I could read hardly at all, for years,
and thousands were like me. The most "exciting" novel was dull stuff
up against that world convulsion. What did the romance of love mean,
the little tortures of one man's heart, or one woman's, troubled in
their mating, when thousands of men were being killed and vast
populations were in agony? History--Greek or Roman or medieval--what
was the use of reading that old stuff, now that world history was
being made with a rush? Poetry--poor poets with their love of beauty!
What did beauty matter, now that it lay dead in the soul of the world,
under the filth of battlefields, and the dirt of hate and cruelty, and
the law of the apelike man? No--we could not read; but talked and
talked about the old philosophy of life, and the structure of society,
and Democracy and Liberty and Patriotism and Internationalism, and
Brotherhood of Men, and God, and Christian ethics; and then talked no
more, because all words were futile, and just brooded and brooded,
after searching the daily paper (two days old) for any kind of hope
and light, not finding either.
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