"MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH\n\nBY H.G. WELLS\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1916, BY H.G. WELLS\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nBOOK I\n\nMATCHING'S EASY AT EASE\n\n  I MR. DIRECK VISITS MR. BRITLING\n II MR. BRITLING CONTINUES HIS EXPOSITION\nIII THE ENTERTAINMENT OF MR. DIRECK REACHES A CLIMAX\n IV MR. BRITLING IN SOLILOQUY\n  V THE COMING OF THE DAY\n\n\nBOOK II\n\nMATCHING'S EASY AT WAR\n\n  I ONLOOKERS\n II TAKING PART\nIII MALIGNITY\n IV IN THE WEB OF THE INEFFECTIVE\n\n\nBOOK III\n\nTHE TESTAMENT OF MATCHING'S EASY\n\n  I MRS. TEDDY GOES FOR A WALK\n II MR. BRITLING WRITES UNTIL SUNRISE\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I\n\nMATCHING'S EASY AT EASE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST\n\nMR. DIRECK VISITS MR. BRITLING\n\n\nSection 1\n\nIt was the sixth day of Mr. Direck's first visit to England, and he was\nat his acutest perception of differences. He found England in every way\ngratifying and satisfactory, and more of a contrast with things American\nthan he had ever dared to hope.\n\nHe had promised himself this visit for many years, but being of a sunny\nrather than energetic temperament--though he firmly believed himself\nto be a reservoir of clear-sighted American energy--he had allowed all\nsorts of things, and more particularly the uncertainties of Miss Mamie\nNelson, to keep him back. But now there were no more uncertainties about\nMiss Mamie Nelson, and Mr. Direck had come over to England just to\nconvince himself and everybody else that there were other interests\nin life for him than Mamie....\n\nAnd also, he wanted to see the old country from which his maternal\ngrandmother had sprung. Wasn't there even now in his bedroom in New York\na water-colour of Market Saffron church, where the dear old lady had\nbeen confirmed? And generally he wanted to see Europe. As an interesting\nside show to the excursion he hoped, in his capacity of the rather\nunderworked and rather over-salaried secretary of the Massachusetts\nSociety for the Study of Contemporary Thought, to discuss certain\nagreeable possibilities with Mr. Britling, who lived at Matching's Easy.\n\nMr. Direck was a type of man not uncommon in America. He was very much\nafter the fashion of that clean and pleasant-looking person one sees in\nthe advertisements in American magazines, that agreeable person who\nsmiles and says, \"Good, it's the Fizgig Brand,\" or \"Yes, it's a Wilkins,\nand that's the Best,\" or \"My shirt-front never rucks; it's a Chesson.\"\nBut now he was saying, still with the same firm smile, \"Good. It's\nEnglish.\" He was pleased by every unlikeness to things American, by\nevery item he could hail as characteristic; in the train to London he\nhad laughed aloud with pleasure at the chequer-board of little fields\nupon the hills of Cheshire, he had chuckled to find himself in a\ncompartment without a corridor; he had tipped the polite yet kindly\nguard magnificently, after doubting for a moment whether he ought to tip\nhim at all, and he had gone about his hotel in London saying \"Lordy!\nLordy! My _word!_\" in a kind of ecstasy, verifying the delightful\nabsence of telephone, of steam-heat, of any dependent bathroom. At\nbreakfast the waiter (out of Dickens it seemed) had refused to know what\n\"cereals\" were, and had given him his egg in a china egg-cup such as you\nsee in the pictures in _Punch_. The Thames, when he sallied out to see\nit, had been too good to be true, the smallest thing in rivers he had\never seen, and he had had to restrain himself from affecting a marked\naccent and accosting some passer-by with the question, \"Say! But is this\nlittle wet ditch here the Historical River Thames?\"\n\nIn America, it must be explained, Mr. Direck spoke a very good and\ncareful English indeed, but he now found the utmost difficulty in\ncontrolling his impulse to use a high-pitched nasal drone and indulge in\ndry \"Americanisms\" and poker metaphors upon all occasions. When people\nasked him questions he wanted to say \"Yep\" or \"Sure,\" words he would no\nmore have used in America than he could have used a bowie knife. But he\nhad a sense of rôle. He wanted to be visibly and audibly America\neye-witnessing. He wanted to be just exactly what he supposed an\nEnglishman would expect him to be. At any rate, his clothes had been\nmade by a strongly American New York tailor, and upon the strength of\nthem a taxi-man had assumed politely but firmly that the shillings on\nhis taximeter were dollars, an incident that helped greatly to sustain\nthe effect of Mr. Direck, in Mr. Direck's mind, as something standing\nout with an almost representative clearness against the English\nscene.... So much so that the taxi-man got the dollars....\n\nBecause all the time he had been coming over he had dreaded that it\nwasn't true, that England was a legend, that London would turn out to be\njust another thundering great New York, and the English exactly like New\nEnglanders....\n\n\nSection 2\n\nAnd now here he was on the branch line of the little old Great Eastern\nRailway, on his way to Matching's Easy in Essex, and he was suddenly in\nthe heart of Washington Irving's England.\n\nWashington Irving's England! Indeed it was. He couldn't sit still and\njust peep at it, he had to stand up in the little compartment and stick\nhis large, firm-featured, kindly countenance out of the window as if he\ngreeted it. The country under the June sunshine was neat and bright as\nan old-world garden, with little fields of corn surrounded by dog-rose\nhedges, and woods and small rushy pastures of an infinite tidiness. He\nhad seen a real deer park, it had rather tumbledown iron gates between\nits shield-surmounted pillars, and in the distance, beyond all question,\nwas Bracebridge Hall nestling among great trees. He had seen thatched\nand timbered cottages, and half-a-dozen inns with creaking signs. He had\nseen a fat vicar driving himself along a grassy lane in a governess cart\ndrawn by a fat grey pony. It wasn't like any reality he had ever known.\nIt was like travelling in literature.\n\nMr. Britling's address was the Dower House, and it was, Mr. Britling's\nnote had explained, on the farther edge of the park at Claverings.\nClaverings! The very name for some stately home of England....\n\nAnd yet this was only forty-two miles from London. Surely it brought\nthings within the suburban range. If Matching's Easy were in America,\ncommuters would live there. But in supposing that, Mr. Direck displayed\nhis ignorance of a fact of the greatest importance to all who would\nunderstand England. There is a gap in the suburbs of London. The suburbs\nof London stretch west and south and even west by north, but to the\nnorth-eastward there are no suburbs; instead there is Essex. Essex is\nnot a suburban county; it is a characteristic and individualised county\nwhich wins the heart. Between dear Essex and the centre of things lie\ntwo great barriers, the East End of London and Epping Forest. Before a\ntrain could get to any villadom with a cargo of season-ticket holders it\nwould have to circle about this rescued woodland and travel for twenty\nunprofitable miles, and so once you are away from the main Great Eastern\nlines Essex still lives in the peace of the eighteenth century, and\nLondon, the modern Babylon, is, like the stars, just a light in the\nnocturnal sky. In Matching's Easy, as Mr. Britling presently explained\nto Mr. Direck, there are half-a-dozen old people who have never set eyes\non London in their lives--and do not want to.\n\n\"Aye-ya!\"\n\n\"Fussin' about thea.\"\n\n\"Mr. Robinson, 'e went to Lon', 'e did. That's 'ow 'e 'urt 'is fut.\"\n\nMr. Direck had learnt at the main-line junction that he had to tell the\nguard to stop the train for Matching's Easy; it only stopped \"by\nrequest\"; the thing was getting better and better; and when Mr. Direck\nseized his grip and got out of the train there was just one little old\nEssex station-master and porter and signalman and everything, holding a\nred flag in his hand and talking to Mr. Britling about the cultivation\nof the sweet peas which glorified the station. And there was the Mr.\nBritling who was the only item of business and the greatest expectation\nin Mr. Direck's European journey, and he was quite unlike the portraits\nMr. Direck had seen and quite unmistakably Mr. Britling all the same,\nsince there was nobody else upon the platform, and he was advancing with\na gesture of welcome.\n\n\"Did you ever see such peas, Mr. Dick?\" said Mr. Britling by way of\nintroduction.\n\n\"My _word_,\" said Mr. Direck in a good old Farmer Hayseed kind of voice.\n\n\"Aye-ya!\" said the station-master in singularly strident tones. \"It be a\nrare year for sweet peas,\" and then he slammed the door of the carriage\nin a leisurely manner and did dismissive things with his flag, while the\ntwo gentlemen took stock, as people say, of one another.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nExcept in the doubtful instance of Miss Mamie Nelson, Mr. Direck's habit\nwas good fortune. Pleasant things came to him. Such was his position as\nthe salaried secretary of this society of thoughtful Massachusetts\nbusiness men to which allusion has been made. Its purpose was to bring\nitself expeditiously into touch with the best thought of the age.\n\nToo busily occupied with practical realities to follow the thought of\nthe age through all its divagations and into all its recesses, these\nMassachusetts business men had had to consider methods of access more\nquintessential and nuclear. And they had decided not to hunt out the\nbest thought in its merely germinating stages, but to wait until it had\nemerged and flowered to some trustworthy recognition, and then, rather\nthan toil through recondite and possibly already reconsidered books and\nwritings generally, to offer an impressive fee to the emerged new\nthinker, and to invite him to come to them and to lecture to them and to\nhave a conference with them, and to tell them simply, competently and\ncompletely at first hand just all that he was about. To come, in fact,\nand be himself--in a highly concentrated form. In this way a number of\ninteresting Europeans had been given very pleasant excursions to\nAmerica, and the society had been able to form very definite opinions\nupon their teaching. And Mr. Britling was one of the representative\nthinkers upon which this society had decided to inform itself. It was to\nbroach this invitation and to offer him the impressive honorarium by\nwhich the society honoured not only its guests but itself, that Mr.\nDireck had now come to Matching's Easy. He had already sent Mr. Britling\na letter of introduction, not indeed intimating his precise purpose, but\nmentioning merely a desire to know him, and the letter had been so\nhappily phrased and its writer had left such a memory of pleasant\nhospitality on Mr. Britling's mind during Mr. Britling's former visit to\nNew York, that it had immediately produced for Mr. Direck an invitation\nnot merely to come and see him but to come and stay over the week-end.\n\nAnd here they were shaking hands.\n\nMr. Britling did not look at all as Mr. Direck had expected him to look.\nHe had expected an Englishman in a country costume of golfing tweeds,\nlike the Englishman in country costume one sees in American illustrated\nstories. Drooping out of the country costume of golfing tweeds he had\nexpected to see the mildly unhappy face, pensive even to its drooping\nmoustache, with which Mr. Britling's publisher had for some faulty and\nunfortunate reason familiarised the American public. Instead of this,\nMr. Britling was in a miscellaneous costume, and mildness was the last\nquality one could attribute to him. His moustache, his hair, his\neyebrows bristled; his flaming freckled face seemed about to bristle\ntoo. His little hazel eyes came out with a \"ping\" and looked at Mr.\nDireck. Mr. Britling was one of a large but still remarkable class of\npeople who seem at the mere approach of photography to change their\nhair, their clothes, their moral natures. No photographer had ever\ncaught a hint of his essential Britlingness and bristlingness. Only the\ncamera could ever induce Mr. Britling to brush his hair, and for the\ncamera alone did he reserve that expression of submissive martyrdom Mr.\nDireck knew. And Mr. Direck was altogether unprepared for a certain\ncasualness of costume that sometimes overtook Mr. Britling. He was\nwearing now a very old blue flannel blazer, no hat, and a pair of\nknickerbockers, not tweed breeches but tweed knickerbockers of a\nremarkable bagginess, and made of one of those virtuous socialistic\nhomespun tweeds that drag out into woolly knots and strings wherever\nthere is attrition. His stockings were worsted and wrinkled, and on his\nfeet were those extraordinary slippers of bright-coloured bast-like\ninterwoven material one buys in the north of France. These were purple\nwith a touch of green. He had, in fact, thought of the necessity of\nmeeting Mr. Direck at the station at the very last moment, and had come\naway from his study in the clothes that had happened to him when he got\nup. His face wore the amiable expression of a wire-haired terrier\ndisposed to be friendly, and it struck Mr. Direck that for a man of his\nreal intellectual distinction Mr. Britling was unusually short.\n\nFor there can be no denying that Mr. Britling was, in a sense,\ndistinguished. The hero and subject of this novel was at its very\nbeginning a distinguished man. He was in the _Who's Who_ of two\ncontinents. In the last few years he had grown with some rapidity into a\nwriter recognised and welcomed by the more cultivated sections of the\nAmerican public, and even known to a select circle of British readers.\nTo his American discoverers he had first appeared as an essayist, a\nserious essayist who wrote about aesthetics and Oriental thought and\nnational character and poets and painting. He had come through America\nsome years ago as one of those Kahn scholars, those promising writers\nand intelligent men endowed by Auguste Kahn of Paris, who go about the\nworld nowadays in comfort and consideration as the travelling guests of\nthat original philanthropist--to acquire the international spirit.\nPreviously he had been a critic of art and literature and a writer of\nthoughtful third leaders in the London _Times_. He had begun with a\nPembroke fellowship and a prize poem. He had returned from his world\ntour to his reflective yet original corner of _The Times_ and to the\nproduction of books about national relationships and social psychology,\nthat had brought him rapidly into prominence.\n\nHis was a naturally irritable mind, which gave him point and passion;\nand moreover he had a certain obstinate originality and a generous\ndisposition. So that he was always lively, sometimes spacious, and never\nvile. He loved to write and talk. He talked about everything, he had\nideas about everything; he could no more help having ideas about\neverything than a dog can resist smelling at your heels. He sniffed at\nthe heels of reality. Lots of people found him interesting and\nstimulating, a few found him seriously exasperating. He had ideas in the\nutmost profusion about races and empires and social order and political\ninstitutions and gardens and automobiles and the future of India and\nChina and aesthetics and America and the education of mankind in\ngeneral.... And all that sort of thing....\n\nMr. Direck had read a very great deal of all this expressed\nopiniativeness of Mr. Britling: he found it entertaining and stimulating\nstuff, and it was with genuine enthusiasm that he had come over to\nencounter the man himself. On his way across the Atlantic and during\nthe intervening days, he had rehearsed this meeting in varying keys, but\nalways on the supposition that Mr. Britling was a large, quiet,\nthoughtful sort of man, a man who would, as it were, sit in attentive\nrows like a public meeting and listen. So Mr. Direck had prepared quite\na number of pleasant and attractive openings, and now he felt was the\nmoment for some one of these various simple, memorable utterances. But\nin none of these forecasts had he reckoned with either the spontaneous\nactivities of Mr. Britling or with the station-master of Matching's\nEasy. Oblivious of any conversational necessities between Mr. Direck and\nMr. Britling, this official now took charge of Mr. Direck's grip-sack,\nand, falling into line with the two gentlemen as they walked towards the\nexit gate, resumed what was evidently an interrupted discourse upon\nsweet peas, originally addressed to Mr. Britling.\n\nHe was a small, elderly man with a determined-looking face and a sea\nvoice, and it was clear he overestimated the distance of his hearers.\n\n\"Mr. Darling what's head gardener up at Claverings, _'e_ can't get sweet\npeas like that, try _'ow_ 'e will. Tried everything 'e 'as. Sand\nballast, 'e's tried. Seeds same as me. 'E came along 'ere only the other\nday, 'e did, and 'e says to me, 'e says, 'darned 'f I can see why a\nstation-master should beat a professional gardener at 'is own game,' 'e\nsays, 'but you do. And in your orf time, too, so's to speak,' 'e says.\n'I've tried sile,' 'e says--\"\n\n\"Your first visit to England?\" asked Mr. Britling of his guest.\n\n\"Absolutely,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"I says to 'im, 'there's one thing you 'aven't tried,' I says,\" the\nstation-master continued, raising his voice by a Herculean feat still\nhigher.\n\n\"I've got a little car outside here,\" said Mr. Britling. \"I'm a couple\nof miles from the station.\"\n\n\"I says to 'im, I says, ''ave you tried the vibritation of the trains?'\nI says. 'That's what you 'aven't tried, Mr. Darling. That's what you\n_can't_ try,' I says. 'But you rest assured that that's the secret of my\nsweet peas,' I says, 'nothing less and nothing more than the vibritation\nof the trains.'\"\n\nMr. Direck's mind was a little confused by the double nature of the\nconversation and by the fact that Mr. Britling spoke of a car when\nhe meant an automobile. He handed his ticket mechanically to the\nstation-master, who continued to repeat and endorse his anecdote at the\ntop of his voice as Mr. Britling disposed himself and his guest in the\nautomobile.\n\n\"You know you 'aven't 'urt that mud-guard, sir, not the slightest bit\nthat matters,\" shouted the station-master. \"I've been a looking at\nit--er. It's my fence that's suffered most. And that's only strained\nthe post a lil' bit. Shall I put your bag in behind, sir?\"\n\nMr. Direck assented, and then, after a momentary hesitation, rewarded\nthe station-master's services.\n\n\"Ready?\" asked Mr. Britling.\n\n\"That's all right sir,\" the station-master reverberated.\n\nWith a rather wide curve Mr. Britling steered his way out of the station\ninto the highroad.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nAnd now it seemed was the time for Mr. Direck to make his meditated\nspeeches. But an unexpected complication was to defeat this intention.\nMr. Direck perceived almost at once that Mr. Britling was probably\ndriving an automobile for the first or second or at the extremest the\nthird time in his life.\n\nThe thing became evident when he struggled to get into the high gear--an\nattempt that stopped the engine, and it was even more startlingly so\nwhen Mr. Britling narrowly missed a collision with a baker's cart at a\ncorner. \"I pressed the accelerator,\" he explained afterwards, \"instead\nof the brake. One does at first. I missed him by less than a foot.\"\nThe estimate was a generous one. And after that Mr. Direck became\ntoo anxious not to distract his host's thoughts to persist with his\nconversational openings. An attentive silence came upon both gentlemen\nthat was broken presently by a sudden outcry from Mr. Britling and a\ngreat noise of tormented gears. \"Damn!\" cried Mr. Britling, and \"How\nthe _devil_?\"\n\nMr. Direck perceived that his host was trying to turn the car into a\nvery beautiful gateway, with gate-houses on either side. Then it was\nmanifest that Mr. Britling had abandoned this idea, and then they came\nto a stop a dozen yards or so along the main road. \"Missed it,\" said Mr.\nBritling, and took his hands off the steering wheel and blew stormily,\nand then whistled some bars of a fretful air, and became still.\n\n\"Do we go through these ancient gates?\" asked Mr. Direck.\n\nMr. Britling looked over his right shoulder and considered problems of\ncurvature and distance. \"I think,\" he said, \"I will go round outside the\npark. It will take us a little longer, but it will be simpler than\nbacking and manoeuvring here now.... These electric starters are\nremarkably convenient things. Otherwise now I should have to get down\nand wind up the engine.\"\n\nAfter that came a corner, the rounding of which seemed to present few\ndifficulties until suddenly Mr. Britling cried out, \"Eh! _eh_! EH! Oh,\n_damn_!\"\n\nThen the two gentlemen were sitting side by side in a rather sloping car\nthat had ascended the bank and buried its nose in a hedge of dog-rose\nand honeysuckle, from which two missel thrushes, a blackbird and a\nnumber of sparrows had made a hurried escape....\n\n\nSection 5\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said Mr. Britling without assurance, and after a little\npeaceful pause, \"I can reverse out of this.\"\n\nHe seemed to feel some explanation was due to Mr. Direck. \"You see,\nat first--it's perfectly simple--one steers _round_ a corner and then\none doesn't put the wheels straight again, and so one keeps on going\nround--more than one meant to. It's the bicycle habit; the bicycle\nrights itself. One expects a car to do the same thing. It was my fault.\nThe book explains all this question clearly, but just at the moment\nI forgot.\"\n\nHe reflected and experimented in a way that made the engine scold\nand fuss....\n\n\"You see, she won't budge for the reverse.... She's--embedded.... Do you\nmind getting out and turning the wheel back? Then if I reverse, perhaps\nwe'll get a move on....\"\n\nMr. Direck descended, and there were considerable efforts.\n\n\"If you'd just grip the spokes. Yes, so.... One, Two, Three!... No!\nWell, let's just sit here until somebody comes along to help us. Oh!\nSomebody will come all right. Won't you get up again?\"\n\nAnd after a reflective moment Mr. Direck resumed his seat beside\nMr. Britling....\n\n\nSection 6\n\nThe two gentlemen smiled at each other to dispel any suspicion of\ndiscontent.\n\n\"My driving leaves something to be desired,\" said Mr. Britling with\nan air of frank impartiality. \"But I have only just got this car for\nmyself--after some years of hired cars--the sort of lazy arrangement\nwhere people supply car, driver, petrol, tyres, insurance and everything\nat so much a month. It bored me abominably. I can't imagine now how\nI stood it for so long. They sent me down a succession of compact,\nscornful boys who used to go fast when I wanted to go slow, and slow\nwhen I wanted to go fast, and who used to take every corner on the\nwrong side at top speed, and charge dogs and hens for the sport of it,\nand all sorts of things like that. They would not even let me choose my\nroads. I should have got myself a car long ago, and driven it, if it\nwasn't for that infernal business with a handle one had to do when the\nengine stopped. But here, you see, is a reasonably cheap car with an\nelectric starter--American, I need scarcely say. And here I am--going\nat my own pace.\"\n\nMr. Direck glanced for a moment at the pretty disorder of the hedge in\nwhich they were embedded, and smiled and admitted that it was certainly\nmuch more agreeable.\n\nBefore he had finished saying as much Mr. Britling was talking again.\n\nHe had a quick and rather jerky way of speaking; he seemed to fire out a\nthought directly it came into his mind, and he seemed to have a loaded\nmagazine of thoughts in his head. He spoke almost exactly twice as fast\nas Mr. Direck, clipping his words much more, using much compacter\nsentences, and generally cutting his corners, and this put Mr. Direck\noff his game.\n\nThat rapid attack while the transatlantic interlocutor is deploying is\nindeed a not infrequent defect of conversations between Englishmen and\nAmericans. It is a source of many misunderstandings. The two conceptions\nof conversation differ fundamentally. The English are much less disposed\nto listen than the American; they have not quite the same sense of\nconversational give and take, and at first they are apt to reduce their\nvisitors to the rôle of auditors wondering when their turn will begin.\nTheir turn never does begin. Mr. Direck sat deeply in his slanting seat\nwith a half face to his celebrated host and said \"Yep\" and \"Sure\" and\n\"That _is_ so,\" in the dry grave tones that he believed an Englishman\nwould naturally expect him to use, realising this only very gradually.\n\nMr. Britling, from his praise of the enterprise that had at last brought\na car he could drive within his reach, went on to that favourite topic\nof all intelligent Englishmen, the adverse criticism of things British.\nHe pointed out that the central position of the brake and gear levers in\nhis automobile made it extremely easy for the American manufacturer to\nturn it out either as a left-handed or a right-handed car, and so adapt\nit either to the Continental or to the British rule of the road. No\nEnglish cars were so adaptable. We British suffered much from our\ninsular rule of the road, just as we suffered much from our insular\nweights and measures. But we took a perverse pride in such\ndisadvantages. The irruption of American cars into England was a recent\nphenomenon, it was another triumph for the tremendous organising ability\nof the American mind. They were doing with the automobile what they had\ndone with clocks and watches and rifles, they had standardised and\nmachined wholesale, while the British were still making the things one\nby one. It was an extraordinary thing that England, which was the\noriginator of the industrial system and the original developer of the\ndivision of labour, should have so fallen away from systematic\nmanufacturing. He believed this was largely due to the influence of\nOxford and the Established Church....\n\nAt this point Mr. Direck was moved by an anecdote. \"It will help to\nillustrate what you are saying, Mr. Britling, about systematic\norganisation if I tell you a little incident that happened to a friend\nof mine in Toledo, where they are setting up a big plant with a view to\ncapturing the entire American and European market in the class of the\nthousand-dollar car--\"\n\n\"There's no end of such little incidents,\" said Mr. Britling, cutting in\nwithout apparent effort. \"You see, we get it on both sides. Our\nmanufacturer class was, of course, originally an insurgent class. It was\na class of distended craftsmen. It had the craftsman's natural\nenterprise and natural radicalism. As soon as it prospered and sent its\nboys to Oxford it was lost. Our manufacturing class was assimilated in\nno time to the conservative classes, whose education has always had a\nmandarin quality--very, very little of it, and very cold and choice. In\nAmerica you have so far had no real conservative class at all. Fortunate\ncontinent! You cast out your Tories, and you were left with nothing but\nWhigs and Radicals. But our peculiar bad luck has been to get a sort of\nrevolutionary who is a Tory mandarin too. Ruskin and Morris, for\nexample, were as reactionary and anti-scientific as the dukes and the\nbishops. Machine haters. Science haters. Rule of Thumbites to the bone.\nSo are our current Socialists. They've filled this country with the idea\nthat the ideal automobile ought to be made entirely by the hand labour\nof traditional craftsmen, quite individually, out of beaten copper,\nwrought iron and seasoned oak. All this electric-starter business and\nthis electric lighting outfit I have here, is perfectly hateful to the\nEnglish mind.... It isn't that we are simply backward in these things,\nwe are antagonistic. The British mind has never really tolerated\nelectricity; at least, not that sort of electricity that runs through\nwires. Too slippery and glib for it. Associates it with Italians and\nfluency generally, with Volta, Galvani, Marconi and so on. The proper\nBritish electricity is that high-grade useless long-sparking stuff you\nget by turning round a glass machine; stuff we used to call frictional\nelectricity. Keep it in Leyden jars.... At Claverings here they still\nrefuse to have electric bells. There was a row when the Solomonsons, who\nwere tenants here for a time, tried to put them in....\"\n\nMr. Direck had followed this cascade of remarks with a patient smile and\na slowly nodding head. \"What you say,\" he said, \"forms a very marked\ncontrast indeed with the sort of thing that goes on in America. This\nfriend of mine I was speaking of, the one who is connected with an\nautomobile factory in Toledo--\"\n\n\"Of course,\" Mr. Britling burst out again, \"even conservatism isn't an\nultimate thing. After all, we and your enterprising friend at Toledo,\nare very much the same blood. The conservatism, I mean, isn't racial.\nAnd our earlier energy shows it isn't in the air or in the soil. England\nhas become unenterprising and sluggish because England has been so\nprosperous and comfortable....\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Mr. Direck. \"My friend of whom I was telling you, was a\nman named Robinson, which indicates pretty clearly that he was of\ngenuine English stock, and, if I may say so, quite of your build and\ncomplexion; racially, I should say, he was, well--very much what you\nare....\"\n\n\nSection 7\n\nThis rally of Mr. Direck's mind was suddenly interrupted.\n\nMr. Britling stood up, and putting both hands to the sides of his mouth,\nshouted \"Yi-ah! Aye-ya! Thea!