of
nationalism that replaced it was infinitely more pernicious in its
intolerance and cruelty than religion at its very worst.
Individually men are often good, but collectively men are always bad.
The national mob had never been so powerful, nor had it ever been so
servile, and that was why its passions were those of the coward and not
of the brave man; that was why chivalry and generosity and
fair-mindedness were execrated, and only hatred and boastfulness and
vindictive malice were allowed to live.
The rapidity with which the time passed was terrifying. Although my
leave had produced so much disillusionment, I yet dreaded its
termination. Just as my life at the front had made me unfit for life at
home, so my short spell of life at home had rendered me unfit for
further life at the front. Moreover, I knew that my concrete experiences
had done a little towards strengthening and confirming the attitude of
my few friends, a consideration that gave me some satisfaction. I
thought that in time I might get into touch with other people who shared
our attitude and then take part in some anti-war movement and fight
against the war instead of in it. That would have been the only activity
to which I could have devoted myself with energy and enthusiasm. But I
would soon have to go back and be muzzled once more by a ruthless
discipline and an all-embracing censorship. Moreover, as my leave
approached its end I began to regret that I had not striven harder to
enjoy the comforts and freedom of civilian life. The dread of the coming
return to slavery and dreary routine began to outweigh every other
consideration. The prospect of living in a tent crowded with
foul-mouthed, noisy soldiers filled me with dismay. I made a feeble
attempt at securing an extension of my leave, but failed, and then I
resigned myself to my fate.
One afternoon, towards the end of the fortnight, I went to Kew Gardens
with my friend.
The softness of the warm September day, the calm trees, and the flowers
that were pure untroubled beauty (how I envied them their dispassionate
lives, their tranquil growth, their effortless attainment of perfection,
and their unconscious dying!)--all these had a strangely harmonizing
influence upon my discordant spirit. We spoke little, and of the war not
at all. Indeed, the war suddenly seemed curiously remote and I could
hardly hear the throbbing of the guns. I knew that this afternoon would
never be lost, that I would often think of it when back at the front. It
would remain a dream of tranquil beauty that would haunt me at
unexpected moments. I felt that for this alone my leave had been worth
while.
The last morning came. I made a successful effort to control myself. I
said good-bye. It was all over.
* * * * *
When I got back to camp all the men were out at work. I sat down alone
in my tent. I felt slightly dazed, but not as miserable as I had
expected to feel. I did not know how to occupy my time. I had brought
several books with me, but I felt no inclination to read. Life seemed
empty and purposeless. I waited impatiently for the return of the
others.
They arrived and the evening passed quickly in talk. My friend, whose
place was next to mine, remarked that I was far more cheerful than men
returning from leave usually are.
The next day and many days after I was unable to shake off the feeling
of mental torpor and a vague regret for what had been and what had gone
for ever. My leave seemed like a thing I had dreamt of long ago.
Sometimes I asked myself in a puzzled manner: "Have I really been home
on leave?"
The end of the war, no one could tell when that would be. But the next
leave--it might come in eight or nine months--that was something to look
forward to and I began to think of all the things I would do when it
actually did come.