Life is a continual passage from one illusion to another. No sooner
has the eager volunteer found out that the desire to help is apt to
be treated as evidence of a criminal disposition, and that war-work
is as shy as deer in the depths of a forest--no sooner has he or she
discovered these things than yet another discovery destroys yet another
illusion. The war-work when brought to bay and caught is not the right
kind of war-work. You--for I may as well admit that I am talking direct
to the eager volunteer--you had expected something else. This war-work
that presents itself is either beneath your powers, or it is beyond
your powers; or it is unsuited to your individuality or to your social
station or to your health or to your hands or feet. You can scarcely
say what you had expected, but at any rate ... I will tell you what
you had expected. You had expected the ideal--work that showed you at
your best, picturesque work, interesting work, work free from monotony,
work of which you could see the immediate beautiful results, work which
taxed you without overtaxing you, really important work without the
moral risks attaching to real responsibility. Such was the work you
had expected, and the chances are ten to one that the work you have
actually got is dull, monotonous, apparently futile; any fool could do
it, though it is exhausting and inconvenient. Or, on the other hand,
it is, while dull and monotonous, too exacting for a well-intentioned
mediocre brain like yours (you don’t actually mean that, but you try to
be modest)--in short it is not suitable work.
Axiom: There is not enough suitable work to go round, nor the
thousandth part of what would be enough. Unsuitableness is a
characteristic of nearly all war-work. Lowering your great powers
down, or forcing your little powers up, to the level of the work
offered--this, too, is part of war-work.