\" at unseen hearers.\n\nAfter shouting again, several times, it became manifest that he had\nattracted the attention of two willing but deliberate labouring men.\nThey emerged slowly, first as attentive heads, from the landscape. With\ntheir assistance the car was restored to the road again. Mr. Direck\nassisted manfully, and noted the respect that was given to Mr. Britling\nand the shillings that fell to the men, with an intelligent detachment.\nThey touched their hats, they called Mr. Britling \"Sir.\" They examined\nthe car distantly but kindly. \"Ain't 'urt 'e, not a bit 'e ain't, not\nreally,\" said one encouragingly. And indeed except for a slight\ncrumpling of the mud-guard and the detachment of the wire of one of the\nheadlights the automobile was uninjured. Mr. Britling resumed his seat;\nMr. Direck gravely and in silence got up beside him. They started with\nthe usual convulsion, as though something had pricked the vehicle\nunexpectedly and shamefully behind. And from this point Mr. Britling,\ndriving with meticulous care, got home without further mishap, excepting\nonly that he scraped off some of the metal edge of his footboard\nagainst the gate-post of his very agreeable garden.\n\nHis family welcomed his safe return, visitor and all, with undisguised\nrelief and admiration. A small boy appeared at the corner of the house,\nand then disappeared hastily again. \"Daddy's got back all right at\nlast,\" they heard him shouting to unseen hearers.\n\n\nSection 8\n\nMr. Direck, though he was a little incommoded by the suppression of his\nstory about Robinson--for when he had begun a thing he liked to finish\nit--found Mr. Britling's household at once thoroughly British, quite\nun-American and a little difficult to follow. It had a quality that at\nfirst he could not define at all. Compared with anything he had ever\nseen in his life before it struck him as being--he found the word at\nlast--sketchy. For instance, he was introduced to nobody except his\nhostess, and she was indicated to him by a mere wave of Mr. Britling's\nhand. \"That's Edith,\" he said, and returned at once to his car to put it\naway. Mrs. Britling was a tall, freckled woman with pretty bright brown\nhair and preoccupied brown eyes. She welcomed him with a handshake, and\nthen a wonderful English parlourmaid--she at least was according to\nexpectations--took his grip-sack and guided him to his room. \"Lunch,\nsir,\" she said, \"is outside,\" and closed the door and left him to that\nand a towel-covered can of hot water.\n\nIt was a square-looking old red-brick house he had come to, very\nhandsome in a simple Georgian fashion, with a broad lawn before it and\ngreat blue cedar trees, and a drive that came frankly up to the front\ndoor and then went off with Mr. Britling and the car round to unknown\nregions at the back. The centre of the house was a big airy hall,\noak-panelled, warmed in winter only by one large fireplace and abounding\nin doors which he knew opened into the square separate rooms that\nEngland favours. Bookshelves and stuffed birds comforted the landing\noutside his bedroom. He descended to find the hall occupied by a small\nbright bristling boy in white flannel shirt and knickerbockers and bare\nlegs and feet. He stood before the vacant open fireplace in an attitude\nthat Mr. Direck knew instantly was also Mr. Britling's. \"Lunch is in the\ngarden,\" the Britling scion proclaimed, \"and I've got to fetch you. And,\nI say! is it true? Are you American?\"\n\n\"Why surely,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"Well, I know some American,\" said the boy. \"I learnt it.\"\n\n\"Tell me some,\" said Mr. Direck, smiling still more amiably.\n\n\"Oh! Well--God darn you! Ouch, Gee-whizz! Soak him, Maud! It's up to\nyou, Duke....\"\n\n\"Now where did you learn all that?\" asked Mr. Direck recovering.\n\n\"Out of the Sunday Supplement,\" said the youthful Britling.\n\n\"Why! Then you know all about Buster Brown,\" said Mr. Direck. \"He's\nFine--eh?\"\n\nThe Britling child hated Buster Brown. He regarded Buster Brown as a\ntotally unnecessary infant. He detested the way he wore his hair and the\npeculiar cut of his knickerbockers and--him. He thought Buster Brown the\none drop of paraffin in the otherwise delicious feast of the Sunday\nSupplement. But he was a diplomatic child.\n\n\"I think I like Happy Hooligan better,\" he said. \"And dat ole Maud.\"\n\nHe reflected with joyful eyes, Buster clean forgotten. \"Every week,\" he\nsaid, \"she kicks some one.\"\n\nIt came to Mr. Direck as a very pleasant discovery that a British infant\ncould find a common ground with the small people at home in these\ncharacteristically American jests. He had never dreamt that the fine\nwine of Maud and Buster could travel.\n\n\"Maud's a treat,\" said the youthful Britling, relapsing into his native\ntongue.\n\nMr. Britling appeared coming to meet them. He was now in a grey flannel\nsuit--he must have jumped into it--and altogether very much tidier....\n\n\nSection 9\n\nThe long narrow table under the big sycamores between the house and the\nadapted barn that Mr. Direck learnt was used for \"dancing and all that\nsort of thing,\" was covered with a blue linen diaper cloth, and that too\nsurprised him. This was his first meal in a private household in\nEngland, and for obscure reasons he had expected something very stiff\nand formal with \"spotless napery.\" He had also expected a very stiff and\ncapable service by implacable parlourmaids, and the whole thing indeed\nhighly genteel. But two cheerful women servants appeared from what was\npresumably the kitchen direction, wheeling a curious wicker erection,\nwhich his small guide informed him was called Aunt Clatter--manifestly\ndeservedly--and which bore on its shelves the substance of the meal. And\nwhile the maids at this migratory sideboard carved and opened bottles\nand so forth, the small boy and a slightly larger brother, assisted a\nlittle by two young men of no very defined position and relationship,\nserved the company. Mrs. Britling sat at the head of the table, and\nconversed with Mr. Direck by means of hostess questions and imperfectly\naccepted answers while she kept a watchful eye on the proceedings.\n\nThe composition of the company was a matter for some perplexity to Mr.\nDireck. Mr. and Mrs. Britling were at either end of the table, that was\nplain enough. It was also fairly plain that the two barefooted boys were\nlittle Britlings. But beyond this was a cloud of uncertainty. There was\na youth of perhaps seventeen, much darker than Britling but with nose\nand freckles rather like his, who might be an early son or a stepson; he\nwas shock-headed and with that look about his arms and legs that\nsuggests overnight growth; and there was an unmistakable young German,\nvery pink, with close-cropped fair hair, glasses and a panama hat, who\nwas probably the tutor of the younger boys. (Mr. Direck also was wearing\nhis hat, his mind had been filled with an exaggerated idea of the\ntreacheries of the English climate before he left New York. Every one\nelse was hatless.) Finally, before one reached the limits of the\nexplicable there was a pleasant young man with a lot of dark hair and\nvery fine dark blue eyes, whom everybody called \"Teddy.\" For him, Mr.\nDireck hazarded \"secretary.\"\n\nBut in addition to these normal and understandable presences, there was\nan entirely mysterious pretty young woman in blue linen who sat and\nsmiled next to Mr. Britling, and there was a rather kindred-looking girl\nwith darker hair on the right of Mr. Direck who impressed him at the\nvery outset as being still prettier, and--he didn't quite place her at\nfirst--somehow familiar to him; there was a large irrelevant middle-aged\nlady in black with a gold chain and a large nose, between Teddy and the\ntutor; there was a tall middle-aged man with an intelligent face, who\nmight be a casual guest; there was an Indian young gentleman faultlessly\ndressed up to his brown soft linen collar and cuffs, and thereafter an\nuncontrolled outbreak of fine bronze modelling and abundant fuzzy hair;\nand there was a very erect and attentive baby of a year or less, sitting\nup in a perambulator and gesticulating cheerfully to everybody. This\nbaby it was that most troubled the orderly mind of Mr. Direck. The\nresearch for its paternity made his conversation with Mrs. Britling\nalmost as disconnected and absent-minded as her conversation with him.\nIt almost certainly wasn't Mrs. Britling's. The girl next to him or the\ngirl next to Mr. Britling or the lady in black might any of them be\nmarried, but if so where was the spouse? It seemed improbable that they\nwould wheel out a foundling to lunch....\n\nRealising at last that the problem of relationship must be left to solve\nitself if he did not want to dissipate and consume his mind entirely,\nMr. Direck turned to his hostess, who was enjoying a brief lull in her\nadministrative duties, and told her what a memorable thing the meeting\nof Mr. Britling in his own home would be in his life, and how very\nhighly America was coming to esteem Mr. Britling and his essays. He\nfound that with a slight change of person, one of his premeditated\nopenings was entirely serviceable here. And he went on to observe that\nit was novel and entertaining to find Mr. Britling driving his own\nautomobile and to note that it was an automobile of American\nmanufacture. In America they had standardised and systematised the\nmaking of such things as automobiles to an extent that would, he\nthought, be almost startling to Europeans. It was certainly startling to\nthe European manufacturers. In illustration of that he might tell a\nlittle story of a friend of his called Robinson--a man who curiously\nenough in general build and appearance was very reminiscent indeed of\nMr. Britling. He had been telling Mr. Britling as much on his way here\nfrom the station. His friend was concerned with several others in one of\nthe biggest attacks that had ever been made upon what one might describe\nin general terms as the thousand-dollar light automobile market. What\nthey said practically was this: This market is a jig-saw puzzle waiting\nto be put together and made one. We are going to do it. But that was\neasier to figure out than to do. At the very outset of this attack he\nand his associates found themselves up against an unexpected and very\ndifficult proposition....\n\nAt first Mrs. Britling had listened to Mr. Direck with an almost\nundivided attention, but as he had developed his opening the feast upon\nthe blue linen table had passed on to a fresh phase that demanded more\nand more of her directive intelligence. The two little boys appeared\nsuddenly at her elbows. \"Shall we take the plates and get the\nstrawberries, Mummy?\" they asked simultaneously. Then one of the neat\nmaids in the background had to be called up and instructed in\nundertones, and Mr. Direck saw that for the present Robinson's\nilluminating experience was not for her ears. A little baffled, but\nquite understanding how things were, he turned to his neighbour on his\nleft....\n\nThe girl really had an extraordinarily pretty smile, and there was\nsomething in her soft bright brown eye--like the movement of some quick\nlittle bird. And--she was like somebody he knew! Indeed she was. She was\nquite ready to be spoken to.\n\n\"I was telling Mrs. Britling,\" said Mr. Direck, \"what a very great\nprivilege I esteem it to meet Mr. Britling in this highly familiar way.\"\n\n\"You've not met him before?\"\n\n\"I missed him by twenty-four hours when he came through Boston on the\nlast occasion. Just twenty-four hours. It was a matter of very great\nregret to me.\"\n\n\"I wish I'd been paid to travel round the world.\"\n\n\"You must write things like Mr. Britling and then Mr. Kahn will send\nyou.\"\n\n\"Don't you think if I promised well?\"\n\n\"You'd have to write some promissory notes, I think--just to convince\nhim it was all right.\"\n\nThe young lady reflected on Mr. Britling's good fortune.\n\n\"He saw India. He saw Japan. He had weeks in Egypt. And he went right\nacross America.\"\n\nMr. Direck had already begun on the liner to adapt himself to the\nhopping inconsecutiveness of English conversation. He made now what he\nfelt was quite a good hop, and he dropped his voice to a confidential\nundertone. (It was probably Adam in his first conversation with Eve, who\ndiscovered the pleasantness of dropping into a confidential undertone\nbeside a pretty ear with a pretty wave of hair above it.)\n\n\"It was in India, I presume,\" murmured Mr. Direck, \"that Mr. Britling\nmade the acquaintance of the coloured gentleman?\"\n\n\"Coloured gentleman!\" She gave a swift glance down the table as though\nshe expected to see something purple with yellow spots. \"Oh, that is one\nof Mr. Lawrence Carmine's young men!\" she explained even more\nconfidentially and with an air of discussing the silver bowl of roses\nbefore him. \"He's a great authority on Indian literature, he belongs to\na society for making things pleasant for Indian students in London, and\nhe has them down.\"\n\n\"And Mr. Lawrence Carmine?\" he pursued.\n\nEven more intimately and confidentially she indicated Mr. Carmine, as it\nseemed by a motion of her eyelash.\n\nMr. Direck prepared to be even more _sotto-voce_ and to plumb a much\nprofounder mystery. His eye rested on the perambulator; he leant a\nlittle nearer to the ear.... But the strawberries interrupted him.\n\n\"Strawberries!\" said the young lady, and directed his regard to his left\nshoulder by a little movement of her head.\n\nHe found one of the boys with a high-piled plate ready to serve him.\n\nAnd then Mrs. Britling resumed her conversation with him. She was so\nignorant, she said, of things American, that she did not even know if\nthey had strawberries there. At any rate, here they were at the crest of\nthe season, and in a very good year. And in the rose season too. It was\none of the dearest vanities of English people to think their apples and\ntheir roses and their strawberries the best in the world.\n\n\"And their complexions,\" said Mr. Direck, over the pyramid of fruit,\nquite manifestly intending a compliment. So that was all right.... But\nthe girl on the left of him was speaking across the table to the German\ntutor, and did not hear what he had said. So that even if it wasn't\nvery neat it didn't matter....\n\nThen he remembered that she was like that old daguerreotype of a cousin\nof his grandmother's that he had fallen in love with when he was a boy.\nIt was her smile. Of course! Of course!... And he'd sort of adored that\nportrait.... He felt a curious disposition to tell her as much....\n\n\"What makes this visit even more interesting if possible to me,\" he said\nto Mrs. Britling, \"than it would otherwise be, is that this Essex\ncountry is the country in which my maternal grandmother was raised, and\nalso long way back my mother's father's people. My mother's father's\npeople were very early New England people indeed.... Well, no. If I said\n_Mayflower_ it wouldn't be true. But it would approximate. They were\nEssex Hinkinsons. That's what they were. I must be a good third of me at\nleast Essex. My grandmother was an Essex Corner, I must confess I've had\nsome thought--\"\n\n\"Corner?\" said the young lady at his elbow sharply.\n\n\"I was telling Mrs. Britling I had some thought--\"\n\n\"But about those Essex relatives of yours?\"\n\n\"Well, of finding if they were still about in these parts.... Say! I\nhaven't dropped a brick, have I?\"\n\nHe looked from one face to another.\n\n\"_She's_ a Corner,\" said Mrs. Britling.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Direck, and hesitated for a moment. It was so\ndelightful that one couldn't go on being just discreet. The atmosphere\nwas free and friendly. His intonation disarmed offence. And he gave the\nyoung lady the full benefit of a quite expressive eye. \"I'm very pleased\nto meet you, Cousin Corner. How are the old folks at home?\"\n\n\nSection 10\n\nThe bright interest of this consulship helped Mr. Direck more than\nanything to get the better of his Robinson-anecdote crave, and when\npresently he found his dialogue with Mr. Britling resumed, he turned at\nonce to this remarkable discovery of his long lost and indeed hitherto\nunsuspected relative. \"It's an American sort of thing to do, I suppose,\"\nhe said apologetically, \"but I almost thought of going on, on Monday, to\nMarket Saffron, which was the locality of the Hinkinsons, and just\nlooking about at the tombstones in the churchyard for a day or so.\"\n\n\"Very probably,\" said Mr. Britling, \"you'd find something about them in\nthe parish registers. Lots of our registers go back three hundred years\nor more. I'll drive you over in my lil' old car.\"\n\n\"Oh! I wouldn't put you to that trouble,\" said Mr. Direck hastily.\n\n\"It's no trouble. I like the driving. What I have had of it. And while\nwe're at it, we'll come back by Harborough High Oak and look up the\nCorner pedigree. They're all over that district still. And the road's\nnot really difficult; it's only a bit up and down and roundabout.\"\n\n\"I couldn't think, Mr. Britling, of putting you to that much trouble.\"\n\n\"It's no trouble. I want a day off, and I'm dying to take Gladys--\"\n\n\"Gladys?\" said Mr. Direck with sudden hope.\n\n\"That's my name for the lil' car. I'm dying to take her for something\nlike a decent run. I've only had her out four times altogether, and I've\nnot got her up yet to forty miles. Which I'm told she ought to do\neasily. We'll consider that settled.\"\n\nFor the moment Mr. Direck couldn't think of any further excuse. But it\nwas very clear in his mind that something must happen; he wished he knew\nof somebody who could send a recall telegram from London, to prevent him\ncommitting himself to the casual destinies of Mr. Britling's car again.\nAnd then another interest became uppermost in his mind.\n\n\"You'd hardly believe me,\" he said, \"if I told you that that Miss Corner\nof yours has a quite extraordinary resemblance to a miniature I've got\naway there in America of a cousin of my maternal grandmother's. She\nseems a very pleasant young lady.\"\n\nBut Mr. Britling supplied no further information about Miss Corner.\n\n\"It must be very interesting,\" he said, \"to come over here and pick up\nthese American families of yours on the monuments and tombstones. You\nknow, of course, that district south of Evesham where every other church\nmonument bears the stars and stripes, the arms of departed Washingtons.\nI doubt though if you'll still find the name about there. Nor will you\nfind many Hinkinsons in Market Saffron. But lots of this country here\nhas five or six hundred-year-old families still flourishing. That's why\nEssex is so much more genuinely Old England than Surrey, say, or Kent.\nRound here you'll find Corners and Fairlies, and then you get Capels,\nand then away down towards Dunmow and Braintree Maynards and Byngs. And\nthere are oaks and hornbeams in the park about Claverings that have\nechoed to the howling of wolves and the clank of men in armour. All the\nold farms here are moated--because of the wolves. Claverings itself is\nTudor, and rather fine too. And the cottages still wear thatch....\"\n\nHe reflected. \"Now if you went south of London instead of northward it's\nall different. You're in a different period, a different society. You're\nin London suburbs right down to the sea. You'll find no genuine estates\nleft, not of our deep-rooted familiar sort. You'll find millionaires and\nthat sort of people, sitting in the old places. Surrey is full of rich\nstockbrokers, company-promoters, bookies, judges, newspaper proprietors.\nSort of people who fence the paths across their parks. They do something\nto the old places--I don't know what they do--but instantly the\ncountryside becomes a villadom. And little sub-estates and red-brick\nvillas and art cottages spring up. And a kind of new, hard neatness. And\npneumatic tyre and automobile spirit advertisements, great glaring\nboards by the roadside. And all the poor people are inspected and rushed\nabout until they forget who their grandfathers were. They become villa\nparasites and odd-job men, and grow basely rich and buy gramophones.\nThis Essex and yonder Surrey are as different as Russia and Germany. But\nfor one American who comes to look at Essex, twenty go to Godalming and\nGuildford and Dorking and Lewes and Canterbury. Those Surrey people are\nnot properly English at all. They are strenuous. You have to get on or\nget out. They drill their gardeners, lecture very fast on agricultural\nefficiency, and have miniature rifle ranges in every village. It's a\ncounty of new notice-boards and barbed-wire fences; there's always a\npoliceman round the corner. They dress for dinner. They dress for\neverything. If a man gets up in the night to look for a burglar he puts\non the correct costume--or doesn't go. They've got a special scientific\nsystem for urging on their tramps. And they lock up their churches on a\nweek-day. Half their soil is hard chalk or a rationalistic sand, only\nsuitable for bunkers and villa foundations. And they play golf in a\nlarge, expensive, thorough way because it's the thing to do.... Now here\nin Essex we're as lax as the eighteenth century. We hunt in any old\nclothes. Our soil is a rich succulent clay; it becomes semi-fluid in\nwinter--when we go about in waders shooting duck. All our fingerposts\nhave been twisted round by facetious men years ago. And we pool our\nbreeds of hens and pigs. Our roses and oaks are wonderful; that alone\nshows that this is the real England. If I wanted to play golf--which I\ndon't, being a decent Essex man--I should have to motor ten miles into\nHertfordshire. And for rheumatics and longevity Surrey can't touch us. I\nwant you to be clear on these points, because they really will affect\nyour impressions of this place.... This country is a part of the real\nEngland--England outside London and outside manufactures. It's one with\nWessex and Mercia or old Yorkshire--or for the matter of that with Meath\nor Lothian. And it's the essential England still....\"\n\n\nSection 11\n\nIt detracted a little from Mr. Direck's appreciation of this flow of\ninformation that it was taking them away from the rest of the company.\nHe wanted to see more of his new-found cousin, and what the baby and the\nBengali gentleman--whom manifestly one mustn't call \"coloured\"--and the\nlarge-nosed lady and all the other inexplicables would get up to.\nInstead of which Mr. Britling was leading him off alone with an air of\nshowing him round the premises, and talking too rapidly and variously\nfor a question to be got in edgeways, much less any broaching of the\nmatter that Mr. Direck had come over to settle.\n\nThere was quite a lot of rose garden, it made the air delicious, and it\nwas full of great tumbling bushes of roses and of neglected standards,\nand it had a long pergola of creepers and trailers and a great arbour,\nand underneath over the beds everywhere, contrary to all the rules, the\nblossom of a multitude of pansies and stock and little trailing plants\nswarmed and crowded and scrimmaged and drilled and fought great massed\nattacks. And then Mr. Britling talked their way round a red-walled\nvegetable garden with an abundance of fruit trees, and through a door\ninto a terraced square that had once been a farmyard, outside the\nconverted barn. The barn doors had been replaced by a door-pierced\nwindow of glass, and in the middle of the square space a deep tank had\nbeen made, full of rainwater, in which Mr. Britling remarked casually\nthat \"everybody\" bathed when the weather was hot. Thyme and rosemary and\nsuchlike sweet-scented things grew on the terrace about the tank, and\nten trimmed little trees of _Arbor vitae_ stood sentinel. Mr. Direck was\ntantalisingly aware that beyond some lilac bushes were his new-found\ncousin and the kindred young woman in blue playing tennis with the\nIndian and another young man, while whenever it was necessary the\nlarge-nosed lady crossed the stage and brooded soothingly over the\nperambulator. And Mr. Britling, choosing a seat from which Mr. Direck\njust couldn't look comfortably through the green branches at the flying\nglimpses of pink and blue and white and brown, continued to talk about\nEngland and America in relation to each other and everything else under\nthe sun.\n\nPresently through a distant gate the two small boys were momentarily\nvisible wheeling small but serviceable bicycles, followed after a little\ninterval by the German tutor. Then an enormous grey cat came slowly\nacross the garden court, and sat down to listen respectfully to Mr.\nBritling. The afternoon sky was an intense blue, with little puff-balls\nof cloud lined out across it.\n\nOccasionally, from chance remarks of Mr. Britling's, Mr. Direck was led\nto infer that his first impressions as an American visitor were being\nrelated to his host, but as a matter of fact he was permitted to relate\nnothing; Mr. Britling did all the talking. He sat beside his guest and\nspirted and played ideas and reflections like a happy fountain in the\nsunshine.\n\nMr. Direck sat comfortably, and smoked with quiet appreciation the one\nafter-lunch cigar he allowed himself. At any rate, if he himself felt\nrather word-bound, the fountain was nimble and entertaining. He listened\nin a general sort of way to the talk, it was quite impossible to follow\nit thoughtfully throughout all its chinks and turnings, while his eyes\nwandered about the garden and went ever and again to the flitting\ntennis-players beyond the green. It was all very gay and comfortable and\ncomplete; it was various and delightful without being in the least\n_opulent_; that was one of the little secrets America had to learn. It\ndidn't look as though it had been made or bought or cost anything, it\nlooked as though it had happened rather luckily....\n\nMr. Britling's talk became like a wide stream flowing through Mr.\nDireck's mind, bearing along momentary impressions and observations,\ndrifting memories of all the crowded English sights and sounds of the\nlast five days, filmy imaginations about ancestral names and pretty\ncousins, scraps of those prepared conversational openings on Mr.\nBritling's standing in America, the explanation about the lecture club,\nthe still incompletely forgotten purport of the Robinson anecdote....\n\n\"Nobody planned the British estate system, nobody planned the British\naristocratic system, nobody planned the confounded constitution, it came\nabout, it was like layer after layer wrapping round an agate, but you\nsee it came about so happily in a way, it so suited the climate and the\ntemperament of our people and our island, it was on the whole so cosy,\nthat our people settled down into it, you can't help settling down into\nit, they had already settled down by the days of Queen Anne, and Heaven\nknows if we shall ever really get away again. We're like that little\nshell the _Lingula_, that is found in the oldest rocks and lives to-day:\nit fitted its easy conditions, and it has never modified since. Why\nshould it? It excretes all its disturbing forces. Our younger sons go\naway and found colonial empires. Our surplus cottage children emigrate\nto Australia and Canada or migrate into the towns. It doesn't alter\n_this_....\"\n\n\nSection 12\n\nMr. Direck's eye had come to rest upon the barn, and its expression\nchanged slowly from lazy appreciation to a brightening intelligence.\nSuddenly he resolved to say something. He resolved to say it so firmly\nthat he determined to say it even if Mr. Britling went on talking all\nthe time.\n\n\"I suppose, Mr. Britling,\" he said, \"this barn here dates from the days\nof Queen Anne.\"\n\n\"The walls of the yard here are probably earlier: probably monastic.\nThat grey patch in the corner, for example. The barn itself is\nGeorgian.\"\n\n\"And here it is still. And this farmyard, here it is still.\"\n\nMr. Britling was for flying off again, but Mr. Direck would not listen;\nhe held on like a man who keeps his grip on a lasso.\n\n\"There's one thing I would like to remark about your barn, Mr. Britling,\nand I might, while I am at it, say the same thing about your farmyard.\"\n\nMr. Britling was held. \"What's that?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Direck, \"the point that strikes me most about all this\nis that that barn isn't a barn any longer, and that this farmyard isn't\na farmyard. There isn't any wheat or chaff or anything of that sort in\nthe barn, and there never will be again: there's just a pianola and a\ndancing floor, and if a cow came into this farmyard everybody in the\nplace would be shooing it out again. They'd regard it as a most\nunnatural object.\"\n\nHe had a pleasant sense of talking at last. He kept right on. He was\nmoved to a sweeping generalisation.\n\n\"You were so good as to ask me, Mr. Britling, a little while ago, what\nmy first impression of England was. Well, Mr. Britling, my first\nimpression of England that seems to me to matter in the least is this:\nthat it looks and feels more like the traditional Old England than any\none could possibly have believed, and that in reality it is less like\nthe traditional Old England than any one would ever possibly have\nimagined.\"\n\nHe was carried on even further. He made a tremendous literary epigram.\n\"I thought,\" he said, \"when I looked out of the train this morning that\nI had come to the England of Washington Irving. I find it is not even\nthe England of Mrs. Humphry Ward.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND\n\nMR. BRITLING CONTINUES HIS EXPOSITION\n\n\nSection 1\n\nMr. Direck found little reason to revise his dictum in the subsequent\nexperiences of the afternoon. Indeed the afternoon and the next day were\nsteadily consistent in confirming what a very good dictum it had been.