“Perhaps it is because I am unwell, but at moments to-day I am simply
driven to despair by everything that is going on in the world: the new
form of oath, the revolting proclamation about enlisting university
students in the army, the Dreyfus affair, the situation in Serbia,
the horrors of the diseases and deaths in the Auerbach quicksilver
works.... I can’t make out how mankind can go on living like this, with
the sight of all this horror round them!
“It always strikes me how little man is valued, even in the simplest
way as a valuable and useful animal. We value a horse which can carry,
but man can also make boots, work in a factory, play the piano! And
50 per cent are dying! When I used to breed merino sheep and their
death-rate reached 5 per cent, I was indignant and thought the shepherd
very bad. And 50 per cent of the people are dying!”