\nThe scenery was the traditional scenery of England, and all the people\nseemed quicker, more irresponsible, more chaotic, than any one could\nhave anticipated, and entirely inexplicable by any recognised code of\nEnglish relationships....\n\n\"You think that John Bull is dead and a strange generation is wearing\nhis clothes,\" said Mr. Britling. \"I think you'll find very soon it's the\nold John Bull. Perhaps not Mrs. Humphry Ward's John Bull, or Mrs. Henry\nWood's John Bull but true essentially to Shakespeare, Fielding, Dickens,\nMeredith....\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" he added, \"there are changes. There's a new generation\ngrown up....\"\n\nHe looked at his barn and the swimming pool. \"It's a good point of yours\nabout the barn,\" he said. \"What you say reminds me of that very jolly\nthing of Kipling's about the old mill-wheel that began by grinding corn\nand ended by driving dynamos....\n\n\"Only I admit that barn doesn't exactly drive a dynamo....\n\n\"To be frank, it's just a pleasure barn....\n\n\"The country can afford it....\"\n\n\nSection 2\n\nHe left it at that for the time, but throughout the afternoon Mr. Direck\nhad the gratification of seeing his thought floating round and round in\nthe back-waters of Mr. Britling's mental current. If it didn't itself\nget into the stream again its reflection at any rate appeared and\nreappeared. He was taken about with great assiduity throughout the\nafternoon, and he got no more than occasional glimpses of the rest of\nthe Dower House circle until six o'clock in the evening.\n\nMeanwhile the fountains of Mr. Britling's active and encyclopædic mind\nplayed steadily.\n\nHe was inordinately proud of England, and he abused her incessantly. He\nwanted to state England to Mr. Direck as the amiable summation of a\ngrotesque assembly of faults. That was the view into which the comforts\nand prosperities of his middle age had brought him from a radicalism\nthat had in its earlier stages been angry and bitter. And for Mr.\nBritling England was \"here.\" Essex was the county he knew. He took Mr.\nDireck out from his walled garden by a little door into a trim paddock\nwith two white goals. \"We play hockey here on Sundays,\" he said in a way\nthat gave Mr. Direck no hint of the practically compulsory participation\nof every visitor to Matching's Easy in this violent and dangerous\nexercise, and thence they passed by a rich deep lane and into a high\nroad that ran along the edge of the deer park of Claverings. \"We will\ncall in on Claverings later,\" said Mr. Britling. \"Lady Homartyn has some\npeople there for the week-end, and you ought to see the sort of thing it\nis and the sort of people they are. She wanted us to lunch there\nto-morrow, but I didn't accept that because of our afternoon hockey.\"\n\nMr. Direck received this reason uncritically.\n\nThe village reminded Mr. Direck of Abbey's pictures. There was an inn\nwith a sign standing out in the road, a painted sign of the Clavering\nArms; it had a water trough (such as Mr. Weller senior ducked the\ndissenter in) and a green painted table outside its inviting door. There\nwere also a general shop and a number of very pleasant cottages, each\nmarked with the Mainstay crest. All this was grouped about a green with\nreal geese drilling thereon. Mr. Britling conducted his visitor (through\na lych gate) into the church-yard, and there they found mossy,\ntumble-down tombstones, one with a skull and cross-bones upon it, that\nwent back to the later seventeenth century. In the aisle of the church\nwere three huge hatchments, and there was a side chapel devoted to the\nMainstay family and the Barons Homartyn, with a series of monuments that\nbegan with painted Tudor effigies and came down to a vast stained glass\nwindow of the vilest commercial Victorian. There were also mediæval\nbrasses of parish priests, and a marble crusader and his lady of some\nextinguished family which had ruled Matching's Easy before the Mainstays\ncame. And as the two gentlemen emerged from the church they ran against\nthe perfect vicar, Mr. Dimple, ample and genial, with an embracing laugh\nand an enveloping voice. \"Come to see the old country,\" he said to Mr.\nDireck. \"So Good of you Americans to do that! So Good of you....\"\n\nThere was some amiable sparring between the worthy man and Mr. Britling\nabout bringing Mr. Direck to church on Sunday morning. \"He's terribly\nLax,\" said Mr. Dimple to Mr. Direck, smiling radiantly. \"Terribly Lax.\nBut then nowadays Everybody _is_ so Lax. And he's very Good to my Coal\nClub; I don't know what we should do without him. So I just admonish\nhim. And if he doesn't go to church, well, anyhow he doesn't go anywhere\nelse. He may be a poor churchman, but anyhow he's not a dissenter....\"\n\n\"In England, you see,\" Mr. Britling remarked, after they had parted from\nthe reverend gentleman, \"we have domesticated everything. We have even\ndomesticated God.\"\n\nFor awhile Mr. Britling showed Mr. Direck English lanes, and then came\nback along narrow white paths across small fields of rising wheat, to\nthe village and a little gate that led into the park.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Direck, \"what you say about domestication does seem to\nme to be very true indeed. Why! even those clouds up there look as\nthough they had a shepherd and were grazing.\"\n\n\"Ready for shearing almost,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Mr. Direck, raising his voice a little, \"I've seen\nscarcely anything in England that wasn't domesticated, unless it was\nsome of your back streets in London.\"\n\nMr. Britling seemed to reflect for a moment. \"They're an excrescence,\"\nhe said....\n\n\nSection 3\n\nThe park had a trim wildness like nature in an old Italian picture;\ndappled fallow deer grouped close at hand and looked at the two men\nfearlessly; the path dropped through oak trees and some stunted bracken\nto a little loitering stream, that paused ever and again to play at\nponds and waterfalls and bear a fleet of water-lily leaves; and then\ntheir way curved round in an indolent sweep towards the cedars and\nshrubberies of the great house. The house looked low and extensive to an\nAmerican eye, and its red-brick chimneys rose like infantry in open\norder along its extended line. There was a glimpse of flower-bright\ngarden and terraces to the right as they came round the corner to the\nfront of the house through a path cut in the laurel bushes.\n\nMr. Britling had a moment of exposition as they approached the entrance.\n\n\"I expect we shall find Philbert from the Home Office--or is it the\nLocal Government Board?--and Sir Thomas Loot, the Treasury man. There\nmay be some other people of that sort, the people we call the Governing\nClass. Wives also. And I rather fancy the Countess of Frensham is\ncoming, she's strong on the Irish Question, and Lady Venetia\nTrumpington, who they say is a beauty--I've never seen her. It's Lady\nHomartyn's way to expect me to come in--not that I'm an important item\nat these week-end social feasts--but she likes to see me on the\ntable--to be nibbled at if any one wants to do so--like the olives and\nthe salted almonds. And she always asks me to lunch on Sunday and I\nalways refuse--because of the hockey. So you see I put in an appearance\non the Saturday afternoon....\"\n\nThey had reached the big doorway.\n\nIt opened into a large cool hall adorned with the heads of hippopotami\nand rhinoceroses and a stuffed lion, and furnished chiefly with a vast\ntable on which hats and sticks and newspapers were littered. A\nmanservant with a subdued, semi-confidential manner, conveyed to Mr.\nBritling that her ladyship was on the terrace, and took the hats and\nsticks that were handed to him and led the way through the house. They\nemerged upon a broad terrace looking out under great cedar trees upon\nflower beds and stone urns and tennis lawns and yew hedges that dipped\nto give a view of distant hills. On the terrace were grouped perhaps a\ndozen people for the most part holding teacups, they sat in deck chairs\nand folding seats about a little table that bore the tea-things. Lady\nHomartyn came forward to welcome the newcomers.\n\nMr. Direck was introduced as a travelling American gratified to see a\ntypical English country house, and Lady Homartyn in an habituated way\nran over the points of her Tudor specimen. Mr. Direck was not accustomed\nto titled people, and was suddenly in doubt whether you called a\nbaroness \"My Lady\" or \"Your Ladyship,\" so he wisely avoided any form of\naddress until he had a lead from Mr. Britling. Mr. Britling presently\ncalled her \"Lady Homartyn.\" She took Mr. Direck and sat him down beside\na lady whose name he didn't catch, but who had had a lot to do with the\nBritish Embassy at Washington, and then she handed Mr. Britling over to\nthe Rt. Honble. George Philbert, who was anxious to discuss certain\npoints in the latest book of essays. The conversation of the lady from\nWashington was intelligent but not exacting, and Mr. Direck was able to\ngive a certain amount of attention to the general effect of the scene.\n\nHe was a little disappointed to find that the servants didn't wear\nlivery. In American magazine pictures and in American cinematograph\nfilms of English stories and in the houses of very rich Americans living\nin England, they do so. And the Mansion House is misleading; he had met\na compatriot who had recently dined at the Mansion House, and who had\ndescribed \"flunkeys\" in hair-powder and cloth of gold--like Thackeray's\nJeames Yellowplush. But here the only servants were two slim, discreet\nand attentive young gentlemen in black coats with a gentle piety in\ntheir manner instead of pride. And he was a little disappointed too by a\ncertain lack of splendour in the company. The ladies affected him as\nbeing ill-dressed; there was none of the hard snap, the \"_There!_ and\nwhat do you say to it?\" about them of the well-dressed American woman,\nand the men too were not so much tailored as unobtrusively and yet\ngrammatically clothed.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nHe was still only in the fragmentary stage of conversation when\neverything was thrown into commotion by the important arrival of Lady\nFrensham, and there was a general reshuffling of places. Lady Frensham\nhad arrived from London by automobile; she appeared in veils and\nswathings and a tremendous dust cloak, with a sort of nephew in her\ntrain who had driven the car. She was manifestly a constitutionally\ntriumphant woman. A certain afternoon lassitude vanished in the swirl\nof her arrival. Mr. Philbert removed wrappings and handed them to the\nmanservant.\n\n\"I lunched with Sir Edward Carson to-day, my dear,\" she told Lady\nHomartyn, and rolled a belligerent eye at Philbert.\n\n\"And is he as obdurate as ever?\" asked Sir Thomas.\n\n\"Obdurate! It's Redmond who's obdurate,\" cried Lady Frensham. \"What do\nyou say, Mr. Britling?\"\n\n\"A plague on both your parties,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"You can't keep out of things like that,\" said Lady Frensham with the\nutmost gusto, \"when the country's on the very verge of civil war.... You\npeople who try to pretend there isn't a grave crisis when there is one,\nwill be more accountable than any one--when the civil war does come. It\nwon't spare you. Mark my words!\"\n\nThe party became a circle.\n\nMr. Direck found himself the interested auditor of a real English\ncountry-house week-end political conversation. This at any rate was like\nthe England of which Mrs. Humphry Ward's novels had informed him, but\nyet not exactly like it. Perhaps that was due to the fact that for the\nmost part these novels dealt with the England of the 'nineties, and\nthings had lost a little in dignity since those days. But at any rate\nhere were political figures and titled people, and they were talking\nabout the \"country.\"...\n\nWas it possible that people of this sort did \"run\" the country, after\nall?... When he had read Mrs. Humphry Ward in America he had always\naccepted this theory of the story quite easily, but now that he saw and\nheard them--!\n\nBut all governments and rulers and ruling classes when you look at them\nclosely are incredible....\n\n\"I don't believe the country is on the verge of civil war,\" said Mr.\nBritling.\n\n\"Facts!\" cried Lady Frensham, and seemed to wipe away delusions with a\nrapid gesture of her hands.\n\n\"You're interested in Ireland, Mr. Dirks?\" asked Lady Homartyn.\n\n\"We see it first when we come over,\" said Mr. Direck rather neatly, and\nafter that he was free to attend to the general discussion.\n\nLady Frensham, it was manifest, was one of that energetic body of\naristocratic ladies who were taking up an irreconcilable attitude\nagainst Home Rule \"in any shape or form\" at that time. They were rapidly\nturning British politics into a system of bitter personal feuds in which\nall sense of imperial welfare was lost. A wild ambition to emulate the\nextremest suffragettes seems to have seized upon them. They insulted,\nthey denounced, they refused every invitation lest they should meet that\n\"traitor\" the Prime Minister, they imitated the party hatreds of a\nfiercer age, and even now the moderate and politic Philbert found\nhimself treated as an invisible object. They were supported by the\nextremer section of the Tory press, and the most extraordinary writers\nwere set up to froth like lunatics against the government as \"traitors,\"\nas men who \"insulted the King\"; the _Morning Post_ and the\nlighter-witted side of the Unionist press generally poured out a torrent\nof partisan nonsense it is now almost incredible to recall. Lady\nFrensham, bridling over Lady Homartyn's party, and for a time leaving\nMr. Britling, hurried on to tell of the newest developments of the great\nfeud. She had a wonderful description of Lady Londonderry sitting\nopposite \"that old rascal, the Prime Minister,\" at a performance of\nMozart's _Zauberflöte_.\n\n\"If looks could kill!\" cried Lady Frensham with tremendous gusto.\n\n\"Sir Edward is quite firm that Ulster means to fight. They have\nmachine-guns--ammunition. And I am sure the army is with us....\"\n\n\"Where did they get those machine-guns and ammunition?\" asked Mr.\nBritling suddenly.\n\n\"Ah! that's a secret,\" cried Lady Frensham.\n\n\"Um,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"You see,\" said Lady Frensham; \"it _will_ be civil war! And yet you\nwriting people who have influence do nothing to prevent it!\"\n\n\"What are we to do, Lady Frensham?\"\n\n\"Tell people how serious it is.\"\n\n\"You mean, tell the Irish Nationalists to lie down and be walked over.\nThey won't be....\"\n\n\"We'll see about that,\" cried Lady Frensham, \"we'll see about that!\"\n\nShe was a large and dignified person with a kind of figure-head nobility\nof carriage, but Mr. Direck was suddenly reminded of a girl cousin of\nhis who had been expelled from college for some particularly elaborate\nand aimless rioting....\n\n\"May I say something to you, Lady Frensham,\" said Mr. Britling, \"that\nyou have just said to me? Do you realise that this Carsonite campaign is\ndragging these islands within a measurable distance of civil war?\"\n\n\"It's the fault of your Lloyd George and his government. It's the fault\nof your Socialists and sentimentalists. You've made the mischief and you\nhave to deal with it.\"\n\n\"Yes. But do you really figure to yourself what a civil war may mean for\nthe empire? Surely there are other things in the world besides this\nquarrel between the 'loyalists' of Ulster and the Liberal government;\nthere are other interests in this big empire than party advantages? Yon\nthink you are going to frighten this Home Rule government into some\nridiculous sort of collapse that will bring in the Tories at the next\nelection. Well, suppose you don't manage that. Suppose instead that you\nreally do contrive to bring about a civil war. Very few people here or\nin Ireland want it--I was over there not a month ago--but when men have\nloaded guns in their hands they sometimes go off. And then people see\nred. Few people realise what an incurable sore opens when fighting\nbegins. Suppose part of the army revolts and we get some extraordinary\nand demoralising fighting over there. India watches these things. Bengal\nmay imitate Ireland. At that distance rebellion and treason are\nrebellion and treason whether they are coloured orange or green. And\nthen suppose the Germans see fit to attack us!\"\n\nLady Frensham had a woman's elusiveness. \"Your Redmondites would welcome\nthem with open arms.\"\n\n\"It isn't the Redmondites who invite them now, anyhow,\" said Mr.\nBritling, springing his mine. \"The other day one of your 'loyalists,'\nAndrews, was talking in the _Morning Post_ of preferring conquest by\nGermany to Home Rule; Craig has been at the same game; Major Crawford,\nthe man who ran the German Mausers last April, boasted that he would\ntransfer his allegiance to the German Emperor rather than see Redmond in\npower.\"\n\n\"Rhetoric!\" said Lady Frensham. \"Rhetoric!\"\n\n\"But one of your Ulster papers has openly boasted that arrangements have\nbeen made for a 'powerful Continental monarch' to help an Ulster\nrebellion.\"\n\n\"Which paper?\" snatched Lady Frensham.\n\nMr. Britling hesitated.\n\nMr. Philbert supplied the name. \"I saw it. It was the _Irish\nChurchman_.\"\n\n\"You two have got your case up very well,\" said Lady Frensham. \"I didn't\nknow Mr. Britling was a party man.\"\n\n\"The Nationalists have been circulating copies,\" said Philbert.\n\"Naturally.\"\n\n\"They make it look worse than mere newspaper talk and speeches,\" Mr.\nBritling pressed. \"Carson, it seems, was lunching with the German\nEmperor last autumn. A fine fuss you'd make if Redmond did that. All\nthis gun-running, too, is German gun-running.\"\n\n\"What does it matter if it is?\" said Lady Frensham, allowing a\nbelligerent eye to rest for the first time on Philbert. \"You drove us to\nit. One thing we are resolved upon at any cost. Johnny Redmond may rule\nEngland if he likes; he shan't rule Ireland....\"\n\nMr. Britling shrugged his shoulders, and his face betrayed despair.\n\n\"My one consolation,\" he said, \"in this storm is a talk I had last month\nwith a young Irishwoman in Meath. She was a young person of twelve, and\nshe took a fancy to me--I think because I went with her in an alleged\ndangerous canoe she was forbidden to navigate alone. All day the eternal\nIrish Question had banged about over her observant head. When we were\nout on the water she suddenly decided to set me right upon a disregarded\nessential. 'You English,' she said, 'are just a bit disposed to take all\nthis trouble seriously. Don't you fret yourself about it... Half the\ntime we're just laffing at you. You'd best leave us all alone....'\"\n\nAnd then he went off at a tangent from his own anecdote.\n\n\"But look at this miserable spectacle!\" he cried. \"Here is a chance of\ngetting something like a reconciliation of the old feud of English and\nIrish, and something like a settlement of these ancient distresses, and\nthere seems no power, no conscience, no sanity in any of us, sufficient\nto save it from this cantankerous bitterness, this sheer wicked mischief\nof mutual exasperation.... Just when Ireland is getting a gleam of\nprosperity.... A murrain on both your parties!\"\n\n\"I see, Mr. Britling, you'd hand us all over to Jim Larkin!\"\n\n\"I'd hand you all over to Sir Horace Plunkett--\"\n\n\"That doctrinaire dairyman!\" cried Lady Frensham, with an air of quite\nconclusive repartee. \"You're hopeless, Mr. Britling. You're hopeless.\"\n\nAnd Lady Homartyn, seeing that the phase of mere personal verdicts drew\nnear, created a diversion by giving Lady Frensham a second cup of tea,\nand fluttering like a cooling fan about the heated brows of the\ndisputants. She suggested tennis....\n\n\nSection 5\n\nMr. Britling was still flushed and ruffled as he and his guest returned\ntowards the Dower House. He criticised England himself unmercifully, but\nhe hated to think that in any respect she fell short of perfection; even\nher defects he liked to imagine were just a subtler kind of power and\nwisdom. And Lady Frensham had stuck her voice and her gestures through\nall these amiable illusions. He was like a lover who calls his lady a\nfoolish rogue, and is startled to find that facts and strangers do\nliterally agree with him.\n\nBut it was so difficult to resolve Lady Frensham and the Irish squabble\ngenerally into anything better than idiotic mischief, that for a time he\nwas unusually silent--wrestling with the problem, and Mr. Direck got the\nconversational initiative.\n\n\"To an American mind it's a little--startling,\" said Mr. Direck, \"to\nhear ladies expressing such vigorous political opinions.\"\n\n\"I don't mind that,\" said Mr. Britling. \"Women over here go into\npolitics and into public-houses--I don't see why they shouldn't. If such\nthings are good enough for men they are good enough for women; we\nhaven't your sort of chivalry. But it's the peculiar malignant silliness\nof this sort of Toryism that's so discreditable. It's discreditable.\nThere's no good in denying it. Those people you have heard and seen are\na not unfair sample of our governing class--of a certain section of our\ngoverning class--as it is to-day. Not at all unfair. And you see how\namazingly they haven't got hold of anything. There was a time when they\ncould be politic.... Hidden away they have politic instincts even\nnow.... But it makes me sick to think of this Irish business. Because,\nyou know, it's true--we _are_ drifting towards civil war there.\"\n\n\"You are of that opinion?\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"Well, isn't it so? Here's all this Ulster gun-running--you heard how\nshe talked of it? Isn't it enough to drive the south into open\nrevolt?...\"\n\n\"Is there very much, do you think, in the suggestion that some of this\nUlster trouble is a German intrigue? You and Mr. Philbert were saying\nthings--\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Mr. Britling shortly.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he repeated. \"But it isn't because I don't think our\nUnionists and their opponents aren't foolish enough for anything of the\nsort. It's only because I don't believe that the Germans are so stupid\nas to do such things.... Why should they?...\n\n\"It makes me--expressionless with anger,\" said Mr. Britling after a\npause, reverting to his main annoyance. \"They won't consider any\ncompromise. It's sheer love of quarrelling.... Those people there think\nthat nothing can possibly happen. They are like children in a nursery\nplaying at rebellion. Unscathed and heedless. Until there is death at\ntheir feet they will never realise they are playing with loaded\nguns....\"\n\nFor a time he said no more; and listened perfunctorily while Mr. Direck\ntried to indicate the feeling in New England towards the Irish Question\nand the many difficult propositions an American politician has to face\nin that respect. And when Mr. Britling took up the thread of speech\nagain it had little or no relation to Mr. Direck's observations.\n\n\"The psychology of all this recent insubordination and violence\nis--curious. Exasperating too.... I don't quite grasp it.... It's the\nsame thing whether you look at the suffrage business or the labour\npeople or at this Irish muddle. People may be too safe. You see we live\nat the end of a series of secure generations in which none of the great\nthings of life have changed materially. We've grown up with no sense of\ndanger--that is to say, with no sense of responsibility. None of us,\nnone of us--for though I talk my actions belie me--really believe that\nlife can change very fundamentally any more forever. All this\",--Mr.\nBritling waved his arm comprehensively--\"looks as though it was bound to\ngo on steadily forever. It seems incredible that the system could be\nsmashed. It seems incredible that anything we can do will ever smash the\nsystem. Lady Homartyn, for example, is incapable of believing that she\nwon't always be able to have week-end parties at Claverings, and that\nthe letters and the tea won't come to her bedside in the morning. Or if\nher imagination goes to the point of supposing that some day _she_ won't\nbe there to receive the tea, it means merely that she supposes somebody\nelse will be. Her pleasant butler may fear to lose his 'situation,' but\nnothing on earth could make him imagine a time when there will not be a\n'situation' for him to lose. Old Asquith thinks that we always have got\nalong, and that we always shall get along by being quietly artful and\nsaying, 'Wait and see.' And it's just because we are all convinced that\nwe are so safe against a general breakdown that we are able to be so\nrecklessly violent in our special cases. Why shouldn't women have the\nvote? they argue. What does it matter? And bang goes a bomb in\nWestminster Abbey. Why shouldn't Ulster create an impossible position?\nAnd off trots some demented Carsonite to Germany to play at treason on\nsome half word of the German Emperor's and buy half a million rifles....\n\n\"Exactly like children being very, very naughty....\n\n\"And,\" said Mr. Britling with a gesture to round off his discourse, \"we\ndo go on. We shall go on--until there is a spark right into the\nmagazine. We have lost any belief we ever had that fundamental things\nhappen. We are everlasting children in an everlasting nursery....\"\n\nAnd immediately he broke out again.\n\n\"The truth of the matter is that hardly any one has ever yet mastered\nthe fact that the world is round. The world is round--like an orange.\nThe thing is told us--like any old scandal--at school. For all\npractical purposes we forget it. Practically we all live in a world as\nflat as a pancake. Where time never ends and nothing changes. Who really\nbelieves in any world outside the circle of the horizon? Here we are and\nvisibly nothing is changing. And so we go on to--nothing will ever\nchange. It just goes on--in space, in time. If we could realise that\nround world beyond, then indeed we should go circumspectly.... If the\nworld were like a whispering gallery, what whispers might we not hear\nnow--from India, from Africa, from Germany, warnings from the past,\nintimations of the future....\n\n\"We shouldn't heed them....\"\n\n\nSection 6\n\nAnd indeed at the very moment when Mr. Britling was saying these words,\nin Sarajevo in Bosnia, where the hour was somewhat later, men whispered\ntogether, and one held nervously to a black parcel that had been given\nhim and nodded as they repeated his instructions, a black parcel with\ncertain unstable chemicals and a curious arrangement of detonators\ntherein, a black parcel destined ultimately to shatter nearly every\nlandmark of Mr. Britling's and Lady Frensham's cosmogony....\n\n\nSection 7\n\nWhen Mr. Direck and Mr. Britling returned to the Dower House the guest\nwas handed over to Mrs. Britling and Mr. Britling vanished, to reappear\nat supper time, for the Britlings had a supper in the evening instead of\ndinner. When Mr. Britling did reappear every trace of his vexation with\nthe levities of British politics and the British ruling class had\nvanished altogether, and he was no longer thinking of all that might be\nhappening in Germany or India....\n\nWhile he was out of the way Mr. Direck extended his acquaintance with\nthe Britling household. He was taken round the garden and shown the\nroses by Mrs. Britling, and beyond the rose garden in a little arbour\nthey came upon Miss Corner reading a book. She looked very grave and\npretty reading a book. Mr. Direck came to a pause in front of her, and\nMrs. Britling stopped beside him. The young lady looked up and smiled.\n\n\"The last new novel?\" asked Mr. Direck pleasantly.\n\n\"Campanella's 'City of the Sun.'\"\n\n\"My word! but isn't that stiff reading?\"\n\n\"You haven't read it,\" said Miss Corner.\n\n\"It's a dry old book anyhow.\"\n\n\"It's no good pretending you have,\" she said, and there Mr. Direck felt\nthe conversation had to end.\n\n\"That's a very pleasant young lady to have about,\" he said to Mrs.\nBritling as they went on towards the barn court.\n\n\"She's all at loose ends,\" said Mrs. Britling. \"And she reads like\na--Whatever does read? One drinks like a fish. One eats like a wolf.\"\n\nThey found the German tutor in a little court playing Badminton with the\ntwo younger boys. He was a plump young man with glasses and compact\ngestures; the game progressed chiefly by misses and the score was\ncounted in German. He won thoughtfully and chiefly through the ardour of\nthe younger brother, whose enthusiastic returns invariably went out.\nInstantly the boys attacked Mrs. Britling with a concerted enthusiasm.\n\"Mummy! Is it to be dressing-up supper?\"\n\nMrs. Britling considered, and it was manifest that Mr. Direck was\nmaterial to her answer.\n\n\"We wrap ourselves up in curtains and bright things instead of\ndressing,\" she explained. \"We have a sort of wardrobe of fancy dresses.\nDo you mind?\"\n\nMr. Direck was delighted.\n\nAnd this being settled, the two small boys went off with their mother\nupon some special decorative project they had conceived and Mr. Direck\nwas left for a time to Herr Heinrich.\n\nHerr Heinrich suggested a stroll in the rose garden, and as Mr. Direck\nhad not hitherto been shown the rose garden by Herr Heinrich, he agreed.\nSooner or later everybody, it was evident, had got to show him that rose\ngarden.\n\n\"And how do you like living in an English household?\" said Mr. Direck,\ngetting to business at once. \"It's interesting to an American to see\nthis English establishment, and it must be still more interesting to a\nGerman.\"\n\n\"I find it very different from Pomerania,\" said Herr Heinrich. \"In some\nrespects it is more agreeable, in others less so. It is a pleasant life\nbut it is not a serious life.\n\n\"At any time,\" continued Herr Heinrich, \"some one may say, 'Let us do\nthis thing,' or 'Let us do that thing,' and then everything is\ndisarranged.\n\n\"People walk into the house without ceremony. There is much kindness but\nno politeness. Mr. Britling will go away for three or four days, and\nwhen he returns and I come forward to greet him and bow, he will walk\nright past me, or he will say just like this, 'How do, Heinrich?'\"\n\n\"Are you interested in Mr. Britling's writings?\" Mr. Direck asked.\n\n\"There again I am puzzled. His work is known even in Germany. His\narticles are reprinted in German and Austrian reviews. You would expect\nhim to have a certain authority of manner. You would expect there to be\ndiscussion at the table upon questions of philosophy and aesthetics....\nIt is not so. When I ask him questions it is often that they are not\nseriously answered. Sometimes it is as if he did not like the questions\nI askt of him. Yesterday I askt of him did he agree or did he not agree\nwith Mr. Bernard Shaw. He just said--I wrote it down in my memoranda--he\nsaid: 'Oh! Mixt Pickles.' What can one understand of that?--Mixt\nPickles!\"...\n\nThe young man's sedulous blue eyes looked out of his pink face through\nhis glasses at Mr. Direck, anxious for any light he could offer upon the\natmospheric vagueness of this England.\n\nHe was, he explained, a student of philology preparing for his\ndoctorate. He had not yet done his year of military service. He was\nstudying the dialects of East Anglia--\n\n\"You go about among the people?\" Mr. Direck inquired.\n\n\"No, I do not do that. But I ask Mr. Carmine and Mrs. Britling and the\nboys many questions. And sometimes I talk to the gardener.\"\n\nHe explained how he would prepare his thesis and how it would be\naccepted, and the nature of his army service and the various stages by\nwhich he would subsequently ascend in the orderly professorial life to\nwhich he was destined. He confessed a certain lack of interest in\nphilology, but, he said, \"it is what I have to do.\" And so he was going\nto do it all his life through. For his own part he was interested in\nideas of universal citizenship, in Esperanto and Ido and universal\nlanguages and such-like attacks upon the barriers between man and man.\nBut the authorities at home did not favour cosmopolitan ideas, and so he\nwas relinquishing them. \"Here, it is as if there were no authorities,\"\nhe said with a touch of envy.\n\nMr. Direck induced him to expand that idea.\n\nHerr Heinrich made Mr. Britling his instance. If Mr. Britling were a\nGerman he would certainly have some sort of title, a definite position,\nresponsibility. Here he was not even called Herr Doktor. He said what he\nliked. Nobody rewarded him; nobody reprimanded him. When Herr Heinrich\nasked him of his position, whether he was above or below Mr. Bernard\nShaw or Mr. Arnold White or Mr. Garvin or any other publicist, he made\njokes. Nobody here seemed to have a title and nobody seemed to have a\ndefinite place. There was Mr. Lawrence Carmine; he was a student of\nOriental questions; he had to do with some public institution in London\nthat welcomed Indian students; he was a Geheimrath--\n\n\"Eh?\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"It is--what do they call it? the Essex County Council.\" But nobody took\nany notice of that. And when Mr. Philbert, who was a minister in the\ngovernment, came to lunch he was just like any one else. It was only\nafter he had gone that Herr Heinrich had learnt by chance that he was a\nminister and \"Right Honourable....\"\n\n\"In Germany everything is definite. Every man knows his place, has his\npapers, is instructed what to do....\"\n\n\"Yet,\" said Mr. Direck, with his eyes on the glowing roses, the neat\narbour, the long line of the red wall of the vegetable garden and a\ndistant gleam of cornfield, \"it all looks orderly enough.\"\n\n\"It is as if it had been put in order ages ago,\" said Herr Heinrich.\n\n\"And was just going on by habit,\" said Mr. Direck, taking up the idea.\n\nTheir comparisons were interrupted by the appearance of \"Teddy,\" the\nsecretary, and the Indian young gentleman, damp and genial, as they\nexplained, \"from the boats.\" It seemed that \"down below\" somewhere was a\npond with a punt and an island and a toy dinghy. And while they\ndiscussed swimming and boating, Mr. Carmine appeared from the direction\nof the park conversing gravely with the elder son. They had been for a\nwalk and a talk together. There were proposals for a Badminton foursome.\nMr. Direck emerged from the general interchange with Mr. Lawrence\nCarmine, and then strolled through the rose garden to see the sunset\nfrom the end. Mr. Direck took the opportunity to verify his impression\nthat the elder son was the present Mrs. Britling's stepson, and he also\ncontrived by a sudden admiration for a distant row of evening primroses\nto deflect their path past the arbour in which the evening light must\nnow be getting a little too soft for Miss Corner's book.\n\nMiss Corner was drawn into the sunset party. She talked to Mr. Carmine\nand displayed, Mr. Direck thought, great originality of mind. She said\n\"The City of the Sun\" was like the cities the boys sometimes made on the\nplayroom floor. She said it was the dearest little city, and gave some\namusing particulars. She described the painted walls that made the tour\nof the Civitas Solis a liberal education. She asked Mr. Carmine, who was\nan authority on Oriental literature, why there were no Indian nor\nChinese Utopias.\n\nNow it had never occurred to Mr. Direck to ask why there were no Indian\nnor Chinese Utopias, and even Mr. Carmine seemed surprised to discover\nthis deficiency.\n\n\"The primitive patriarchal village _is_ Utopia to India and China,\" said\nMr. Carmine, when they had a little digested the inquiry. \"Or at any\nrate it is their social ideal. They want no Utopias.\"\n\n\"Utopias came with cities,\" he said, considering the question. \"And the\nfirst cities, as distinguished from courts and autocratic capitals, came\nwith ships. India and China belong to an earlier age. Ships, trade,\ndisorder, strange relationships, unofficial literature, criticism--and\nthen this idea of some novel remaking of society....\"\n\n\nSection 8\n\nThen Mr. Direck fell into the hands of Hugh, the eldest son, and\nanticipating the inevitable, said that he liked to walk in the rose\ngarden. So they walked in the rose garden.\n\n\"Do you read Utopias?\" said Mr. Direck, cutting any preface, in the\nEnglish manner.\n\n\"Oh, _rather_!\" said Hugh, and became at once friendly and confidential.\n\n\"We all do,\" he explained. \"In England everybody talks of change and\nnothing ever changes.\"\n\n\"I found Miss Corner reading--what was it? the Sun People?--some old\nclassical Italian work.\"\n\n\"Campanella,\" said Hugh, without betraying the slightest interest in\nMiss Corner. \"Nothing changes in England, because the people who want to\nchange things change their minds before they change anything else. I've\nbeen in London talking for the last half-year. Studying art they call\nit. Before that I was a science student, and I want to be one again.\nDon't you think, Sir, there's something about science--it's steadier\nthan anything else in the world?\"\n\nMr. Direck thought that the moral truths of human nature were steadier\nthan science, and they had one of those little discussions of real life\nthat begin about a difference inadequately apprehended, and do not so\nmuch end as are abandoned. Hugh struck him as being more speculative and\ndetached than any American college youth of his age that he knew--but\nthat might not be a national difference but only the Britling strain. He\nseemed to have read more and more independently, and to be doing less.\nAnd he was rather more restrained and self-possessed.\n\nBefore Mr. Direck could begin a proper inquiry into the young man's work\nand outlook, he had got the conversation upon America. He wanted\ntremendously to see America. \"The dad says in one of his books that over\nhere we are being and that over there you are beginning. It must be\ntremendously stimulating to think that your country is still being\nmade....\"\n\nMr. Direck thought that an interesting point of view. \"Unless something\ntumbles down here, we never think of altering it,\" the young man\nremarked. \"And even then we just shore it up.\"\n\nHis remarks had the effect of floating off from some busy mill of\nthought within him. Hitherto Mr. Direck had been inclined to think this\nsilent observant youth, with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders\na little humped, as probably shy and adolescently ineffective. But the\nhead was manifestly quite busy....\n\n\"Miss Corner,\" he began, taking the first thing that came into his head,\nand then he remembered that he had already made the remark he was going\nto make not five minutes ago.\n\n\"What form of art,\" he asked, \"are you contemplating in your studies at\nthe present time in London?\"....\n\nBefore this question could be dealt with at all adequately, the two\nsmall boys became active in the garden beating in everybody to\n\"dress-up\" before supper. The secretary, Teddy, came in a fatherly way\nto look after Mr. Direck and see to his draperies.\n\n\nSection 9\n\nMr. Direck gave his very best attention to this business of draping\nhimself, for he had not the slightest intention of appearing ridiculous\nin the eyes of Miss Corner. Teddy came with an armful of stuff that he\nthought \"might do.\"\n\n\"What'll I come as?\" asked Mr. Direck.\n\n\"We don't wear costumes,\" said Teddy. \"We just put on all the brightest\nthings we fancy. If it's any costume at all, it's Futurist.\"\n\n\"And surely why shouldn't one?\" asked Mr. Direck, greatly struck by this\nidea. \"Why should we always be tied by the fashions and periods of the\npast?\"\n\nHe rejected a rather Mephistopheles-like costume of crimson and a scheme\nfor a brigand-like ensemble based upon what was evidently an old bolero\nof Mrs. Britling's, and after some reflection he accepted some black\nsilk tights. His legs were not legs to be ashamed of. Over this he tried\nvarious brilliant wrappings from the Dower House _armoire_, and chose at\nlast, after some hesitation in the direction of a piece of gold and\npurple brocade, a big square of green silk curtain stuff adorned with\ngolden pheasants and other large and dignified ornaments; this he wore\ntoga fashion over his light silken under-vest--Teddy had insisted on the\nabandonment of his shirt \"if you want to dance at all\"--and fastened\nwith a large green glass-jewelled brooch. From this his head and neck\nprojected, he felt, with a tolerable dignity. Teddy suggested a fillet\nof green ribbon, and this Mr. Direck tried, but after prolonged\nreflection before the glass rejected. He was still weighing the effect\nof this fillet upon the mind of Miss Corner when Teddy left him to make\nhis own modest preparations. Teddy's departure gave him a chance for\nprofile studies by means of an arrangement of the long mirror and the\ntable looking-glass that he had been too shy to attempt in the presence\nof the secretary. The general effect was quite satisfactory.\n\n\"Wa-a-a-l,\" he said with a quaver of laughter, \"now who'd have thought\nit?\" and smiled a consciously American smile at himself before going\ndown.\n\nThe company was assembling in the panelled hall, and made a brilliant\nshow in the light of the acetylene candles against the dark background.\nMr. Britling in a black velvet cloak and black silk tights was a deeper\nshade among the shadows; the high lights were Miss Corner and her\nsister, in glittering garments of peacock green and silver that gave a\nsnake-like quality to their lithe bodies. They were talking to the\nGerman tutor, who had become a sort of cotton Cossack, a spectacled\nCossack in buff and bright green. Mrs. Britling was dignified and\nbeautiful in a purple djibbah, and her stepson had become a handsome\nstill figure of black and crimson. Teddy had contrived something\nelaborate and effective in the Egyptian style, with a fish-basket and a\ncuirass of that thin matting one finds behind washstands; the small boys\nwere brigands, with immensely baggy breeches and cummerbunds in which\nthey had stuck a selection of paper-knives and toy pistols and similar\nweapons. Mr. Carmine and his young man had come provided with real\nIndian costumes; the feeling of the company was that Mr. Carmine was a\nmullah. The aunt-like lady with the noble nose stood out amidst these\nlevities in a black silk costume with a gold chain. She refused, it\nseemed, to make herself absurd, though she encouraged the others to\nextravagance by nods and enigmatical smiles. Nevertheless she had put\npink ribbons in her cap. A family of father, golden-haired mother, and\ntwo young daughters, sympathetically attired, had just arrived, and were\ndiscarding their outer wrappings with the assistance of host and\nhostess.\n\nIt was all just exactly what Mr. Direck had never expected in England,\nand equally unexpected was the supper on a long candle-lit table without\na cloth. No servants were present, but on a sideboard stood a cold\nsalmon and cold joints and kalter aufschnitt and kartoffel salat, and a\nvariety of other comestibles, and many bottles of beer and wine and\nwhisky. One helped oneself and anybody else one could, and Mr. Direck\ndid his best to be very attentive to Mrs. Britling and Miss Corner, and\nwas greatly assisted by the latter.\n\nEverybody seemed unusually gay and bright-eyed. Mr. Direck found\nsomething exhilarating and oddly exciting in all this unusual bright\ncostume and in this easy mutual service; it made everybody seem franker\nand simpler. Even Mr. Britling had revealed a sturdy handsomeness that\nhad not been apparent to Mr. Direck before, and young Britling left no\ndoubts now about his good looks. Mr. Direck forgot his mission and his\nposition, and indeed things generally, in an irrational satisfaction\nthat his golden pheasants harmonised with the glitter of the warm and\nsmiling girl beside him. And he sat down beside her--\"You sit anywhere,\"\nsaid Mrs. Britling--with far less compunction than in his ordinary\ncostume he would have felt for so direct a confession of preference. And\nthere was something in her eyes, it was quite indefinable and yet very\nsatisfying, that told him that now he escaped from the stern square\nimperatives of his patriotic tailor in New York she had made a\ndiscovery of him.\n\nEverybody chattered gaily, though Mr. Direck would have found it\ndifficult to recall afterwards what it was they chattered about, except\nthat somehow he acquired the valuable knowledge that Miss Corner was\ncalled Cecily, and her sister Letty, and then--so far old Essex custom\nheld--the masculine section was left for a few minutes for some\nimaginary drinking, and a lighting of cigars and cigarettes, after which\neverybody went through interwoven moonlight and afterglow to the barn.\nMr. Britling sat down to a pianola in the corner and began the familiar\ncadences of \"Whistling Rufus.\"\n\n\"You dance?\" said Miss Cecily Corner.\n\n\"I've never been much of a dancing man,\" said Mr. Direck. \"What sort of\ndance is this?\"\n\n\"Just anything. A two-step.\"\n\nMr. Direck hesitated and regretted a well-spent youth, and then Hugh\ncame prancing forward with outstretched hands and swept her away.\n\nJust for an instant Mr. Direck felt that this young man was a trifle\nsuperfluous....\n\nBut it was very amusing dancing.\n\nIt wasn't any sort of taught formal dancing. It was a spontaneous retort\nto the leaping American music that Mr. Britling footed out. You kept\ntime, and for the rest you did as your nature prompted. If you had a\npartner you joined hands, you fluttered to and from one another, you\npaced down the long floor together, you involved yourselves in romantic\npursuits and repulsions with other couples. There was no objection to\nyour dancing alone. Teddy, for example, danced alone in order to develop\ncertain Egyptian gestures that were germinating in his brain. There was\nno objection to your joining hands in a cheerful serpent....\n\nMr. Direck hung on to Cissie and her partner. They danced very well\ntogether; they seemed to like and understand each other. It was natural\nof course for two young people like that, thrown very much together, to\ndevelop an affection for one another.... Still, she was older by three\nor four years.\n\nIt seemed unreasonable that the boy anyhow shouldn't be in love with\nher....\n\nIt seemed unreasonable that any one shouldn't be in love with her....\n\nThen Mr. Direck remarked that Cissie was watching Teddy's manoeuvres\nover her partner's shoulder with real affection and admiration....\n\nBut then most refreshingly she picked up Mr. Direck's gaze and gave him\nthe slightest of smiles. She hadn't forgotten him.\n\nThe music stopped with an effect of shock, and all the bobbing, whirling\nfigures became walking glories.\n\n\"Now that's not difficult, is it?\" said Miss Corner, glowing happily.\n\n\"Not when you do it,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"I can't imagine an American not dancing a two-step. You must do the\nnext with me. Listen! It's 'Away Down Indiana' ... ah! I knew you\ncould.\"\n\nMr. Direck, too, understood now that he could, and they went off holding\nhands rather after the fashion of two skaters.\n\n\"My word!\" said Mr. Direck. \"To think I'd be dancing.\"\n\nBut he said no more because he needed his breath.\n\nHe liked it, and he had another attempt with one of the visitor\ndaughters, who danced rather more formally, and then Teddy took the\npianola and Mr. Direck was astonished by the spectacle of an eminent\nBritish thinker in a whirl of black velvet and extremely active black\nlegs engaged in a kind of Apache dance in pursuit of the visitor wife.\nIn which Mr. Lawrence Carmine suddenly mingled.\n\n\"In Germany,\" said Herr Heinrich, \"we do not dance like this. It could\nnot be considered seemly. But it is very pleasant.\"\n\nAnd then there was a waltz, and Herr Heinrich bowed to and took the\nvisitor wife round three times, and returned her very punctually and\nexactly to the point whence he had taken her, and the Indian young\ngentleman (who must not be called \"coloured\") waltzed very well with\nCecily. Mr. Direck tried to take a tolerant European view of this brown\nand white combination. But he secured her as soon as possible from this\nAsiatic entanglement, and danced with her again, and then he danced with\nher again.\n\n\"Come and look at the moonlight,\" cried Mrs. Britling.\n\nAnd presently Mr. Direck found himself strolling through the rose garden\nwith Cecily. She had the sweetest moonlight face, her white shining robe\nmade her a thing of moonlight altogether. If Mr. Direck had not been in\nlove with her before he was now altogether in love. Mamie Nelson, whose\nfreakish unkindness had been rankling like a poisoned thorn in his heart\nall the way from Massachusetts, suddenly became Ancient History.\n\nA tremendous desire for eloquence arose in Mr. Direck's soul, a desire\nso tremendous that no conceivable phrase he could imagine satisfied it.\nSo he remained tongue-tied. And Cecily was tongue-tied, too. The scent\nof the roses just tinted the clear sweetness of the air they breathed.\n\nMr. Direck's mood was an immense solemnity, like a dark ocean beneath\nthe vast dome of the sky, and something quivered in every fibre of his\nbeing, like moonlit ripples on the sea. He felt at the same time a\nportentous stillness and an immense enterprise....\n\nThen suddenly the pianola, pounding a cake walk, burst out into ribald\ninvitation....\n\n\"Come back to dance!\" cried Cecily, like one from whom a spell has just\nbeen broken. And Mr. Direck, snatching at a vanishing scrap of\neverything he had not said, remarked, \"I shall never forget this\nevening.\"\n\nShe did not seem to hear that.\n\nThey danced together again. And then Mr. Direck danced with the visitor\nlady, whose name he had never heard. And then he danced with Mrs.\nBritling, and then he danced with Letty. And then it seemed time for him\nto look for Miss Cecily again.\n\nAnd so the cheerful evening passed until they were within a quarter of\nan hour of Sunday morning. Mrs. Britling went to exert a restraining\ninfluence upon the pianola.\n\n\"Oh! one dance more!\" cried Cissie Corner.\n\n\"Oh! one dance more!\" cried Letty.\n\n\"One dance more,\" Mr. Direck supported, and then things really _had_ to\nend.\n\nThere was a rapid putting out of candles and a stowing away of things by\nTeddy and the sons, two chauffeurs appeared from the region of the\nkitchen and brought Mr. Lawrence Carmine's car and the visitor family's\ncar to the front door, and everybody drifted gaily through the moonlight\nand the big trees to the front of the house. And Mr. Direck saw the\nperambulator waiting--the mysterious perambulator--a little in the dark\nbeyond the front door.\n\nThe visitor family and Mr. Carmine and his young Indian departed. \"Come\nto hockey!\" shouted Mr. Britling to each departing car-load, and Mr.\nCarmine receding answered: \"I'll bring three!\"\n\nThen Mr. Direck, in accordance with a habit that had been growing on him\nthroughout the evening, looked around for Miss Cissie Corner and failed\nto find her. And then behold she was descending the staircase with the\nmysterious baby in her arms. She held up a warning finger, and then\nglanced at her sleeping burthen. She looked like a silvery Madonna. And\nMr. Direck remembered that he was still in doubt about that baby....\n\nTeddy, who was back in his flannels, seized upon the perambulator. There\nwas much careful baby stowing on the part of Cecily; she displayed an\ninfinitely maternal solicitude. Letty was away changing; she reappeared\njauntily taking leave, disregarding the baby absolutely, and Teddy\ndeparted bigamously, wheeling the perambulator between the two sisters\ninto the hazes of the moonlight. There was much crying of good nights.\nMr. Direck's curiosities narrowed down to a point of great intensity....\n\nOf course, Mr. Britling's circle must be a very \"Advanced\" circle....\n\n\nSection 10\n\nMr. Direck found he had taken leave of the rest of the company, and\ndrifted into a little parlour with Mr. Britling and certain glasses and\nsiphons and a whisky decanter on a tray....\n\n\"It is a very curious thing,\" said Mr. Direck, \"that in England I find\nmyself more disposed to take stimulants and that I no longer have the\nneed for iced water that one feels at home. I ascribe it to a greater\nhumidity in the air. One is less dried and one is less braced. One is no\nlonger pursued by a thirst, but one needs something to buck one up a\nlittle. Thank you. That is enough.\"\n\nMr. Direck took his glass of whisky and soda from Mr. Britling's hand.\n\nMr. Britling seated himself in an armchair by the fireplace and threw\none leg carelessly over the arm. In his black velvet cloak and cap, and\nhis black silk tights, he was very like a minor character, a court\nchamberlain for example, in some cloak and rapier drama. \"I find this\nweek-end dancing and kicking about wonderfully wholesome,\" he said.\n\"That and our Sunday hockey. One starts the new week clear and bright\nabout the mind. Friday is always my worst working day.\"\n\nMr. Direck leant against the table, wrapped in his golden pheasants, and\nappreciated the point.\n\n\"Your young people dance very cheerfully,\" he said.\n\n\"We all dance very cheerfully,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Then this Miss Corner,\" said Mr. Direck, \"she is the sister, I presume,\nis she? of that pleasant young lady who is married--she is married,\nisn't she?--to the young man you call Teddy.\"\n\n\"I should have explained these young people. They're the sort of young\npeople we are producing over here now in quite enormous quantity. They\nare the sort of equivalent of the Russian Intelligentsia, an\nirresponsible middle class with ideas. Teddy, you know, is my secretary.\nHe's the son, I believe, of a Kilburn solicitor. He was recommended to\nme by Datcher of _The Times_. He came down here and lived in lodgings\nfor a time. Then suddenly appeared the young lady.\"\n\n\"Miss Corner's sister?\"\n\n\"Exactly. The village was a little startled. The cottager who had let\nthe rooms came to me privately. Teddy is rather touchy on the point of\nhis personal independence, he considers any demand for explanations as\nan insult, and probably all he had said to the old lady was, 'This is\nLetty--come to share my rooms.' I put the matter to him very gently.\n'Oh, yes,' he said, rather in the manner of some one who has overlooked\na trifle. 'I got married to her in the Christmas holidays. May I bring\nher along to see Mrs. Britling?' We induced him to go into a little\ncottage I rent. The wife was the daughter of a Colchester journalist and\nprinter. I don't know if you talked to her.\"\n\n\"I've talked to the sister rather.\"\n\n\"Well, they're both idea'd. They're highly educated in the sense that\nthey do really think for themselves. Almost fiercely. So does Teddy. If\nhe thinks he hasn't thought anything he thinks for himself, he goes off\nand thinks it different. The sister is a teacher who wants to take the\nB.A. degree in London University. Meanwhile she pays the penalty of her\nsex.\"\n\n\"Meaning--?\" asked Mr. Direck, startled.\n\n\"Oh! that she puts in a great deal too much of her time upon housework\nand minding her sister's baby.\"\n\n\"She's a very interesting and charming young lady indeed,\" said Mr.\nDireck. \"With a sort of Western college freedom of mind--and something\nabout her that isn't American at all.\"\n\nMr. Britling was following the train of his own thoughts.\n\n\"My household has some amusing contrasts,\" he said. \"I don't know if you\nhave talked to that German.\n\n\"He's always asking questions. And you tell him any old thing and he\ngoes and writes it down in his room upstairs, and afterwards asks you\nanother like it in order to perplex himself by the variety of your\nanswers. He regards the whole world with a methodical distrust. He wants\nto document it and pin it down. He suspects it only too justly of\ndisorderly impulses, and a capacity for self-contradiction. He is the\nmost extraordinary contrast to Teddy, whose confidence in the universe\namounts almost to effrontery. Teddy carries our national laxness to a\nfoolhardy extent. He is capable of leaving his watch in the middle of\nClaverings Park and expecting to find it a month later--being carefully\ntaken care of by a squirrel, I suppose--when he happens to want it. He's\nrather like a squirrel himself--without the habit of hoarding. He is\nincapable of asking a question about anything; he would be quite sure it\nwas all right anyhow. He would feel that asking questions betrayed a\nwant of confidence--was a sort of incivility. But my German, if you\nnotice,--his normal expression is one of grave solicitude. He is like a\nconscientious ticket-collector among his impressions. And did you notice\nhow beautifully my pianola rolls are all numbered and catalogued? He did\nthat. He set to work and did it as soon as he got here, just as a good\ncat when you bring it into the house sets to work and catches mice.\nPreviously the pianola music was chaos. You took what God sent you.\n\n\"And he _looks_ like a German,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"He certainly does that,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"He has the fair type of complexion, the rather full habit of body, the\ntemperamental disposition, but in addition that close-cropped head, it\nis almost as if it were shaved, the plumpness, the glasses--those are\nthings that are made. And the way he carries himself. And the way he\nthinks. His meticulousness. When he arrived he was delightful, he was\nwearing a student's corps cap and a rucksack, he carried a violin; he\nseemed to have come out of a book. No one would ever dare to invent so\nGerman a German for a book. Now, a young Frenchman or a young Italian or\na young Russian coming here might look like a foreigner, but he wouldn't\nhave the distinctive national stamp a German has. He wouldn't be plainly\nFrench or Italian or Russian. Other peoples are not made; they are\nneither made nor created but proceeding--out of a thousand indefinable\ncauses. The Germans are a triumph of directive will. I had to remark the\nother day that when my boys talked German they shouted. 'But when one\ntalks German one _must_ shout,' said Herr Heinrich. 'It is taught so in\nthe schools.' And it is. They teach them to shout and to throw out their\nchests. Just as they teach them to read notice-boards and not think\nabout politics. Their very ribs are not their own. My Herr Heinrich is\ncomparatively a liberal thinker. He asked me the other day, 'But why\nshould I give myself up to philology? But then,' he reflected, 'it is\nwhat I have to do.'\"\n\nMr. Britling seemed to have finished, and then just as Mr. Direck was\nplanning a way of getting the talk back by way of Teddy to Miss Corner,\nhe snuggled more deeply into his chair, reflected and broke out again.\n\n\"This contrast between Heinrich's carefulness and Teddy's\neasy-goingness, come to look at it, is I suppose one of the most\nfundamental in the world. It reaches to everything. It mixes up with\neducation, statecraft, morals. Will you make or will you take? Those are\nthe two extreme courses in all such things. I suppose the answer of\nwisdom to that is, like all wise answers, a compromise. I suppose one\nmust accept and then make all one can of it.... Have you talked at all\nto my eldest son?\"\n\n\"He's a very interesting young man indeed,\" said Mr. Direck. \"I should\nventure to say there's a very great deal in him. I was most impressed by\nthe few words I had with him.\"\n\n\"There, for example, is one of my perplexities,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\nMr. Direck waited for some further light on this sudden transition.\n\n\"Ah! your troubles in life haven't begun yet. Wait till you're a father.\nThat cuts to the bone. You have the most delicate thing in the world in\nhand, a young kindred mind. You feel responsible for it, you know you\nare responsible for it; and you lose touch with it. You can't get at it.\nNowadays we've lost the old tradition of fatherhood by divine right--and\nwe haven't got a new one. I've tried not to be a cramping ruler, a\ndirector, a domestic tyrant to that lad--and in effect it's meant his\ngoing his own way.... I don't dominate. I hoped to advise. But you see\nhe loves my respect and good opinion. Too much. When things go well I\nknow of them. When the world goes dark for him, then he keeps his\ntrouble from me. Just when I would so eagerly go into it with him....\nThere's something the matter now, something--it may be grave. I feel he\nwants to tell me. And there it is!--it seems I am the last person to\nwhom he can humiliate himself by a confession of blundering, or\nweakness.... Something I should just laugh at and say, 'That's in the\nblood of all of us, dear Spit of myself. Let's see what's to be\ndone.'...\"\n\nHe paused and then went on, finding in the unfamiliarity and\ntransitoriness of his visitor a freedom he might have failed to find in\na close friend.\n\n\"I am frightened at times at all I don't know about in that boy's mind.\nI know nothing of his religiosities. He's my son and he must have\nreligiosities. I know nothing of his ideas or of his knowledge about sex\nand all that side of life. I do not know of the things he finds\nbeautiful. I can guess at times; that's all; when he betrays himself....\nYou see, you don't know really what love is until you have children. One\ndoesn't love women. Indeed you don't! One gives and gets; it's a trade.\nOne may have tremendous excitements and expectations and overwhelming\ndesires. That's all very well in its way. But the love of children is an\nexquisite tenderness: it rends the heart. It's a thing of God. And I lie\nawake at nights and stretch out my hands in the darkness to this\nlad--who will never know--until his sons come in their time....\"\n\nHe made one of his quick turns again.\n\n\"And that's where our English way makes for distresses. Mr. Prussian\nrespects and fears his father; respects authorities, attends, obeys\nand--_his father has a hold upon him_. But I said to myself at the\noutset, 'No, whatever happens, I will not usurp the place of God. I will\nnot be the Priest-Patriarch of my children. They shall grow and I will\ngrow beside them, helping but not cramping or overshadowing.' They grow\nmore. But they blunder more. Life ceases to be a discipline and becomes\nan experiment....\"\n\n\"That's very true,\" said Mr. Direck, to whom it seemed the time was ripe\nto say something. \"This is the problem of America perhaps even more than\nof England. Though I have not had the parental experience you have\nundergone.... I can see very clearly that a son is a very serious\nproposition.\"\n\n\"The old system of life was organisation. That is where Germany is still\nthe most ancient of European states. It's a reversion to a tribal cult.\nIt's atavistic.... To organise or discipline, or mould characters or\npress authority, is to assume that you have reached finality in your\ngeneral philosophy. It implies an assured end. Heinrich has his assured\nend, his philological professorship or thereabouts as a part of the\nGermanic machine. And that too has its assured end in German national\nassertion. Here, we have none of those convictions. We know we haven't\nfinality, and so we are open and apologetic and receptive, rather than\nwilful.... You see all organisation, with its implication of finality,\nis death. We feel that. The Germans don't. What you organise you kill.\nOrganised morals or organised religion or organised thought are dead\nmorals and dead religion and dead thought. Yet some organisation you\nmust have. Organisation is like killing cattle. If you do not kill some\nthe herd is just waste. But you musn't kill all or you kill the herd.\nThe unkilled cattle are the herd, the continuation; the unorganised side\nof life is the real life. The reality of life is adventure, not\nperformance. What isn't adventure isn't life. What can be ruled about\ncan be machined. But priests and schoolmasters and bureaucrats get hold\nof life and try to make it _all_ rules, _all_ etiquette and regulation\nand correctitude.... And parents and the love of parents make for the\nsame thing. It is all very well to experiment for oneself, but when one\nsees these dear things of one's own, so young and inexperienced and so\ncapable of every sort of gallant foolishness, walking along the narrow\nplank, going down into dark jungles, ah! then it makes one want to wrap\nthem in laws and foresight and fence them about with 'Verboten' boards\nin all the conceivable aspects....\"\n\n\"In America of course we do set a certain store upon youthful\nself-reliance,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"As we do here. It's in your blood and our blood. It's the instinct of\nthe English and the Irish anyhow to suspect government and take the\nrisks of the chancy way.... And manifestly the Russians, if you read\ntheir novelists, have the same twist in them.... When we get this young\nPrussian here, he's a marvel to us. He really believes in Law. He\n_likes_ to obey. That seems a sort of joke to us. It's curious how\nforeign these Germans are--to all the rest of the world. Because of\ntheir docility. Scratch the Russian and you get the Tartar. Educate the\nRussian or the American or the Englishman or the Irishman or Frenchman\nor any real northern European except the German, and you get the\nAnarchist, that is to say the man who dreams of order without\norganisation--of something beyond organisation....\n\n\"It's one o'clock,\" said Mr. Britling abruptly, perceiving a shade of\nfatigue upon the face of his hearer and realising that his thoughts had\ntaken him too far, \"and Sunday. Let's go to bed.\"\n\n\nSection 11\n\nFor a time Mr. Direck could not sleep. His mind had been too excited by\nthis incessant day with all its novelties and all its provocations to\ncomparison. The whole complicated spectacle grouped itself, with a\nnaturalness and a complete want of logic that all who have been young\nwill understand, about Cecily Corner.\n\nShe had to be in the picture, and so she came in as though she were the\ncentral figure, as though she were the quintessential England. There she\nwas, the type, the blood, the likeness, of no end of Massachusetts\nfamilies, the very same stuff indeed, and yet she was different....\n\nFor a time his thoughts hovered ineffectively about certain details of\nher ear and cheek, and one may doubt if his interest in these things was\nentirely international....\n\nThen he found himself under way with an exposition of certain points to\nMr. Britling. In the security of his bed he could imagine that he was\ntalking very slowly and carefully while Mr. Britling listened; already\nhe was more than half way to dreamland or he could not have supposed\nanything so incredible.\n\n\"There's a curious sort of difference,\" he was saying. \"It is difficult\nto define, but on the whole I might express it by saying that such a\ngathering as this if it was in America would be drawn with harder lines,\nwould show its bones more and have everything more emphatic. And just to\ntake one illustrative point: in America in such a gathering as this\nthere would be bound to be several jokes going on as it were, running\njokes and running criticisms, from day to day and from week to week....\nThere would be jokes about your writing and your influence and jokes\nabout Miss Corner's advanced reading.... You see, in America we pay much\nmore attention to personal character. Here people, I notice, are not\ntalked to about their personal characters at all, and many of them do\nnot seem to be aware and do not seem to mind what personal characters\nthey have....\n\n\"And another thing I find noteworthy is the way in which what I might\ncall mature people seem to go on having a good time instead of standing\nby and applauding the young people having a good time.... And the young\npeople do not seem to have set out to have a good time at all.... Now in\nAmerica, a charming girl like Miss Corner would be distinctly more aware\nof herself and her vitality than she is here, distinctly more. Her\npeculiarly charming sidelong look, if I might make so free with\nher--would have been called attention to. It's a perfectly beautiful\nlook, the sort of look some great artist would have loved to make\nimmortal. It's a look I shall find it hard to forget.... But she doesn't\nseem to be aware in the least of it. In America she would be aware of\nit. She would be distinctly aware of it. She would have been _made_\naware of it. She would have been advised of it. It would be looked for\nand she would know it was looked for. She would _give_ it as a singer\ngives her most popular song. Mamie Nelson, for example, used to give a\npeculiar little throw back of the chin and a laugh.... It was talked\nabout. People came to see it....\n\n\"Of course Mamie Nelson was a very brilliant girl indeed. I suppose in\nEngland you would say we spoilt her. I suppose we did spoil her....\"\n\nIt came into Mr. Direck's head that for a whole day he had scarcely\ngiven a thought to Mamie Nelson. And now he was thinking of her--calmly.\nWhy shouldn't one think of Mamie Nelson calmly?\n\nShe was a proud imperious thing. There was something Southern in her.\nVery dark blue eyes she had, much darker than Miss Corner's....\n\nBut how tortuous she had been behind that outward pride of hers! For\nfour years she had let him think he was the only man who really mattered\nin the world, and all the time quite clearly and definitely she had\ndeceived him. She had made a fool of him and she had made a fool of the\nothers perhaps--just to have her retinue and play the queen in her\nworld. And at last humiliation, bitter humiliation, and Mamie with her\nchin in the air and her bright triumphant smile looking down on him.\n\nHadn't he, she asked, had the privilege of loving her?\n\nShe took herself at the value they had set upon her.\n\nWell--somehow--that wasn't right....\n\nAll the way across the Atlantic Mr. Direck had been trying to forget her\ndownward glance with the chin up, during that last encounter--and other\naspects of the same humiliation. The years he had spent upon her! The\ntime! Always relying upon her assurance of a special preference for him.\nHe tried to think he was suffering from the pangs of unrequited love,\nand to conceal from himself just how bitterly his pride and vanity had\nbeen rent by her ultimate rejection. There had been a time when she had\ngiven him reason to laugh in his sleeve at Booth Wilmington.\n\nPerhaps Booth Wilmington had also had reason for laughing in his\nsleeve....\n\nHad she even loved Booth Wilmington? Or had she just snatched at him?...\n\nWasn't he, Direck, as good a man as Booth Wilmington anyhow?...\n\nFor some moments the old sting of jealousy rankled again. He recalled\nthe flaring rivalry that had ended in his defeat, the competition of\ngifts and treats.... A thing so open that all Carrierville knew of it,\ndiscussed it, took sides.... And over it all Mamie with her flashing\nsmile had sailed like a processional goddess....\n\nWhy, they had made jokes about him in the newspapers!\n\nOne couldn't imagine such a contest in Matching's Easy. Yet surely even\nin Matching's Easy there are lovers.\n\nIs it something in the air, something in the climate that makes things\nharder and clearer in America?...\n\nCissie--why shouldn't one call her Cissie in one's private thoughts\nanyhow?--would never be as hard and clear as Mamie. She had English\neyes--merciful eyes....\n\nThat was the word--_merciful_!\n\nThe English light, the English air, are merciful....\n\nMerciful....\n\nThey tolerate old things and slow things and imperfect apprehensions.\nThey aren't always getting at you....\n\nThey don't laugh at you.... At least--they laugh differently....\n\nWas England the tolerant country? With its kind eyes and its wary\nsidelong look. Toleration. In which everything mellowed and nothing was\ndestroyed. A soft country. A country with a passion for imperfection. A\npadded country....\n\nEngland--all stuffed with soft feathers ... under one's ear. A\npillow--with soft, kind Corners ... Beautiful rounded Corners.... Dear,\ndear Corners. Cissie Corners. Corners. Could there be a better family?\n\nMassachusetts--but in heaven....\n\nHarps playing two-steps, and kind angels wrapped in moonlight.\n\n  Very softly I and you,\n  One turn, two turn, three turn, too.\n  Off we go!....\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE THIRD\n\nTHE ENTERTAINMENT OF MR. DIRECK REACHES A CLIMAX\n\n\nSection 1\n\nBreakfast was in the open air, and a sunny, easy-going feast. Then the\nsmall boys laid hands on Mr. Direck and showed him the pond and the\nboats, while Mr. Britling strolled about the lawn with Hugh, talking\nrather intently. And when Mr. Direck returned from the boats in a state\nof greatly enhanced popularity he found Mr. Britling conversing over his\ngarden railings to what was altogether a new type of Britisher in Mr.\nDireck's experience. It was a tall, lean, sun-bitten youngish man of\nforty perhaps, in brown tweeds, looking more like the Englishman of the\nAmerican illustrations than anything Mr. Direck had met hitherto. Indeed\nhe came very near to a complete realisation of that ideal except that\nthere was a sort of intensity about him, and that his clipped moustache\nhad the restrained stiffness of a wiry-haired terrier. This gentleman\nMr. Direck learnt was Colonel Rendezvous. He spoke in clear short\nsentences, they had an effect of being punched out, and he was refusing\nto come into the garden and talk.\n\n\"Have to do my fourteen miles before lunch,\" he said. \"You haven't seen\nManning about, have you?\"\n\n\"He isn't here,\" said Mr. Britling, and it seemed to Mr. Direck that\nthere was the faintest ambiguity in this reply.\n\n\"Have to go alone, then,\" said Colonel Rendezvous. \"They told me that he\nhad started to come here.\"\n\n\"I shall motor over to Bramley High Oak for your Boy Scout festival,\"\nsaid Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Going to have three thousand of 'em,\" said the Colonel. \"Good show.\"\n\nHis steely eyes seemed to search the cover of Mr. Britling's garden for\nthe missing Manning, and then he decided to give him up. \"I must be\ngoing,\" he said. \"So long. Come up!\"\n\nA well-disciplined dog came to heel, and the lean figure had given Mr.\nDireck a semi-military salutation and gone upon its way. It marched with\na long elastic stride; it never looked back.\n\n\"Manning,\" said Mr. Britling, \"is probably hiding up in my rose garden.\"\n\n\"Curiously enough, I guessed from your manner that that might be the\ncase,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"Yes. Manning is a London journalist. He has a little cottage about a\nmile over there\"--Mr. Britling pointed vaguely--\"and he comes down for\nthe week-ends. And Rendezvous has found out he isn't fit. And everybody\nought to be fit. That is the beginning and end of life for Rendezvous.\nFitness. An almost mineral quality, an insatiable activity of body,\ngreat mental simplicity. So he takes possession of poor old Manning and\ntrots him for that fourteen miles--at four miles an hour. Manning goes\nthrough all the agonies of death and damnation, he half dissolves, he\npants and drags for the first eight or ten miles, and then I must admit\nhe rather justifies Rendezvous' theory. He is to be found in the\nafternoon in a hammock suffering from blistered feet, but otherwise\nunusually well. But if he can escape it, he does. He hides.\"\n\n\"But if he doesn't want to go with Rendezvous, why does he?\" said Mr.\nDireck.\n\n\"Well, Rendezvous is accustomed to the command of men. And Manning's\nonly way of refusing things is on printed forms. Which he doesn't bring\ndown to Matching's Easy. Ah! behold!\"\n\nFar away across the lawn between two blue cedars there appeared a\nleisurely form in grey flannels and a loose tie, advancing with manifest\ncircumspection.\n\n\"He's gone,\" cried Britling.\n\nThe leisurely form, obviously amiable, obviously a little out of\ncondition, became more confident, drew nearer.\n\n\"I'm sorry to have missed him,\" he said cheerfully. \"I thought he might\ncome this way. It's going to be a very warm day indeed. Let us sit about\nsomewhere and talk.\n\n\"Of course,\" he said, turning to Direck, \"Rendezvous is the life and\nsoul of the country.\"\n\nThey strolled towards a place of seats and hammocks between the big\ntrees and the rose garden, and the talk turned for a time upon\nRendezvous. \"They have the tidiest garden in Essex,\" said Manning. \"It's\nnot Mrs. Rendezvous' fault that it is so. Mrs. Rendezvous, as a matter\nof fact, has a taste for the picturesque. She just puts the things about\nin groups in the beds. She wants them, she says, to grow anyhow. She\ndesires a romantic disorder. But she never gets it. When he walks down\nthe path all the plants dress instinctively.... And there's a tree near\ntheir gate; it used to be a willow. You can ask any old man in the\nvillage. But ever since Rendezvous took the place it's been trying to\npresent arms. With the most extraordinary results. I was passing the\nother day with old Windershin. 'You see that there old poplar,' he said.\n'It's a willow,' said I. 'No,' he said, 'it did used to be a willow\nbefore Colonel Rendezvous he came. But now it's a poplar.'... And, by\nJove, it is a poplar!\"...\n\nThe conversation thus opened by Manning centred for a time upon Colonel\nRendezvous. He was presented as a monster of energy and self-discipline;\nas the determined foe of every form of looseness, slackness, and\neasy-goingness.\n\n\"He's done wonderful work for the local Boy Scout movement,\" said\nManning.\n\n\"It's Kitchenerism,\" said Britling.\n\n\"It's the army side of the efficiency stunt,\" said Manning.\n\nThere followed a digression upon the Boy Scout movement, and Mr. Direck\nmade comparisons with the propaganda of Seton Thompson in America.\n\"Colonel Teddyism,\" said Manning. \"It's a sort of reaction against\neverything being too easy and too safe.\"\n\n\"It's got its anti-decadent side,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"If there is such a thing as decadence,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"If there wasn't such a thing as decadence,\" said Manning, \"we\njournalists would have had to invent it.\"...\n\n\"There is something tragical in all this--what shall I call\nit?--Kitchenerism,\" Mr. Britling reflected \"Here you have it rushing\nabout and keeping itself--screwed up, and trying desperately to keep the\ncountry screwed up. And all because there may be a war some day somehow\nwith Germany. Provided Germany _is_ insane. It's that war, like some\nsort of bee in Rendezvous' brains, that is driving him along the road\nnow to Market Saffron--he always keeps to the roads because they are\nseverer--through all the dust and sunshine. When he might be here\ngossiping....\n\n\"And you know, I don't see that war coming,\" said Mr. Britling. \"I\nbelieve Rendezvous sweats in vain. I can't believe in that war. It has\nheld off for forty years. It may hold off forever.\"\n\nHe nodded his head towards the German tutor, who had come into view\nacross the lawn, talking profoundly with Mr. Britling's eldest son.\n\n\"Look at that pleasant person. There he is--_Echt Deutsch_--if anything\never was. Look at my son there! Do you see the two of them engaged in\nmortal combat? The thing's too ridiculous. The world grows sane. They\nmay fight in the Balkans still; in many ways the Balkan States are in\nthe very rear of civilisation; but to imagine decent countries like this\nor Germany going back to bloodshed! No.... When I see Rendezvous\nkeeping it up and keeping it up, I begin to see just how poor Germany\nmust be keeping it up. I begin to realise how sick Germany must be\ngetting of the high road and the dust and heat and the everlasting drill\nand restraint.... My heart goes out to the South Germans. Old Manning\nhere always reminds me of Austria. Think of Germany coming like\nRendezvous on a Sunday morning, and looking stiffly over Austria's\nfence. 'Come for a good hard walk, man. Keep Fit....'\"\n\n\"But suppose this Balkan trouble becomes acute,\" said Manning.\n\n\"It hasn't; it won't. Even if it did we should keep out of it.\"\n\n\"But suppose Russia grappled Austria and Germany flung herself suddenly\nupon France--perhaps taking Belgium on the way.\"\n\n\"Oh!--we should fight. Of course we should fight. Could any one but a\ncongenital idiot suppose we shouldn't fight? They know we should fight.\nThey aren't altogether idiots in Germany. But the thing's absurd. Why\n_should_ Germany attack France? It's as if Manning here took a hatchet\nsuddenly and assailed Edith.... It's just the dream of their military\njournalists. It's such schoolboy nonsense. Isn't that a beautiful pillar\nrose? Edith only put it in last year.... I hate all this talk of wars\nand rumours of wars.... It's worried all my life. And it gets worse and\nit gets emptier every year....\"\n\n\nSection 2\n\nNow just at that moment there was a loud report....\n\nBut neither Mr. Britling nor Mr. Manning nor Mr. Direck was interrupted\nor incommoded in the slightest degree by that report. Because it was too\nfar off over the curve of this round world to be either heard or seen at\nMatching's Easy. Nevertheless it was a very loud report. It occurred at\nan open space by a river that ran through a cramped Oriental city, a\ncity spiked with white minarets and girt about by bare hills under a\nblazing afternoon sky. It came from a black parcel that the Archduke\nFrancis Ferdinand of Austria, with great presence of mind, had just\nflung out from the open hood of his automobile, where, tossed from the\nside of the quay, it had descended a few seconds before. It exploded as\nit touched the cobbled road just under the front of the second vehicle\nin the procession, and it blew to pieces the front of the automobile and\ninjured the aide-de-camp who was in it and several of the spectators.\nIts thrower was immediately gripped by the bystanders. The procession\nstopped. There was a tremendous commotion amongst that brightly-costumed\ncrowd, a hot excitement in vivid contrast to the Sabbath calm of\nMatching's Easy....\n\nMr. Britling, to whom the explosion was altogether inaudible, continued\nhis dissertation upon the common-sense of the world and the practical\nsecurity of our Western peace.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nLunch was an open-air feast again. Three visitors had dropped in; they\nhad motored down from London piled up on a motor-cycle and a side-car; a\nbrother and two sisters they seemed to be, and they had apparently\nreduced hilariousness to a principle. The rumours of coming hockey that\nhad been floating on the outskirts of Mr. Direck's consciousness ever\nsince his arrival, thickened and multiplied.... It crept into his mind\nthat he was expected to play....\n\nHe decided he would not play. He took various people into his\nconfidence. He told Mr. Britling, and Mr. Britling said, \"We'll make you\nfull back, where you'll get a hit now and then and not have very much to\ndo. All you have to remember is to hit with the flat side of your stick\nand not raise it above your shoulders.\" He told Teddy, and Teddy said,\n\"I strongly advise you to dress as thinly as you can consistently with\ndecency, and put your collar and tie in your pocket before the game\nbegins. Hockey is properly a winter game.\" He told the maiden aunt-like\nlady with the prominent nose, and she said almost enviously, \"Every one\nhere is asked to play except me. I assuage the perambulator. I suppose\none mustn't be envious. I don't see why I shouldn't play. I'm not so old\nas all that.\" He told Hugh, and Hugh warned him to be careful not to get\nhold of one of the sprung sticks. He considered whether it wouldn't be\nwiser to go to his own room and lock himself in, or stroll off for a\nwalk through Claverings Park. But then he would miss Miss Corner, who\nwas certain, it seemed, to come up for hockey. On the other hand, if he\ndid not miss her he might make himself ridiculous in her eyes, and\nefface the effect of the green silk stuff with the golden pheasants.\n\nHe determined to stay behind until she arrived, and explain to her that\nhe was not going to play. He didn't somehow want her to think he wasn't\nperfectly fit to play.\n\nMr. Carmine arrived in an automobile with two Indians and a gentleman\nwho had been a prospector in Alaska, the family who had danced overnight\nat the Dower House reappeared, and then Mrs. Teddy, very detached with a\nspecial hockey stick, and Miss Corner wheeling the perambulator. Then\ncame further arrivals. At the earliest opportunity Mr. Direck secured\nthe attention of Miss Corner, and lost his interest in any one else.\n\n\"I can't play this hockey,\" said Mr. Direck. \"I feel strange about it.\nIt isn't an American game. Now if it were baseball--!\"\n\nHe left her to suppose him uncommonly hot stuff at baseball.\n\n\"If you're on my side,\" said Cecily, \"mind you pass to me.\"\n\nIt became evident to Mr. Direck that he was going to play this hockey\nafter all.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"if I've got to play hockey, I guess I've got to play\nhockey. But can't I just get a bit of practice somewhere before the game\nbegins?\"\n\nSo Miss Corner went off to get two sticks and a ball and came back to\ninstruct Mr. Direck. She said he had a good eye. The two small boys\nscenting play in the air got sticks and joined them. The overnight\nvisitor's wife appeared from the house in abbreviated skirts, and\nwearing formidable shin-guards. With her abundant fair hair, which was\nalready breaking loose, so to speak, to join the fray, she looked like a\nshort stout dismounted Valkyr. Her gaze was clear and firm.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nHockey as it was played at the Dower House at Matching's Easy before the\nwar, was a game combining danger, physical exercise and kindliness in a\nvery high degree. Except for the infant in the perambulator and the\noutwardly calm but inwardly resentful aunt, who wheeled the child up and\ndown in a position of maximum danger just behind the unnetted goal,\nevery one was involved. Quite able-bodied people acquainted with the\ngame played forward, the less well-informed played a defensive game\nbehind the forward line, elderly, infirm, and bulky persons were used\nchiefly as obstacles in goal. Several players wore padded leg-guards,\nand all players were assumed to have them and expected to behave\naccordingly.\n\nProceedings began with an invidious ceremony called picking up. This was\nheralded by Mr. Britling, clad in the diaphanous flannels and bearing a\nhockey stick, advancing with loud shouts to the centre of the hockey\nfield. \"Pick up! Pick up!\" echoed the young Britlings.\n\nMr. Direck became aware of a tall, drooping man with long hair and long\ndigressive legs in still longer white flannel trousers, and a face that\nwas somehow familiar. He was talking with affectionate intimacy to\nManning, and suddenly Mr. Direck remembered that it was in Manning's\nweekly paper, _The Sectarian_, in which a bitter caricaturist enlivened\na biting text, that he had become familiar with the features of\nManning's companion. It was Raeburn, Raeburn the insidious, Raeburn the\ncompletest product of the party system.... Well, that was the English\nway. \"Come for the pick up!\" cried the youngest Britling, seizing upon\nMr. Direck's elbow. It appeared that Mr. Britling and the overnight\ndinner guest--Mr. Direck never learnt his name--were picking up.\n\nNames were shouted. \"I'll take Cecily!\" Mr. Direck heard Mr. Britling\nsay quite early. The opposing sides as they were picked fell into two\ngroups. There seemed to be difficulties about some of the names. Mr.\nBritling, pointing to the more powerful looking of the Indian gentlemen,\nsaid, \"_You_, Sir.\"\n\n\"I'm going to speculate on Mr. Dinks,\" said Mr. Britling's opponent.\n\nMr. Direck gathered that Mr. Dinks was to be his hockey name.\n\n\"You're on _our_ side,\" said Mrs. Teddy. \"I think you'll have to play\nforward, outer right, and keep a sharp eye on Cissie.\"\n\n\"I'll do what I can,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\nHis captain presently confirmed this appointment.\n\nHis stick was really a sort of club and the ball was a firm hard cricket\nball.... He resolved to be very gentle with Cecily, and see that she\ndidn't get hurt.\n\nThe sides took their places for the game, and a kind of order became\napparent to Mr. Direck. In the centre stood Mr. Britling and the\nopposing captain, and the ball lay between them. They were preparing to\n\"bully off\" and start the game. In a line with each of them were four\nother forwards. They all looked spirited and intent young people, and\nMr. Direck wished he had had more exercise to justify his own alert\nappearance. Behind each centre forward hovered one of the Britling boys.\nThen on each side came a vaguer row of three backs, persons of gentler\ndisposition or maturer years. They included Mr. Raeburn, who was\nconsidered to have great natural abilities for hockey but little\nexperience. Mr. Raeburn was behind Mr. Direck. Mrs. Britling was the\ncentre back. Then in a corner of Mr. Direck's side was a small girl of\nsix or seven, and in the half-circle about the goal a lady in a motoring\ndust coat and a very short little man whom Mr. Direck had not previously\nremarked. Mr. Lawrence Carmine, stripped to the braces, which were\nrichly ornamented with Oriental embroidery, kept goal for our team.\n\nThe centre forwards went through a rapid little ceremony. They smote\ntheir sticks on the ground, and then hit the sticks together. \"One,\"\nsaid Mr. Britling. The operation was repeated. \"Two,\" ... \"Three.\"\n\nSmack, Mr. Britling had got it and the ball had gone to the shorter and\nsturdier of the younger Britlings, who had been standing behind Mr.\nDireck's captain. Crack, and it was away to Teddy; smack, and it was\ncoming right at Direck.\n\n\"Lordy!\" he said, and prepared to smite it.\n\nThen something swift and blue had flashed before him, intercepted the\nball and shot it past him. This was Cecily Corner, and she and Teddy\nwere running abreast like the wind towards Mr. Raeburn.\n\n\"Hey!\" cried Mr. Raeburn, \"stop!\" and advanced, as it seemed to Mr.\nDireck, with unseemly and threatening gestures towards Cissie.\n\nBut before Mr. Direck could adjust his mind to this new phase of\naffairs, Cecily had passed the right honourable gentleman with the same\nmysterious ease with which she had flashed by Mr. Direck, and was\nbearing down upon the miscellaneous Landwehr which formed the \"backs\" of\nMr. Direck's side.\n\n\"_You_ rabbit!\" cried Mr. Raeburn, and became extraordinarily active in\npursuit, administering great lengths of arm and leg with a centralised\nefficiency he had not hitherto displayed.\n\nRunning hard to the help of Mr. Raeburn was the youngest Britling boy, a\nbeautiful contrast. It was like a puff ball supporting and assisting a\nconger eel. In front of Mr. Direck the little stout man was being alert.\nTeddy was supporting the attack near the middle of the field, crying\n\"Centre!\" while Mr. Britling, very round and resolute, was bouncing\nstraight towards the threatened goal. But Mrs. Teddy, running as swiftly\nas her sister, was between Teddy and the ball. Whack! the little short\nman's stick had clashed with Cecily's. Confused things happened with\nsticks and feet, and the little short man appeared to be trying to cut\ndown Cecily as one cuts down a tree, she tried to pass the ball to her\ncentre forward--too late, and then Mrs. Teddy had intercepted it, and\nwas flickering back towards Mr. Britling's goal in a rush in which Mr.\nDireck perceived it was his duty to join.\n\nYes, he had to follow up Mrs. Teddy and pick up the ball if he had a\nchance and send it in to her or the captain or across to the left\nforwards, as circumstances might decide. It was perfectly clear.\n\nThen came his moment. The little formidably padded lady who had dined at\nthe Dower House overnight, made a gallant attack upon Mrs. Teddy. Out of\nthe confusion of this clash the ball spun into Mr. Direck's radius.\nWhere should he smite and how? A moment of reflection was natural.\n\nBut now the easy-fitting discipline of the Dower House style of hockey\nbecame apparent. Mr. Direck had last observed the tall young Indian\ngentleman, full of vitality and anxious for destruction, far away in the\ndistance on the opposing right wing. But now, regardless of the more\nformal methods of the game, this young man had resolved, without further\ndelay and at any cost, to hit the ball hard, and he was travelling like\nsome Asiatic typhoon with an extreme velocity across the remonstrances\nof Mr. Britling and the general order of his side. Mr. Direck became\naware of him just before his impact. There was a sort of collision from\nwhich Mr. Direck emerged with a feeling that one side of his face was\npermanently flattened, but still gallantly resolved to hit the\ncomparatively lethargic ball. He and the staggered but resolute Indian\nclashed sticks again. And Mr. Direck had the best of it. Years of\nexperience couldn't have produced a better pass to the captain....\n\n\"Good pass!\"\n\nApparently from one of the London visitors.\n\nBut this was _some_ game!\n\nThe ball executed some rapid movements to and fro across the field. Our\nside was pressing hard. There was a violent convergence of miscellaneous\nbacks and suchlike irregulars upon the threatened goal. Mr. Britling's\ndozen was rapidly losing its disciplined order. One of the sidecar\nladies and the gallant Indian had shifted their activities to the\ndefensive back, and with them was a spectacled gentleman waving his\nstick, high above all recognised rules. Mr. Direck's captain and both\nBritling boys hurried to join the fray. Mr. Britling, who seemed to Mr.\nDireck to be for a captain rather too demagogic, also ran back to rally\nhis forces by loud cries. \"Pass outwardly!\" was the burthen of his\ncontribution.\n\nThe struggle about the Britling goal ceased to be a game and became\nsomething between a fight and a social gathering. Mr. Britling's\ngoal-keeper could be heard shouting, \"I can't see the ball! _Lift your\nfeet!_\" The crowded conflict lurched towards the goal posts. \"My shin!\"\ncried Mr. Manning. \"No, you _don't!_\"\n\nWhack, but again whack!\n\nWhack! \"Ah! _would_ you?\" Whack.\n\n\"Goal!\" cried the side-car gentleman.\n\n\"Goal!\" cried the Britling boys....\n\nMr. Manning, as goal-keeper, went to recover the ball, but one of the\nBritling boys politely anticipated him.\n\nThe crowd became inactive, and then began to drift back to loosely\nconceived positions.\n\n\"It's no good swarming into goal like that,\" Mr. Britling, with a faint\nasperity in his voice, explained to his followers. \"We've got to keep\nopen and not _crowd_ each other.\"\n\nThen he went confidentially to the energetic young Indian to make some\nrestrictive explanation of his activities.\n\nMr. Direck strolled back towards Cecily. He was very warm and a little\nblown, but not, he felt, disgraced. He was winning.\n\n\"You'll have to take your coat off,\" she said.\n\nIt was a good idea.\n\nIt had occurred to several people and the boundary line was already\ndotted with hastily discarded jackets and wraps and so forth. But the\nlady in the motoring dust coat was buttoning it to the chin.\n\n\"One goal love,\" said the minor Britling boy.\n\n\"We haven't begun yet, Sunny,\" said Cecily.\n\n\"Sonny! That's American,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"No. We call him Sunny Jim,\" said Cecily. \"They're bullying off again.\"\n\n\"Sunny Jim's American too,\" said Mr. Direck, returning to his place....\n\nThe struggle was resumed. And soon it became clear that the first goal\nwas no earnest of the quality of the struggle. Teddy and Cecily formed a\nterribly efficient combination. Against their brilliant rushes,\nsupported in a vehement but effective manner by the Indian to their\nright and guided by loud shoutings from Mr. Britling (centre), Mr.\nDireck and the side-car lady and Mr. Raeburn struggled in vain. One\nswift advance was only checked by the dust cloak, its folds held the\nball until help arrived; another was countered by a tremendous swipe of\nMr. Raeburn's that sent the ball within an inch of the youngest\nBritling's head and right across the field; the third resulted in a\nswift pass from Cecily to the elder Britling son away on her right, and\nhe shot the goal neatly and swiftly through the lattice of Mr. Lawrence\nCarmine's defensive movements. And after that very rapidly came another\ngoal for Mr. Britling's side and then another.\n\nThen Mr. Britling cried out that it was \"Half Time,\" and explained to\nMr. Direck that whenever one side got to three goals they considered it\nwas half time and had five minutes' rest and changed sides. Everybody\nwas very hot and happy, except the lady in the dust cloak who was\nperfectly cool. In everybody's eyes shone the light of battle, and not a\nshadow disturbed the brightness of the afternoon for Mr. Direck except a\ncertain unspoken anxiety about Mr. Raeburn's trousers.\n\nYou see Mr. Direck had never seen Mr. Raeburn before, and knew nothing\nabout his trousers.\n\nThey appeared to be coming down.\n\nTo begin with they had been rather loose over the feet and turned up,\nand as the game progressed, fold after fold of concertina-ed flannel\ngathered about his ankles. Every now and then Mr. Raeburn would seize\nthe opportunity of some respite from the game to turn up a fresh six\ninches or so of this accumulation. Naturally Mr. Direck expected this\npolicy to end unhappily. He did not know that the flannel trousers of\nMr. Raeburn were like a river, that they could come down forever and\nstill remain inexhaustible....\n\nHe had visions of this scene of happy innocence being suddenly blasted\nby a monstrous disaster....\n\nApart from this worry Mr. Direck was as happy as any one there!\n\nPerhaps these apprehensions affected his game. At any rate he did\nnothing that pleased him in the second half, Cecily danced all over him\nand round and about him, and in the course of ten minutes her side had\nwon the two remaining goals with a score of Five-One; and five goals is\n\"game\" by the standards of Matching's Easy.\n\nAnd then with the very slightest of delays these insatiable people\npicked up again. Mr. Direck slipped away and returned in a white silk\nshirt, tennis trousers and a belt. This time he and Cecily were on the\nsame side, the Cecily-Teddy combination was broken, and he it seemed was\nto take the place of the redoubtable Teddy on the left wing with her.\n\nThis time the sides were better chosen and played a long, obstinate,\neven game. One-One. One-Two. One-Three. (Half Time.) Two-Three. Three\nall. Four-Three. Four all....\n\nBy this time Mr. Direck was beginning to master the simple strategy of\nthe sport. He was also beginning to master the fact that Cecily was the\nquickest, nimblest, most indefatigable player on the field. He scouted\nfor her and passed to her. He developed tacit understandings with her.\nIdeas of protecting her had gone to the four winds of Heaven. Against\nthem Teddy and a sidecar girl with Raeburn in support made a memorable\nstruggle. Teddy was as quick as a cat. \"Four-Three\" looked like winning,\nbut then Teddy and the tall Indian and Mrs. Teddy pulled square. They\nalmost repeated this feat and won, but Mr. Manning saved the situation\nwith an immense oblique hit that sent the ball to Mr. Direck. He ran\nwith the ball up to Raeburn and then dodged and passed to Cecily. There\nwas a lively struggle to the left; the ball was hit out by Mr. Raeburn\nand thrown in by a young Britling; lost by the forwards and rescued by\nthe padded lady. Forward again! This time will do it!\n\nCecily away to the left had worked round Mr. Raeburn once more. Teddy,\nrealising that things were serious, was tearing back to attack her.\n\nMr. Direck supported with silent intentness. \"Centre!\" cried Mr.\nBritling. \"Cen-tre!\"\n\n\"Mr. Direck!\" came her voice, full of confidence. (Of such moments is\nthe heroic life.) The ball shot behind the hurtling Teddy. Mr. Direck\nstopped it with his foot, a trick he had just learnt from the eldest\nBritling son. He was neither slow nor hasty. He was in the half-circle,\nand the way to the goal was barred only by the dust-cloak lady and Mr.\nLawrence Carmine. He made as if to shoot to Mr. Carmine's left and then\nsmacked the ball, with the swiftness of a serpent's stroke, to his\nright.\n\nHe'd done it! Mr. Carmine's stick and feet were a yard away.\n\nThen hard on this wild triumph came a flash of horror. One can't see\neverything. His eye following the ball's trajectory....\n\nDirectly in its line of flight was the perambulator.\n\nThe ball missed the legs of the lady with the noble nose by a kind of\nmiracle, hit and glanced off the wheel of the perambulator, and went\nspinning into a border of antirrhinums.\n\n\"Good!\" cried Cecily. \"Splendid shot!\"\n\nHe'd shot a goal. He'd done it well. The perambulator it seemed didn't\nmatter. Though apparently the impact had awakened the baby. In the\nmargin of his consciousness was the figure of Mr. Britling remarking:\n\"Aunty. You really mustn't wheel the perambulator--_just_ there.\"\n\n\"I thought,\" said the aunt, indicating the goal posts by a facial\nmovement, \"that those two sticks would be a sort of protection.... Aah!\n_Did_ they then?\"\n\nNever mind that.\n\n\"That's _game!_\" said one of the junior Britlings to Mr. Direck with a\nnote of high appreciation, and the whole party, relaxing and crumpling\nlike a lowered flag, moved towards the house and tea.\n\n\nSection 5\n\n\"We'll play some more after tea,\" said Cecily. \"It will be cooler then.\"\n\n\"My word, I'm beginning to like it,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"You're going to play very well,\" she said.\n\nAnd such is the magic of a game that Mr. Direck was humbly proud and\ngrateful for her praise, and trotted along by the side of this creature\nwho had revealed herself so swift and resolute and decisive, full to\noverflowing of the mere pleasure of just trotting along by her side. And\nafter tea, which was a large confused affair, enlivened by wonderful and\nentirely untruthful reminiscences of the afternoon by Mr. Raeburn, they\nplayed again, with fewer inefficients and greater skill and swiftness,\nand Mr. Direck did such quick and intelligent things that everybody\ndeclared that he was a hockey player straight from heaven. The dusk,\nwhich at last made the position of the ball too speculative for play,\ncame all too soon for him. He had played in six games, and he knew he\nwould be as stiff as a Dutch doll in the morning. But he was very, very\nhappy.\n\nThe rest of the Sunday evening was essentially a sequel to the hockey.\n\nMr. Direck changed again, and after using some embrocation that Mrs.\nBritling recommended very strongly, came down in a black jacket and a\ncheerfully ample black tie. He had a sense of physical well-being such\nas he had not experienced since he came aboard the liner at New York.\nThe curious thing was that it was not quite the same sense of physical\nwell-being that one had in America. That is bright and clear and a\nlittle dry, this was--humid. His mind quivered contentedly, like sunset\nmidges over a lake--it had no hard bright flashes--and his body wanted\nto sit about. His sense of intimacy with Cecily increased each time he\nlooked at her. When she met his eyes she smiled. He'd caught her style\nnow, he felt; he attempted no more compliments and was frankly her\npupil at hockey and Badminton. After supper Mr. Britling renewed his\nsuggestion of an automobile excursion on the Monday.\n\n\"There's nothing to take you back to London,\" said Mr. Britling, \"and we\ncould just hunt about the district with the little old car and see\neverything you want to see....\"\n\nMr. Direck did not hesitate three seconds. He thought of Gladys; he\nthought of Miss Cecily Corner.\n\n\"Well, indeed,\" he said, \"if it isn't burthening you, if I'm not being\nany sort of inconvenience here for another night, I'd be really very\nglad indeed of the opportunity of going around and seeing all these\nancient places....\"\n\n\nSection 6\n\nThe newspapers came next morning at nine, and were full of the Sarajevo\nMurders. Mr. Direck got the _Daily Chronicle_ and found quite animated\nheadlines for a British paper.\n\n\"Who's this Archduke,\" he asked, \"anyhow? And where is this Bosnia? I\nthought it was a part of Turkey.\"\n\n\"It's in Austria,\" said Teddy.\n\n\"It's in the middle ages,\" said Mr. Britling. \"What an odd, pertinaceous\nbusiness it seems to have been. First one bomb, then another; then\nfinally the man with the pistol. While we were strolling about the rose\ngarden. It's like something out of 'The Prisoner of Zenda.'\"\n\n\"Please,\" said Herr Heinrich.\n\nMr. Britling assumed an attentive expression.\n\n\"Will not this generally affect European politics?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Perhaps it will.\"\n\n\"It says in the paper that Serbia has sent those bombs to Sarajevo.\"\n\n\"It's like another world,\" said Mr. Britling, over his paper.\n\"Assassination as a political method. Can you imagine anything of the\nsort happening nowadays west of the Adriatic? Imagine some one\nassassinating the American Vice-President, and the bombs being at once\nascribed to the arsenal at Toronto!... We take our politics more sadly\nin the West.... Won't you have another egg, Direck?\"\n\n\"Please! Might this not lead to a war?\"\n\n\"I don't think so. Austria may threaten Serbia, but she doesn't want to\nprovoke a conflict with Russia. It would be going too near the powder\nmagazine. But it's all an extraordinary business.\"\n\n\"But if she did?\" Herr Heinrich persisted.\n\n\"She won't.... Some years ago I used to believe in the inevitable\nEuropean war,\" Mr. Britling explained to Mr. Direck, \"but it's been\nthreatened so long that at last I've lost all belief in it. The Powers\nwrangle and threaten. They're far too cautious and civilised to let the\nguns go off. If there was going to be a war it would have happened two\nyears ago when the Balkan League fell upon Turkey. Or when Bulgaria\nattacked Serbia....\"\n\nHerr Heinrich reflected, and received these conclusions with an\nexpression of respectful edification.\n\n\"I am naturally anxious,\" he said, \"because I am taking tickets for my\nholidays at an Esperanto Conference at Boulogne.\"\n\n\nSection 7\n\n\"There is only one way to master such a thing as driving an automobile,\"\nsaid Mr. Britling outside his front door, as he took his place in the\ndriver's seat, \"and that is to resolve that from the first you will take\nno risks. Be slow if you like. Stop and think when you are in doubt. But\ndo nothing rashly, permit no mistakes.\"\n\nIt seemed to Mr. Direck as he took his seat beside his host that this\nwas admirable doctrine.\n\nThey started out of the gates with an extreme deliberation. Indeed twice\nthey stopped dead in the act of turning into the road, and the engine\nhad to be restarted.\n\n\"You will laugh at me,\" said Mr. Britling; \"but I'm resolved to have no\nblunders this time.\"\n\n\"I don't laugh at you. It's excellent,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"It's the right way,\" said Mr. Britling. \"Care--oh damn! I've stopped\nthe engine again. Ugh!--ah!--_so!_--Care, I was saying--and calm.\"\n\n\"Don't think I want to hurry you,\" said Mr. Direck. \"I don't....\"\n\nThey passed through the tillage at a slow, agreeable pace, tooting\nloudly at every corner, and whenever a pedestrian was approached. Mr.\nDireck was reminded that he had still to broach the lecture project to\nMr. Britling. So much had happened--\n\nThe car halted abruptly and the engine stopped.\n\n\"I thought that confounded hen was thinking of crossing the road,\" said\nMr. Britling. \"Instead of which she's gone through the hedge. She\ncertainly looked this way.... Perhaps I'm a little fussy this\nmorning.... I'll warm up to the work presently.\"\n\n\"I'm convinced you can't be too careful,\" said Mr. Direck. \"And this\nsort of thing enables one to see the country better....\"\n\nBeyond the village Mr. Britling seemed to gather confidence. The pace\nquickened. But whenever other traffic or any indication of a side way\nappeared discretion returned. Mr. Britling stalked his sign posts,\ncrawling towards them on the belly of the lowest gear; he drove all the\nmorning like a man who is flushing ambuscades. And yet accident overtook\nhim. For God demands more from us than mere righteousness.\n\nHe cut through the hills to Market Saffron along a lane-road with which\nhe was unfamiliar. It began to go up hill. He explained to Mr. Direck\nhow admirably his engine would climb hills on the top gear.\n\nThey took a curve and the hill grew steeper, and Mr. Direck opened the\nthrottle.\n\nThey rounded another corner, and still more steeply the hill rose before\nthem.\n\nThe engine began to make a chinking sound, and the car lost pace. And\nthen Mr. Britling saw a pleading little white board with the inscription\n\"Concealed Turning.\" For the moment he thought a turning might be\nconcealed anywhere. He threw out his clutch and clapped on his brake.\nThen he repented of what he had done. But the engine, after three\nHerculean throbs, ceased to work. Mr. Britling with a convulsive clutch\nat his steering wheel set the electric hooter snarling, while one foot\nreleased the clutch again and the other, on the accelerator, sought in\nvain for help. Mr. Direck felt they were going back, back, in spite of\nall this vocalisation. He clutched at the emergency brake. But he was\ntoo late to avoid misfortune. With a feeling like sitting gently in\nbutter, the car sank down sideways and stopped with two wheels in the\nditch.\n\nMr. Britling said they were in the ditch--said it with quite unnecessary\nviolence....\n\nThis time two cart horses and a retinue of five men were necessary to\nrestore Gladys to her self-respect....\n\nAfter that they drove on to Market Saffron, and got there in time for\nlunch, and after lunch Mr. Direck explored the church and the churchyard\nand the parish register....\n\nAfter lunch Mr. Britling became more cheerful about his driving. The\nroad from Market Saffron to Blandish, whence one turns off to Matching's\nEasy, is the London and Norwich high road; it is an old Roman Stane\nStreet and very straightforward and honest in its stretches. You can see\nthe cross roads half a mile away, and the low hedges give you no chance\nof a surprise. Everybody is cheered by such a road, and everybody drives\nmore confidently and quickly, and Mr. Britling particularly was\nheartened by it and gradually let out Gladys from the almost excessive\nrestriction that had hitherto marked the day. \"On a road like this\nnothing can happen,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Unless you broke an axle or burst a tyre,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"My man at Matching's Easy is most careful in his inspection,\" said Mr.\nBritling, putting the accelerator well down and watching the speed\nindicator creep from forty to forty-five. \"He went over the car not a\nweek ago. And it's not one month old--in use that is.\"\n\nYet something did happen.\n\nIt was as they swept by the picturesque walls under the big old trees\nthat encircle Brandismead Park. It was nothing but a slight\nmiscalculation of distances. Ahead of them and well to the left, rode a\npostman on a bicycle; towards them, with that curious effect of\nimplacable fury peculiar to motor cycles, came a motor cyclist. First\nMr. Britling thought that he would not pass between these two, then he\ndecided that he would hurry up and do so, then he reverted to his former\ndecision, and then it seemed to him that he was going so fast that he\nmust inevitably run down the postman. His instinct not to do that pulled\nthe car sharply across the path of the motor cyclist. \"Oh, my God!\"\ncried Mr. Britling. \"My God!\" twisted his wheel over and distributed his\nfeet among his levers dementedly.\n\nHe had an imperfectly formed idea of getting across right in front of\nthe motor cyclist, and then they were going down the brief grassy slope\nbetween the road and the wall, straight at the wall, and still at a good\nspeed. The motor cyclist smacked against something and vanished from the\nproblem. The wall seemed to rush up at them and then--collapse. There\nwas a tremendous concussion. Mr. Direck gripped at his friend the\nemergency brake, but had only time to touch it before his head hit\nagainst the frame of the glass wind-screen, and a curtain fell upon\neverything....\n\nHe opened his eyes upon a broken wall, a crumpled motor car, and an\nundamaged motor cyclist in the aviator's cap and thin oilskin overalls\ndear to motor cyclists. Mr. Direck stared and then, still stunned and\npuzzled, tried to raise himself. He became aware of acute pain.\n\n\"Don't move for a bit,\" said the motor cyclist. \"Your arm and side are\nrather hurt, I think....\"\n\n\nSection 8\n\nIn the course of the next twelve hours Mr. Direck was to make a\ndiscovery that was less common in the days before the war than it has\nbeen since. He discovered that even pain and injury may be vividly\ninteresting and gratifying.\n\nIf any one had told him he was going to be stunned for five or six\nminutes, cut about the brow and face and have a bone in his wrist put\nout, and that as a consequence he would find himself pleased and\nexhilarated, he would have treated the prophecy with ridicule; but here\nhe was lying stiffly on his back with his wrist bandaged to his side and\nsmiling into the darkness even more brightly than he had smiled at the\nEssex landscape two days before. The fact is pain hurts or irritates,\nbut in itself it does not make a healthily constituted man miserable.\nThe expectation of pain, the certainty of injury may make one hopeless\nenough, the reality rouses our resistance. Nobody wants a broken bone or\na delicate wrist, but very few people are very much depressed by getting\none. People can be much more depressed by smoking a hundred cigarettes\nin three days or losing one per cent. of their capital.\n\nAnd everybody had been most delightful to Mr. Direck.\n\nHe had had the monopoly of damage. Mr. Britling, holding on to the\nsteering wheel, had not even been thrown out. \"Unless I'm internally\ninjured,\" he said, \"I'm not hurt at all. My liver perhaps--bruised a\nlittle....\"\n\nGladys had been abandoned in the ditch, and they had been very kindly\nbrought home by a passing automobile. Cecily had been at the Dower\nHouse at the moment of the rueful arrival. She had seen how an American\ncan carry injuries. She had made sympathy and helpfulness more\ndelightful by expressed admiration.\n\n\"She's a natural born nurse,\" said Mr. Direck, and then rather in the\ntone of one who addressed a public meeting: \"But this sort of thing\nbrings out all the good there is in a woman.\"\n\nHe had been quite explicit to them and more particularly to her, when\nthey told him he must stay at the Dower House until his arm was cured.\nHe had looked the application straight into her pretty eyes.\n\n\"If I'm to stay right here just as a consequence of that little shake\nup, may be for a couple of weeks, may be three, and if you're coming to\ndo a bit of a talk to me ever and again, then I tell you I don't call\nthis a misfortune. It isn't a misfortune. It's right down sheer good\nluck....\"\n\nAnd now he lay as straight as a mummy, with his soul filled with\nradiance of complete mental peace. After months of distress and\nconfusion, he'd got straight again. He was in the middle of a real good\nstory, bright and clean. He knew just exactly what he wanted.\n\n\"After all,\" he said, \"it's true. There's ideals. _She's_ an ideal. Why,\nI loved her before ever I set eyes on Mamie. I loved her before I was\nput into pants. That old portrait, there it was pointing my destiny....\nIt's affinity.... It's natural selection....\n\n\"Well, I don't know what she thinks of me yet, but I do know very well\nwhat she's _got_ to think of me. She's got to think all the world of\nme--if I break every limb of my body making her do it.\n\n\"I'd a sort of feeling it was right to go in that old automobile.\n\n\"Say what you like, there's a Guidance....\"\n\nHe smiled confidentially at the darkness as if they shared a secret.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FOURTH\n\nMR. BRITLING IN SOLILOQUY\n\n\nSection 1\n\nVery different from the painful contentment of the bruised and broken\nMr. Direck was the state of mind of his unwounded host. He too was\nsleepless, but sleepless without exaltation. The day had been too much\nfor him altogether; his head, to borrow an admirable American\nexpression, was \"busy.\"\n\nHow busy it was, a whole chapter will be needed to describe....\n\nThe impression Mr. Britling had made upon Mr. Direck was one of\nindefatigable happiness. But there were times when Mr. Britling was\ncalled upon to pay for his general cheerful activity in lump sums of\nbitter sorrow. There were nights--and especially after seasons of\nexceptional excitement and nervous activity--when the reckoning would be\npresented and Mr. Britling would welter prostrate and groaning under a\nstormy sky of unhappiness--active insatiable unhappiness--a beating with\nrods.\n\nThe sorrows of the sanguine temperament are brief but furious; the world\nknows little of them. The world has no need to reckon with them. They\ncause no suicides and few crimes. They hurry past, smiting at their\nvictim as they go. None the less they are misery. Mr. Britling in these\nmoods did not perhaps experience the grey and hopeless desolations of\nthe melancholic nor the red damnation of the choleric, but he saw a\nworld that bristled with misfortune and error, with poisonous thorns and\ntraps and swampy places and incurable blunderings. An almost\ninsupportable remorse for being Mr. Britling would pursue\nhim--justifying itself upon a hundred counts....\n\nAnd for being such a Britling!...\n\nWhy--he revived again that bitter question of a thousand and one unhappy\nnights--why was he such a fool? Such a hasty fool? Why couldn't he look\nbefore he leapt? Why did he take risks? Why was he always so ready to\nact upon the supposition that all was bound to go well? (He might as\nwell have asked why he had quick brown eyes.)\n\nWhy, for instance, hadn't he adhered to the resolution of the early\nmorning? He had begun with an extremity of caution....\n\nIt was a characteristic of these moods of Mr. Britling that they\nproduced a physical restlessness. He kept on turning over and then\nturning over again, and sitting up and lying back, like a martyr on a\ngridiron....\n\nThis was just the latest instance of a life-long trouble. Will there\never be a sort of man whose thoughts are quick and his acts slow? Then\nindeed we shall have a formidable being. Mr. Britling's thoughts were\nquick and sanguine and his actions even more eager than his thoughts.\nAlready while he was a young man Mr. Britling had found his acts elbow\ntheir way through the hurry of his ideas and precipitate humiliations.\nLong before his reasons were marshalled, his resolutions were formed. He\nhad attempted a thousand remonstrances with himself; he had sought to\nremedy the defects in his own character by written inscriptions in his\nbedroom and memoranda inside his watch case. \"Keep steady!\" was one of\nthem. \"Keep the End in View.\" And, \"Go steadfastly, coherently,\ncontinuously; only so can you go where you will.\" In distrusting all\nimpulse, scrutinising all imagination, he was persuaded lay his one\nprospect of escape from the surprise of countless miseries. Otherwise he\ndanced among glass bombs and barbed wire.\n\nThere had been a time when he could exhort himself to such fundamental\ncharge and go through phases of the severest discipline. Always at last\nto be taken by surprise from some unexpected quarter. At last he had\nceased to hope for any triumph so radical. He had been content to\nbelieve that in recent years age and a gathering habit of wisdom had\nsomewhat slowed his leaping purpose. That if he hadn't overcome he had\nat least to a certain extent minimised it. But this last folly was\nsurely the worst. To charge through this patient world with--how much\ndid the car weigh? A ton certainly and perhaps more--reckless of every\nrisk. Not only to himself but others. At this thought, he clutched the\nsteering wheel again. Once more he saw the bent back of the endangered\ncyclist, once more he felt rather than saw the seething approach of the\nmotor bicycle, and then through a long instant he drove helplessly at\nthe wall....\n\nHell perhaps is only one such incident, indefinitely prolonged....\n\nAnything might have been there in front of him. And indeed now, out of\nthe dreamland to which he could not escape something had come, something\nthat screamed sharply....\n\n\"Good God!\" he cried, \"if I had hit a child! I might have hit a child!\"\nThe hypothesis flashed into being with the thought, tried to escape and\nwas caught. It was characteristic of Mr. Britling's nocturnal\nimagination that he should individualise this child quite sharply as\nrather plain and slender, with reddish hair, staring eyes, and its ribs\ncrushed in a vivid and dreadful manner, pinned against the wall, mixed\nup with some bricks, only to be extracted, oh! _horribly_.\n\nBut this was not fair! He had hurt no child! He had merely pitched out\nMr. Direck and broken his arm....\n\nIt wasn't his merit that the child hadn't been there!\n\nThe child might have been there!\n\nMere luck.\n\nHe lay staring in despair--as an involuntary God might stare at many a\nthing in this amazing universe--staring at the little victim his\nimagination had called into being only to destroy....\n\n\nSection 2\n\nIf he had not crushed a child other people had. Such things happened.\nVicariously at any rate he had crushed many children....\n\nWhy are children ever crushed?\n\nAnd suddenly all the pain and destruction and remorse of all the\naccidents in the world descended upon Mr. Britling.\n\nNo longer did he ask why am I such a fool, but why are we all such\nfools? He became Man on the automobile of civilisation, crushing his\nthousands daily in his headlong and yet aimless career....\n\nThat was a trick of Mr. Britling's mind. It had this tendency to spread\noutward from himself to generalised issues. Many minds are like that\nnowadays. He was not so completely individualised as people are supposed\nto be individualised--in our law, in our stories, in our moral\njudgments. He had a vicarious factor. He could slip from concentrated\nreproaches to the liveliest remorse for himself as The Automobilist in\nGeneral, or for himself as England, or for himself as Man. From remorse\nfor smashing his guest and his automobile he could pass by what was for\nhim the most imperceptible of transitions to remorse for every accident\nthat has ever happened through the error of an automobilist since\nautomobiles began. All that long succession of blunderers became Mr.\nBritling. Or rather Mr. Britling became all that vast succession of\nblunderers.\n\nThese fluctuating lapses from individuation made Mr. Britling a\nperplexity to many who judged only by the old personal standards. At\ntimes he seemed a monster of cantankerous self-righteousness, whom\nnobody could please or satisfy, but indeed when he was most pitiless\nabout the faults of his race or nation he was really reproaching\nhimself, and when he seemed more egotistical and introspective and\nself-centred he was really ransacking himself for a clue to that same\nconfusion of purposes that waste the hope and strength of humanity. And\nnow through the busy distresses of the night it would have perplexed a\nwatching angel to have drawn the line and shown when Mr. Britling, was\ngrieving for his own loss and humiliation and when he was grieving for\nthese common human weaknesses of which he had so large a share.\n\nAnd this double refraction of his mind by which a concentrated and\nindividualised Britling did but present a larger impersonal Britling\nbeneath, carried with it a duplication of his conscience and sense of\nresponsibility. To his personal conscience he was answerable for his\nprivate honour and his debts and the Dower House he had made and so on,\nbut to his impersonal conscience he was answerable for the whole world.\nThe world from the latter point of view was his egg. He had a\nsubconscious delusion that he had laid it. He had a subconscious\nsuspicion that he had let it cool and that it was addled. He had an\nurgency to incubate it. The variety and interest of his talk was largely\ndue to that persuasion, it was a perpetual attempt to spread his mental\nfeathers over the task before him....\n\n\nSection 3\n\nAfter this much of explanation it is possible to go on to the task which\noriginally brought Mr. Direck to Matching's Easy, the task that\nMassachusetts society had sent him upon, the task of organising the\nmental unveiling of Mr. Britling. Mr. Direck saw Mr. Britling only in\nthe daylight, and with an increasing distraction of the attention\ntowards Miss Cecily Corner. We may see him rather _more_ clearly in the\ndarkness, without any distraction except his own.\n\nNow the smashing of Gladys was not only the source of a series of\nreproaches and remorses directly arising out of the smash; it had also a\nwide system of collateral consequences, which were also banging and\nblundering their way through the Britling mind. It was extraordinarily\ninconvenient in quite another direction that the automobile should be\ndestroyed. It upset certain plans of Mr. Britling's in a direction\ngrowing right out from all the Dower House world in which Mr. Direck\nsupposed him to be completely set and rooted. There were certain matters\nfrom which Mr. Britling had been averting his mind most strenuously\nthroughout the week-end. Now, there was no averting his mind any more.\n\nMr. Britling was entangled in a love affair. It was, to be exact, and\ndisregarding minor affinities, his eighth love affair. And the new\nautomobile, so soon as he could drive it efficiently, was to have played\nquite a solvent and conclusive part in certain entangled complications\nof this relationship.\n\nA man of lively imagination and quick impulses naturally has love\naffairs as he drives himself through life, just as he naturally has\naccidents if he drives an automobile.\n\nAnd the peculiar relations that existed between Mr. Britling and Mrs.\nBritling tended inevitably to make these love affairs troublesome,\nundignified and futile. Especially when they were viewed from the point\nof view of insomnia.\n\nMr. Britling's first marriage had been a passionately happy one. His\nsecond was by comparison a marriage in neutral tint. There is much to be\nsaid for that extreme Catholic theory which would make marriage not\nmerely lifelong but eternal. Certainly Mr. Britling would have been a\nfiner if not a happier creature if his sentimental existence could have\ndied with his first wife or continued only in his love for their son. He\nhad married in the glow of youth, he had had two years of clean and\nsimple loving, helping, quarrelling and the happy ending of quarrels.\nSomething went out of him into all that, which could not be renewed\nagain. In his first extremity of grief he knew that perfectly well--and\nthen afterwards he forgot it. While there is life there is imagination,\nwhich makes and forgets and goes on.\n\nHe met Edith under circumstances that did not in any way recall his lost\nMary. He met her, as people say, \"socially\"; Mary, on the other hand,\nhad been a girl at Newnham while he was a fellow of Pembroke, and there\nhad been something of accident and something of furtiveness in their\nlucky discovery of each other. There had been a flush in it; there was\ndash in it. But Edith he saw and chose and had to woo. There was no\nrushing together; there was solicitation and assent. Edith was a\nBachelor of Science of London University and several things like that,\nand she looked upon the universe under her broad forehead and\nbroad-waving brown hair with quiet watchful eyes that had nothing\nwhatever to hide, a thing so incredible to Mr. Britling that he had\nloved and married her very largely for the serenity of her mystery. And\nfor a time after their marriage he sailed over those brown depths\nplumbing furiously.\n\nOf course he did not make his former passion for Mary at all clear to\nher. Indeed, while he was winning Edith it was by no means clear to\nhimself. He was making a new emotional drama, and consciously and\nsubconsciously he dismissed a hundred reminiscences that sought to\ninvade the new experience, and which would have been out of key with it.\nAnd without any deliberate intention to that effect he created an\natmosphere between himself and Edith in which any discussion of Mary was\nreduced to a minimum, and in which Hugh was accepted rather than\nexplained. He contrived to believe that she understood all sorts of\nunsayable things; he invented miracles of quite uncongenial mute\nmutuality....\n\nIt was over the chess-board that they first began to discover their\nextensive difficulties of sympathy. Mr. Britling's play was\ncharacterised by a superficial brilliance, much generosity and extreme\nunsoundness; he always moved directly his opponent had done so--and then\nreflected on the situation. His reflection was commonly much wiser than\nhis moves. Mrs. Britling was, as it were, a natural antagonist to her\nhusband; she was as calm as he was irritable. She was never in a hurry\nto move, and never disposed to make a concession. Quietly, steadfastly,\nby caution and deliberation, without splendour, without error, she had\nbeaten him at chess until it led to such dreadful fits of anger that he\nhad to renounce the game altogether. After every such occasion he would\nbe at great pains to explain that he had merely been angry with himself.\nNevertheless he felt, and would not let himself think (while she\nconcluded from incidental heated phrases), that that was not the\ncomplete truth about the outbreak.\n\nSlowly they got through the concealments of that specious explanation.\nTemperamentally they were incompatible.\n\nThey were profoundly incompatible. In all things she was defensive. She\nnever came out; never once had she surprised him halfway upon the road\nto her. He had to go all the way to her and knock and ring, and then she\nanswered faithfully. She never surprised him even by unkindness. If he\nhad a cut finger she would bind it up very skilfully and healingly, but\nunless he told her she never discovered he had a cut finger. He was\namazed she did not know of it before it happened. He piped and she did\nnot dance. That became the formula of his grievance. For several unhappy\nyears she thwarted him and disappointed him, while he filled her with\ndumb inexplicable distresses. He had been at first so gay an activity,\nand then he was shattered; fragments of him were still as gay and\nattractive as ever, but between were outbreaks of anger, of hostility,\nof something very like malignity. Only very slowly did they realise the\ntruth of their relationship and admit to themselves that the fine bud\nof love between them had failed to flower, and only after long years\nwere they able to delimit boundaries where they had imagined union, and\nto become--allies. If it had been reasonably possible for them to part\nwithout mutual injury and recrimination they would have done so, but two\nchildren presently held them, and gradually they had to work out the\nbroad mutual toleration of their later relations. If there was no love\nand delight between them there was a real habitual affection and much\nmutual help. She was proud of his steady progress to distinction, proud\nof each intimation of respect he won; she admired and respected his\nwork; she recognised that he had some magic, of liveliness and\nunexpectedness that was precious and enviable. So far as she could help\nhim she did. And even when he knew that there was nothing behind it,\nthat it was indeed little more than an imaginative inertness, he could\nstill admire and respect her steady dignity and her consistent\nhonourableness. Her practical capacity was for him a matter for\ncontinual self-congratulation. He marked the bright order of her\nhousehold, her flowering borders, the prosperous high-born roses of her\ngarden with a wondering appreciation. He had never been able to keep\nanything in order. He relied more and more upon her. He showed his\nrespect for her by a scrupulous attention to her dignity, and his\nconfidence by a franker and franker emotional neglect. Because she\nexpressed so little he succeeded in supposing she felt little, and since\nnothing had come out of the brown depths of her eyes he saw fit at last\nto suppose no plumb-line would ever find anything there. He pursued his\ninterests; he reached out to this and that; he travelled; she made it a\nmatter of conscience to let him go unhampered; she felt, she\nthought--unrecorded; he did, and he expressed and re-expressed and\nover-expressed, and started this and that with quick irrepressible\nactivity, and so there had accumulated about them the various items of\nthe life to whose more ostensible accidents Mr. Direck was now for an\nindefinite period joined.\n\nIt was in the nature of Mr. Britling to incur things; it was in the\nnature of Mrs. Britling to establish them. Mr. Britling had taken the\nDower House on impulse, and she had made it a delightful home. He had\ndiscovered the disorderly delights of mixed Sunday hockey one week-end\nat Pontings that had promised to be dull, and she had made it an\ninstitution.... He had come to her with his orphan boy and a memory of a\npassionate first loss that sometimes, and more particularly at first, he\nseemed to have forgotten altogether, and at other times was only too\nevidently lamenting with every fibre of his being. She had taken the\nutmost care of the relics of her duskily pretty predecessor that she\nfound in unexpected abundance in Mr. Britling's possession, and she had\ndone her duty by her sometimes rather incomprehensible stepson. She\nnever allowed herself to examine the state of her heart towards this\nyoungster; it is possible that she did not perceive the necessity for\nany such examination....\n\nSo she went through life, outwardly serene and dignified, one of a great\ncompany of rather fastidious, rather unenterprising women who have\nturned for their happiness to secondary things, to those fair inanimate\nthings of household and garden which do not turn again and rend one, to\naestheticisms and delicacies, to order and seemliness. Moreover she\nfound great satisfaction in the health and welfare, the growth and\nanimation of her own two little boys. And no one knew, and perhaps even\nshe had contrived to forget, the phases of astonishment and\ndisillusionment, of doubt and bitterness and secret tears, that spread\nout through the years in which she had slowly realised that this\nstrange, fitful, animated man who had come to her, vowing himself hers,\nasking for her so urgently and persuasively, was ceasing, had ceased, to\nlove her, that his heart had escaped her, that she had missed it; she\nnever dreamt that she had hurt it, and that after its first urgent,\ntumultuous, incomprehensible search for her it had hidden itself\nbitterly away....\n\n\nSection 4\n\nThe mysterious processes of nature that had produced Mr. Britling had\nimplanted in him an obstinate persuasion that somewhere in the world,\nfrom some human being, it was still possible to find the utmost\nsatisfaction for every need and craving. He could imagine as existing,\nas waiting for him, he knew not where, a completeness of understanding,\na perfection of response, that would reach all the gamut of his feelings\nand sensations from the most poetical to the most entirely physical, a\nbeauty of relationship so transfiguring that not only would she--it went\nwithout saying that this completion was a woman--be perfectly beautiful\nin its light but, what was manifestly more incredible, that he too would\nbe perfectly beautiful and quite at his ease.... In her presence there\ncould be no self-reproaches, no lapses, no limitations, nothing but\nhappiness and the happiest activities.... To such a persuasion half the\nimaginative people in the world succumb as readily and naturally as\nducklings take to water. They do not doubt its truth any more than a\nthirsty camel doubts that presently it will come to a spring.\n\nThis persuasion is as foolish as though a camel hoped that some day it\nwould drink from such a spring that it would never thirst again. For the\nmost part Mr. Britling ignored its presence in his mind, and resisted\nthe impulses it started. But at odd times, and more particularly in the\nafternoon and while travelling and in between books, Mr. Britling so far\nsuccumbed to this strange expectation of a wonder round the corner that\nhe slipped the anchors of his humour and self-contempt and joined the\ngreat cruising brotherhood of the Pilgrims of Love....\n\nIn fact--though he himself had never made a reckoning of it--he had\nbeen upon eight separate cruises. He was now upon the eighth....\n\nBetween these various excursions--they took him round and about the\nworld, so to speak, they cast him away on tropical beaches, they left\nhim dismasted on desolate seas, they involved the most startling\ninterventions and the most inconvenient consequences--there were\ninterludes of penetrating philosophy. For some years the suspicion had\nbeen growing up in Mr. Britling's mind that in planting this persuasion\nin his being, the mysterious processes of Nature had been, perhaps for\nsome purely biological purpose, pulling, as people say, his leg, that\nthere were not these perfect responses, that loving a woman is a thing\none does thoroughly once for all--or so--and afterwards recalls\nregrettably in a series of vain repetitions, and that the career of the\nPilgrim of Love, so soon as you strip off its credulous glamour, is\neither the most pitiful or the most vulgar and vile of perversions from\nthe proper conduct of life. But this suspicion had not as yet grown to\nprohibitive dimensions with him, it was not sufficient to resist the\nseasons of high tide, the sudden promise of the salt-edged breeze, the\ninvitation of the hovering sea-bird; and he was now concealing beneath\nthe lively surface of activities with which Mr. Direck was now familiar,\na very extensive system of distresses arising out of the latest, the\neighth of these digressional adventures....\n\nMr. Britling had got into it very much as he had got into the ditch on\nthe morning before his smash. He hadn't thought the affair out and he\nhadn't looked carefully enough. And it kept on developing in just the\nways he would rather that it didn't.\n\nThe seventh affair had been very disconcerting. He had made a fool of\nhimself with quite a young girl; he blushed to think how young; it\nhadn't gone very far, but it had made his nocturnal reflections so\ndisagreeable that he had--by no means for the first time--definitely\nand forever given up these foolish dreams of love. And when Mrs.\nHarrowdean swam into his circle, she seemed just exactly what was wanted\nto keep his imagination out of mischief. She came bearing flattery to\nthe pitch of adoration. She was the brightest and cleverest of young\nwidows. She wrote quite admirably criticism in the _Scrutator_ and the\n_Sectarian_, and occasionally poetry in the _Right Review_--when she\nfelt disposed to do so. She had an intermittent vein of high spirits\nthat was almost better than humour and made her quickly popular with\nmost of the people she met, and she was only twenty miles away in her\npretty house and her absurd little jolly park.\n\nThere was something, she said, in his thought and work that was like\nwalking in mountains. She came to him because she wanted to clamber\nabout the peaks and glens of his mind.\n\nIt was natural to reply that he wasn't by any means the serene mountain\nelevation she thought him, except perhaps for a kind of loneliness....\n\nShe was a great reader of eighteenth century memoirs, and some she\nconveyed to him. Her mental quality was all in the vein of the\nfriendships of Rousseau and Voltaire, and pleasantly and trippingly she\nled him along the primrose path of an intellectual liaison. She came\nfirst to Matching's Easy, where she was sweet and bright and vividly\ninterested and a great contrast to Mrs. Britling, and then he and she\nmet in London, and went off together with a fine sense of adventure for\na day at Richmond, and then he took some work with him to her house and\nstayed there....\n\nThen she went away into Scotland for a time and he wanted her again\ntremendously and clamoured for her eloquently, and then it was apparent\nand admitted between them that they were admirably in love, oh!\nimmensely in love.\n\nThe transitions from emotional mountaineering to ardent intimacies were\nso rapid and impulsive that each phase obliterated its predecessor, and\nit was only with a vague perplexity that Mr. Britling found himself\ntransferred from the rôle of a mountainous objective for pretty little\npilgrims to that of a sedulous lover in pursuit of the happiness of one\nof the most uncertain, intricate, and entrancing of feminine\npersonalities. This was not at all his idea of the proper relations\nbetween men and women, but Mrs. Harrowdean had a way of challenging his\ngallantry. She made him run about for her; she did not demand but she\ncommanded presents and treats and surprises; she even developed a\ncertain jealousy in him. His work began to suffer from interruptions.\nYet they had glowing and entertaining moments together that could temper\nhis rebellious thoughts with the threat of irreparable loss. \"One must\nlove, and all things in life are imperfect,\" was how Mr. Britling\nexpressed his reasons for submission. And she had a hold upon him too in\na certain facile pitifulness. She was little; she could be stung\nsometimes by the slightest touch and then her blue eyes would be bright\nwith tears.\n\nThose possible tears could weigh at times even more than those possible\nlost embraces.\n\nAnd there was Oliver.\n\nOliver was a person Mr. Britling had never seen. He grew into the scheme\nof things by insensible gradations. He was a government official in\nLondon; he was, she said, extraordinarily dull, he was lacking\naltogether in Mr. Britling's charm and interest, but he was faithful and\ntender and true. And considerably younger than Mr. Britling. He asked\nnothing but to love. He offered honourable marriage. And when one's\nheart was swelling unendurably one could weep in safety on his patient\nshoulder. This patient shoulder of Oliver's ultimately became Mr.\nBritling's most exasperating rival.\n\nShe liked to vex him with Oliver. She liked to vex him generally. Indeed\nin this by no means abnormal love affair, there was a very strong\nantagonism. She seemed to resent the attraction Mr. Britling had for\nher and the emotions and pleasure she had with him. She seemed under the\nsway of an instinctive desire to make him play heavily for her, in time,\nin emotion, in self-respect. It was intolerable to her that he could\ntake her easily and happily. That would be taking her cheaply. She\nvalued his gifts by the bother they cost him, and was determined that\nthe path of true love should not, if she could help it, run smooth. Mr.\nBritling on the other hand was of the school of polite and happy lovers.\nHe thought it outrageous to dispute and contradict, and he thought that\nmaking love was a cheerful, comfortable thing to be done in a state of\nhigh good humour and intense mutual appreciation. This levity offended\nthe lady's pride. She drew unfavourable contrasts with Oliver. If Oliver\nlacked charm he certainly did not lack emotion. He desired sacrifice, it\nseemed, almost more than satisfactions. Oliver was a person of the most\nexemplary miserableness; he would weep copiously and frequently. She\ncould always make him weep when she wanted to do so. By holding out\nhopes and then dashing them if by no other expedient. Why did Mr.\nBritling never weep? She wept.\n\nSome base streak of competitiveness in Mr. Britling's nature made it\nseem impossible that he should relinquish the lady to Oliver. Besides,\nthen, what would he do with his dull days, his afternoons, his need for\na properly demonstrated affection?\n\nSo Mr. Britling trod the path of his eighth digression, rather\noverworked in the matter of flowers and the selection of small\njewellery, stalked by the invisible and indefatigable Oliver, haunted\ninto an unwilling industry of attentions--attentions on the model of the\nprofessional lover of the French novels--by the memory and expectation\nof tearful scenes. \"Then you don't love me! And it's all spoilt. I've\nrisked talk and my reputation.... I was a fool ever to dream of making\nlove beautifully....\"\n\nExactly like running your car into a soft wet ditch when you cannot get\nout and you cannot get on. And your work and your interests waiting and\nwaiting for you!...\n\nThe car itself was an outcome of the affair. It was Mrs. Harrowdean's\nidea, she thought chiefly of pleasant expeditions to friendly inns in\nremote parts of the country, inns with a flavour of tacit complicity,\nbut it fell in very pleasantly with Mr. Britling's private resentment at\nthe extraordinary inconvenience of the railway communications between\nMatching's Easy and her station at Pyecrafts, which involved a journey\nto Liverpool Street and a long wait at a junction. And now the car was\nsmashed up--just when he had acquired skill enough to take it over to\nPyecrafts without shame, and on Tuesday or Wednesday at latest he would\nhave to depart in the old way by the London train....\n\nOnly the most superficial mind would assert nowadays that man is a\nreasonable creature. Man is an unreasonable creature, and it was\nentirely unreasonable and human for Mr. Britling during his nocturnal\nself-reproaches to mix up his secret resentment at his infatuation for\nMrs. Harrowdean with his ill-advised attack upon the wall of Brandismead\nPark. He ought never to have bought that car; he ought never to have\nbeen so ready to meet Mrs. Harrowdean more than halfway.\n\nWhat exacerbated his feeling about Mrs. Harrowdean was a new line she\nhad recently taken with regard to Mrs. Britling. From her first rash\nassumption that Mr. Britling was indifferent to his wife, she had come\nto realise that on the contrary he was in some ways extremely tender\nabout his wife. This struck her as an outrageous disloyalty. Instead of\nappreciating a paradox she resented an infidelity. She smouldered with\nperplexed resentment for some days, and then astonished her lover by a\nseries of dissertations of a hostile and devastating nature upon the\nlady of the Dower House.\n\nHe tried to imagine he hadn't heard all that he had heard, but Mrs.\nHarrowdean had a nimble pen and nimbler afterthoughts, and once her mind\nhad got to work upon the topic she developed her offensive in\nhalf-a-dozen brilliant letters.... On the other hand she professed a\nsteadily increasing passion for Mr. Britling. And to profess\npassion for Mr. Britling was to put him under a sense of profound\nobligation--because indeed he was a modest man. He found himself in an\nemotional quandary.\n\nYou see, if Mrs. Harrowdean had left Mrs. Britling alone everything\nwould have been quite tolerable. He considered Mrs. Harrowdean a\ncharming human being, and altogether better than he deserved. Ever so\nmuch better. She was all initiative and response and that sort of thing.\nAnd she was so discreet. She had her own reputation to think about, and\none or two of her predecessors--God rest the ashes of those fires!--had\nnot been so discreet. Yet one could not have this sort of thing going on\nbehind Edith's back. All sorts of things one might have going on behind\nEdith's back, but not this writing and saying of perfectly beastly\nthings about Edith. Nothing could alter the fact that Edith was his\nhonour....\n\n\nSection 5\n\nThroughout the week-end Mr. Britling had kept this trouble well battened\ndown. He had written to Mrs. Harrowdean a brief ambiguous note saying,\n\"I am thinking over all that you have said,\" and after that he had\nscarcely thought about her at all. Or at least he had always contrived\nto be much more vividly thinking about something else. But now in these\nnight silences the suppressed trouble burst hatches and rose about him.\n\nWhat a mess he had made of the whole scheme of his emotional life! There\nhad been a time when he had started out as gaily with his passions and\nhis honour as he had started out with Gladys to go to Market Saffron.\nHe had as little taste for complications as he had for ditches. And now\nhis passions and his honour were in a worse case even than poor muddy\nsmashed up Gladys as the cart-horses towed her off, for she at any rate\nmight be repaired. But he--he was a terribly patched fabric of\nexplanations now. Not indeed that he had ever stooped to explanations.\nBut there he was! Far away, like a star seen down the length of a\ntunnel, was that first sad story of a love as clean as starlight. It had\nbeen all over by eight-and-twenty and he could find it in his heart to\ngrieve that he had ever given a thought to love again. He should have\nlived a decent widower.... Then Edith had come into his life, Edith that\nhonest and unconscious defaulter. And there again he should have stuck\nto his disappointment. He had stuck to it--nine days out of every ten.\nIt's the tenth day, it's the odd seductive moment, it's the instant of\nconfident pride--and there is your sanguine temperament in the ditch.\n\nHe began to recapitulate items in the catalogue of his escapades, and\nthe details of his automobile misadventures mixed themselves up with the\nstory of his heart steering. For example there was that tremendous\nSiddons affair. He had been taking the corner of a girlish friendship\nand he had taken it altogether too far. What a frightful mess that had\nbeen! When once one is off the road anything may happen, from a crumpled\nmud-guard to the car on the top of you. And there was his forty miles an\nhour spurt with the great and gifted Delphine Marquise--for whom he was\nto have written a play and been a perfect Annunzio. Until Willersley\nappeared--very like the motor-cyclist--buzzing in the opposite\ndirection. And then had ensued angers, humiliations....\n\nHad every man this sort of crowded catalogue? Was every\nforty-five-year-old memory a dark tunnel receding from the star of\nyouth? It is surely a pity that life cannot end at thirty. It comes to\none clean and in perfect order....\n\nIs experience worth having?\n\nWhat a clean, straight thing the spirit of youth is. It is like a bright\nnew spear. It is like a finely tempered sword. The figure of his boy\ntook possession of his mind, his boy who looked out on the world with\nhis mother's dark eyes, the slender son of that whole-hearted first\nlove. He was a being at once fine and simple, an intimate mystery. Must\nhe in his turn get dented and wrinkled and tarnished?\n\nThe boy was in trouble. What was the trouble?\n\nWas it some form of the same trouble that had so tangled and tainted and\nscarred the private pride of his father? And how was it possible for Mr.\nBritling, disfigured by heedless misadventures, embarrassed by\ncomplications and concealments, to help this honest youngster out of his\nperplexities? He imagined possible forms of these perplexities.\nGraceless forms. Ugly forms. Such forms as only the nocturnal\nimagination would have dared present....\n\nOh, why had he been such a Britling? Why was he still such a Britling?\n\nMr. Britling sat up in his bed and beat at the bedclothes with his\nfists. He uttered uncompleted vows, \"From this hour forth ... from this\nhour forth....\"\n\nHe must do something, he felt. At any rate he had his experiences. He\ncould warn. He could explain away. Perhaps he might help to extricate,\nif things had got to that pitch.\n\nShould he write to his son? For a time he revolved a long, tactful\nletter in his mind. But that was impossible. Suppose the trouble was\nsomething quite different? It would have to be a letter in the most\ngeneral terms....\n\n\nSection 6\n\nIt was in the doubly refracting nature of Mr. Britling's mind that while\nhe was deploring his inefficiency in regard to his son, he was also\ndeploring the ineffectiveness of all his generation of parents. Quite\ninsensibly his mind passed over to the generalised point of view.\n\nIn his talks with Mr. Direck, Mr. Britling could present England as a\ngreat and amiable spectacle of carelessness and relaxation, but was it\nindeed an amiable spectacle? The point that Mr. Direck had made about\nthe barn rankled in his thoughts. His barn was a barn no longer, his\nfarmyard held no cattle; he was just living laxly in the buildings that\nancient needs had made, he was living on the accumulated prosperity of\nformer times, the spendthrift heir of toiling generations. Not only was\nhe a pampered, undisciplined sort of human being; he was living in a\npampered, undisciplined sort of community. The two things went\ntogether.... This confounded Irish business, one could laugh at it in\nthe daylight, but was it indeed a thing to laugh at? We were drifting\nlazily towards a real disaster. We had a government that seemed guided\nby the principles of Mr. Micawber, and adopted for its watchword \"Wait\nand see.\" For months now this trouble had grown more threatening.\nSuppose presently that civil war broke out in Ireland! Suppose presently\nthat these irritated, mishandled suffragettes did some desperate\nirreconcilable thing, assassinated for example! The bomb in Westminster\nAbbey the other day might have killed a dozen people.... Suppose the\nsmouldering criticism of British rule in India and Egypt were fanned by\nadministrative indiscretions into a flame....\n\nAnd then suppose Germany had made trouble....\n\nUsually Mr. Britling kept his mind off Germany. In the daytime he\npretended Germany meant nothing to England. He hated alarmists. He hated\ndisagreeable possibilities. He declared the idea of a whole vast nation\nwaiting to strike at us incredible. Why should they? You cannot have\nseventy million lunatics.... But in the darkness of the night one cannot\ndismiss things in this way. Suppose, after all, their army was more\nthan a parade, their navy more than a protest?\n\nWe might be caught--It was only in the vast melancholia of such\noccasions that Mr. Britling would admit such possibilities, but we might\nbe caught by some sudden declaration of war.... And how should we face\nit?\n\nHe recalled the afternoon's talk at Claverings and such samples of our\ngovernmental machinery as he chanced to number among his personal\nacquaintance. Suppose suddenly the enemy struck! With Raeburn and his\nfriends to defend us! Or if the shock tumbled them out of power, then\nwith these vituperative Tories, these spiteful advocates of weak\ntyrannies and privileged pretences in the place of them. There was no\nleadership in England. In the lucid darkness he knew that with a\nterrible certitude. He had a horrible vision of things disastrously\nmuffled; of Lady Frensham and her _Morning Post_ friends first\ngarrulously and maliciously \"patriotic,\" screaming her way with\nincalculable mischiefs through the storm, and finally discovering that\nthe Germans were the real aristocrats and organising our national\ncapitulation on that understanding. He knew from talk he had heard that\nthe navy was weak in mines and torpedoes, unprovided with the great\nmonitors needed for a war with Germany; torn by doctrinaire feuds;\nnevertheless the sea power was our only defence. In the whole country we\nmight muster a military miscellany of perhaps three hundred thousand\nmen. And he had no faith in their equipment, in their direction. General\nFrench, the one man who had his entire confidence, had been forced to\nresign through some lawyer's misunderstanding about the Irish\ndifficulty. He did not believe any plans existed for such a war as\nGermany might force upon us, any calculation, any foresight of the thing\nat all.\n\nWhy had we no foresight? Why had we this wilful blindness to\ndisagreeable possibilities? Why did we lie so open to the unexpected\ncrisis? Just what he said of himself he said also of his country. It was\ncurious to remember that. To realise how closely Dower House could play\nthe microcosm to the whole Empire....\n\nIt became relevant to the trend of his thoughts that his son had through\nhis mother a strong strain of the dark Irish in his composition.\n\nHow we had wasted Ireland! The rich values that lay in Ireland, the\ngallantry and gifts, the possible friendliness, all these things were\nbeing left to the Ulster politicians and the Tory women to poison and\nspoil, just as we left India to the traditions of the chattering army\nwomen and the repressive instincts of our mandarins. We were too lazy,\nwe were too negligent. We passed our indolent days leaving everything to\nsomebody else. Was this the incurable British, just as it was the\nincurable Britling, quality?\n\nWas the whole prosperity of the British, the far-flung empire, the\nsecurities, the busy order, just their good luck? It was a question he\nhad asked a hundred times of his national as of his personal self. No\ndoubt luck had favoured him. He was prosperous, and he was still only at\nthe livelier end of middle age. But was there not also a personal\nfactor, a meritorious factor? Luck had favoured the British with a\nwell-placed island, a hardening climate, accessible minerals, but then\ntoo was there not also a national virtue? Once he had believed in that,\nin a certain gallantry, a noble levity, an underlying sound sense. The\nlast ten years of politics had made him doubt that profoundly. He clung\nto it still, but without confidence. In the night that dear persuasion\nleft him altogether.... As for himself he had a certain brightness and\nliveliness of mind, but the year of his fellowship had been a soft year,\nhe had got on to _The Times_ through something very like a\nmisapprehension, and it was the chances of a dinner and a duchess that\nhad given him the opportunity of the Kahn show. He'd dropped into good\nthings that suited him. That at any rate was the essence of it. And\nthese lucky chances had been no incentive to further effort. Because\nthings had gone easily and rapidly with him he had developed indolence\ninto a philosophy. Here he was just over forty, and explaining to the\nworld, explaining all through the week-end to this American--until even\nGod could endure it no longer and the smash stopped him--how excellent\nwas the backwardness of Essex and English go-as-you-please, and how\nthrough good temper it made in some mysterious way for all that was\ndesirable. A fat English doctrine. _Punch_ has preached it for forty\nyears.\n\nBut this wasn't what he had always been. He thought of the strenuous\nintentions of his youth, before he had got into this turmoil of amorous\nexperiences, while he was still out there with the clean star of youth.\nAs Hugh was....\n\nIn those days he had had no amiable doctrine of compromise. He had\ntruckled to no \"domesticated God,\" but talked of the \"pitiless truth\";\nhe had tolerated no easy-going pseudo-aristocratic social system, but\ndreamt of such a democracy \"mewing its mighty youth\" as the world had\nnever seen. He had thought that his brains were to do their share in\nbuilding up this great national _imago_, winged, divine, out of the\nclumsy, crawling, snobbish, comfort-loving caterpillar of Victorian\nEngland. With such dreams his life had started, and the light of them,\nperhaps, had helped him to his rapid success. And then his wife had\ndied, and he had married again and become somehow more interested in his\nincome, and then the rather expensive first of the eight experiences had\ndrained off so much of his imaginative energy, and the second had\ndrained off so much, and there had been quarrels and feuds, and the way\nhad been lost, and the days had passed. He hadn't failed. Indeed he\ncounted as a success among his generation. He alone, in the night\nwatches, could gauge the quality of that success. He was widely known,\nreputably known; he prospered. Much had come, oh! by a mysterious luck,\nbut everything was doomed by his invincible defects. Beneath that\nhollow, enviable show there ached waste. Waste, waste, waste--his heart,\nhis imagination, his wife, his son, his country--his automobile....\n\nThen there flashed into his mind a last straw of disagreeable\nrealisation.\n\nHe hadn't as yet insured his automobile! He had meant to do so. The\npapers were on his writing-desk.\n\n\nSection 7\n\nOn these black nights, when the personal Mr. Britling would lie awake\nthinking how unsatisfactorily Mr. Britling was going on, and when the\nimpersonal Mr. Britling would be thinking how unsatisfactorily his\nuniverse was going on, the whole mental process had a likeness to some\ncomplex piece of orchestral music wherein the organ deplored the\nmelancholy destinies of the race while the piccolo lamented the secret\ntrouble of Mrs. Harrowdean; the big drum thundered at the Irish\npoliticians, and all the violins bewailed the intellectual laxity of the\nuniversity system. Meanwhile the trumpets prophesied wars and disasters,\nthe cymbals ever and again inserted a clashing jar about the fatal delay\nin the automobile insurance, while the triangle broke into a plangent\nsolo on the topic of a certain rotten gate-post he always forgot in the\ndaytime, and how in consequence the cows from the glebe farm got into\nthe garden and ate Mrs. Britling's carnations.\n\nTime after time he had promised to see to that gate-post....\n\nThe organ _motif_ battled its way to complete predominance. The lesser\nthemes were drowned or absorbed. Mr. Britling returned from the rôle of\nan incompetent automobilist to the rôle of a soul naked in space and\ntime wrestling with giant questions. These cosmic solicitudes, it may\nbe, are the last penalty of irreligion. Was Huxley right, and was all\nhumanity, even as Mr. Britling, a careless, fitful thing, playing a\ntragically hopeless game, thinking too slightly, moving too quickly,\nagainst a relentless antagonist?\n\nOr is the whole thing just witless, accidentally cruel perhaps, but not\nmalignant? Or is it wise, and merely refusing to pamper us? Is there\nsomewhere in the immensities some responsive kindliness, some faint hope\nof toleration and assistance, something sensibly on our side against\ndeath and mechanical cruelty? If so, it certainly refuses to pamper\nus.... But if the whole thing is cruel, perhaps also it is witless and\nwill-less? One cannot imagine the ruler of everything a devil--that\nwould be silly. So if at the worst it is inanimate then anyhow we have\nour poor wills and our poor wits to pit against it. And manifestly then,\nthe good of life, the significance of any life that is not mere\nreceptivity, lies in the disciplined and clarified will and the\nsharpened and tempered mind. And what for the last twenty years--for all\nhis lectures and writings--had he been doing to marshal the will and\nharden the mind which were his weapons against the Dark? He was ready\nenough to blame others--dons, politicians, public apathy, but what was\nhe himself doing?\n\nWhat was he doing now?\n\nLying in bed!\n\nHis son was drifting to ruin, his country was going to the devil, the\nhouse was a hospital of people wounded by his carelessness, the country\nroads choked with his smashed (and uninsured) automobiles, the cows were\nprobably lined up along the borders and munching Edith's carnations at\nthis very moment, his pocketbook and bureau were stuffed with venomous\ninsults about her--and he was just lying in bed!\n\nSuddenly Mr. Britling threw back his bedclothes and felt for the matches\non his bedside table.\n\nIndeed this was by no means the first time that his brain had become a\nwhirring torment in his skull. Previous experiences had led to the most\ncareful provision for exactly such states. Over the end of the bed hung\na light, warm pyjama suit of llama-wool, and at the feet of it were two\ntall boots of the same material that buckled to the middle of his calf.\nSo protected, Mr. Britling proceeded to make himself tea. A Primus stove\nstood ready inside the fender of his fireplace, and on it was a brightly\npolished brass kettle filled with water; a little table carried a\ntea-caddy, a tea-pot, a lemon and a glass. Mr. Britling lit the stove\nand then strolled to his desk. He was going to write certain \"Plain\nWords about Ireland.\" He lit his study lamp and meditated beside it\nuntil a sound of water boiling called him to his tea-making.\n\nHe returned to his desk stirring the lemon in his glass of tea. He would\nwrite the plain common sense of this Irish situation. He would put\nthings so plainly that this squabbling folly would _have_ to cease. It\nshould be done austerely, with a sort of ironical directness. There\nshould be no abuse, no bitterness, only a deep passion of sanity.\n\nWhat is the good of grieving over a smashed automobile?\n\nHe sipped his tea and made a few notes on his writing pad. His face in\nthe light of his shaded reading lamp had lost its distraught expression,\nhis hand fingered his familiar fountain pen....\n\n\nSection 8\n\nThe next morning Mr. Britling came into Mr. Direck's room. He was pink\nfrom his morning bath, he was wearing a cheerful green-and-blue silk\ndressing gown, he had shaved already, he showed no trace of his\nnocturnal vigil. In the bathroom he had whistled like a bird. \"Had a\ngood night?\" he said. \"That's famous. So did I. And the wrist and arm\ndidn't even ache enough to keep you awake?\"\n\n\"I thought I heard you talking and walking about,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"I got up for a little bit and worked. I often do that. I hope I didn't\ndisturb you. Just for an hour or so. It's so delightfully quiet in the\nnight....\"\n\nHe went to the window and blinked at the garden outside. His two younger\nsons appeared on their bicycles returning from some early expedition. He\nwaved a hand of greeting. It was one of those summer mornings when\nattenuated mist seems to fill the very air with sunshine dust.\n\n\"This is the sunniest morning bedroom in the house,\" he said. \"It's\nsouth-east.\"\n\nThe sunlight slashed into the masses of the blue cedar outside with a\nscore of golden spears.\n\n\"The Dayspring from on High,\" he said.... \"I thought of rather a useful\npamphlet in the night.\n\n\"I've been thinking about your luggage at that hotel,\" he went on,\nturning to his guest again. \"You'll have to write and get it packed up\nand sent down here--\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"we won't let you go until you can hit out with that arm\nand fell a man. Listen!\"\n\nMr. Direck could not distinguish any definite sound.\n\n\"The smell of frying rashers, I mean,\" said Mr. Britling. \"It's the\nclarion of the morn in every proper English home....\n\n\"You'd like a rasher, coffee?\n\n\"It's good to work in the night, and it's good to wake in the morning,\"\nsaid Mr. Britling, rubbing his hands together. \"I suppose I wrote nearly\ntwo thousand words. So quiet one is, so concentrated. And as soon as I\nhave had my breakfast I shall go on with it again.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIFTH\n\nTHE COMING OF THE DAY\n\n\nSection 1\n\nIt was quite characteristic of the state of mind of England in the\nsummer of 1914 that Mr. Britling should be mightily concerned about the\nconflict in Ireland, and almost deliberately negligent of the\npossibility of a war with Germany.\n\nThe armament of Germany, the hostility of Germany, the consistent\nassertion of Germany, the world-wide clash of British and German\ninterests, had been facts in the consciousness of Englishmen for more\nthan a quarter of a century. A whole generation had been born and\nbrought up in the threat of this German war. A threat that goes on for\ntoo long ceases to have the effect of a threat, and this overhanging\npossibility had become a fixed and scarcely disturbing feature of the\nBritish situation. It kept the navy sedulous and Colonel Rendezvous\nuneasy; it stimulated a small and not very influential section of the\npress to a series of reminders that bored Mr. Britling acutely, it was\nthe excuse for an agitation that made national service ridiculous, and\nquite subconsciously it affected his attitude to a hundred things. For\nexample, it was a factor in his very keen indignation at the Tory levity\nin Ireland, in his disgust with many things that irritated or estranged\nIndian feeling. It bored him; there it was, a danger, and there was no\ndenying it, and yet he believed firmly that it was a mine that would\nnever be fired, an avalanche that would never fall. It was a nuisance, a\nstupidity, that kept Europe drilling and wasted enormous sums on\nunavoidable preparations; it hung up everything like a noisy argument in\na drawing-room, but that human weakness and folly would ever let the\nmine actually explode he did not believe. He had been in France in 1911,\nhe had seen how close things had come then to a conflict, and the fact\nthat they had not come to a conflict had enormously strengthened his\nnatural disposition to believe that at bottom Germany was sane and her\nmilitarism a bluff.\n\nBut the Irish difficulty was a different thing. There, he felt, was need\nfor the liveliest exertions. A few obstinate people in influential\npositions were manifestly pushing things to an outrageous point....\n\nHe wrote through the morning--and as the morning progressed the judicial\ncalm of his opening intentions warmed to a certain regrettable vigour of\nphrasing about our politicians, about our political ladies, and our\nhand-to-mouth press....\n\nHe came down to lunch in a frayed, exhausted condition, and was much\nafflicted by a series of questions from Herr Heinrich. For it was an\nincurable characteristic of Herr Heinrich that he asked questions; the\ngreater part of his conversation took the form of question and answer,\nand his thirst for information was as marked as his belief that German\nshould not simply be spoken but spoken \"out loud.\" He invariably\nprefaced his inquiries with the word \"Please,\" and he insisted upon\nascribing an omniscience to his employer that it was extremely irksome\nto justify after a strenuous morning of enthusiastic literary effort. He\nnow took the opportunity of a lull in the solicitudes and\ncongratulations that had followed Mr. Direck's appearance--and Mr.\nDireck was so little shattered by his misadventure that with the\nassistance of the kindly Teddy he had got up and dressed and come down\nto lunch--to put the matter that had been occupying his mind all the\nmorning, even to the detriment of the lessons of the Masters Britling.\n\n\"Please!\" he said, going a deeper shade of pink and partly turning to\nMr. Britling.\n\nA look of resignation came into Mr. Britling's eyes. \"Yes?\" he said.\n\n\"I do not think it will be wise to take my ticket for the Esperanto\nConference at Boulogne. Because I think it is probable to be war between\nAustria and Servia, and that Russia may make war on Austria.\"\n\n\"That may happen. But I think it improbable.\"\n\n\"If Russia makes war on Austria, Germany will make war on Russia, will\nshe not?\"\n\n\"Not if she is wise,\" said Mr. Britling, \"because that would bring in\nFrance.\"\n\n\"That is why I ask. If Germany goes to war with France I should have to\ngo to Germany to do my service. It will be a great inconvenience to me.\"\n\n\"I don't imagine Germany will do anything so frantic as to attack\nRussia. That would not only bring in France but ourselves.\"\n\n\"England?\"\n\n\"Of course. We can't afford to see France go under. The thing is as\nplain as daylight. So plain that it cannot possibly happen....\nCannot.... Unless Germany wants a universal war.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Herr Heinrich, looking obedient rather than reassured.\n\n\"I suppose now,\" said Mr. Direck after a pause, \"that there isn't any\nstrong party in Germany that wants a war. That young Crown Prince, for\nexample.\"\n\n\"They keep him in order,\" said Mr. Britling a little irritably. \"They\nkeep him in order....\n\n\"I used to be an alarmist about Germany,\" said Mr. Britling, \"but I have\ncome to feel more and more confidence in the sound common sense of the\nmass of the German population, and in the Emperor too if it comes to\nthat. He is--if Herr Heinrich will permit me to agree with his own\nGerman comic papers--sometimes a little theatrical, sometimes a little\negotistical, but in his operatic, boldly coloured way he means peace. I\nam convinced he means peace....\"\n\n\nSection 2\n\nAfter lunch Mr. Britling had a brilliant idea for the ease and comfort\nof Mr. Direck.\n\nIt seemed as though Mr. Direck would be unable to write any letters\nuntil his wrist had mended. Teddy tried him with a typewriter, but Mr.\nDireck was very awkward with his left hand, and then Mr. Britling\nsuddenly remembered a little peculiarity he had which it was possible\nthat Mr. Direck might share unconsciously, and that was his gift of\nlooking-glass writing with his left hand. Mr. Britling had found out\nquite by chance in his schoolboy days that while his right hand had been\nlaboriously learning to write, his left hand, all unsuspected, had been\npicking up the same lesson, and that by taking a pencil in his left hand\nand writing from right to left, without watching what he was writing,\nand then examining the scrawl in a mirror, he could reproduce his own\nhandwriting in exact reverse. About three people out of five have this\noften quite unsuspected ability. He demonstrated his gift, and then Miss\nCecily Corner, who had dropped in in a casual sort of way to ask about\nMr. Direck, tried it, and then Mr. Direck tried it. And they could all\ndo it. And then Teddy brought a sheet of copying carbon, and so Mr.\nDireck, by using the carbon reversed under his paper, was restored to\nthe world of correspondence again.\n\nThey sat round a little table under the cedar trees amusing themselves\nwith these experiments, and after that Cecily and Mr. Britling and the\ntwo small boys entertained themselves by drawing pigs with their eyes\nshut, and then Mr. Britling and Teddy played hard at Badminton until it\nwas time for tea. And Cecily sat by Mr. Direck and took an interest in\nhis accident, and he told her about summer holidays in the Adirondacks\nand how he loved to travel. She said she would love to travel. He said\nthat so soon as he was better he would go on to Paris and then into\nGermany. He was extraordinarily curious about this Germany and its\ntremendous militarism. He'd far rather see it than Italy, which was, he\nthought, just all art and ancient history. His turn was for modern\nproblems. Though of course he didn't intend to leave out Italy while he\nwas at it. And then their talk was scattered, and there was great\nexcitement because Herr Heinrich had lost his squirrel.\n\nHe appeared coming out of the house into the sunshine, and so distraught\nthat he had forgotten the protection of his hat. He was very pink and\ndeeply moved.\n\n\"But what shall I do without him?\" he cried. \"He has gone!\"\n\nThe squirrel, Mr. Direck gathered, had been bought by Mrs. Britling for\nthe boys some month or so ago; it had been christened \"Bill\" and adored\nand then neglected, until Herr Heinrich took it over. It had filled a\nplace in his ample heart that the none too demonstrative affection of\nthe Britling household had left empty. He abandoned his pursuit of\nphilology almost entirely for the cherishing and adoration of this busy,\nnimble little creature. He carried it off to his own room, where it ran\nloose and took the greatest liberties with him and his apartment. It was\nan extraordinarily bold and savage little beast even for a squirrel, but\nHerr Heinrich had set his heart and his very large and patient will upon\nthe establishment of sentimental relations. He believed that ultimately\nBill would let himself be stroked, that he would make Bill love him and\nunderstand him, and that his would be the only hand that Bill would ever\nsuffer to touch him. In the meanwhile even the untamed Bill was\nwonderful to watch. One could watch him forever. His front paws were\nlike hands, like a musician's hands, very long and narrow. \"He would be\na musician if he could only make his fingers go apart, because when I\nplay my violin he listens. He is attentive.\"\n\nThe entire household became interested in Herr Heinrich's attacks upon\nBill's affection. They watched his fingers with particular interest\nbecause it was upon those that Bill vented his failures to respond to\nthe stroking advances.\n\n\"To-day I have stroked him once and he has bitten me three times,\" Herr\nHeinrich reported. \"Soon I will stroke him three times and he shall not\nbite me at all.... Also yesterday he climbed up me and sat on my\nshoulder, and suddenly bit my ear. It was not hard he bit, but sudden.\n\n\"He does not mean to bite,\" said Herr Heinrich. \"Because when he has bit\nme he is sorry. He is ashamed.\n\n\"You can see he is ashamed.\"\n\nAssisted by the two small boys, Herr Heinrich presently got a huge bough\nof oak and brought it into his room, converting the entire apartment\ninto the likeness of an aviary. \"For this,\" said Herr Heinrich, looking\ngrave and diplomatic through his glasses, \"Billy will be very grateful.\nAnd it will give him confidence with me. It will make him feel we are in\nthe forest together.\"\n\nMrs. Britling came to console her husband in the matter.\n\n\"It is not right that the bedroom should be filled with trees. All sorts\nof dust and litter came in with it.\"\n\n\"If it amuses him,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"But it makes work for the servants.\"\n\n\"Do they complain?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Things will adjust themselves. And it is amusing that he should do such\na thing....\"\n\nAnd now Billy had disappeared, and Herr Heinrich was on the verge of\ntears. It was so ungrateful of Billy. Without a word.\n\n\"They leave my window open,\" he complained to Mr. Direck. \"Often I have\naskit them not to. And of course he did not understand. He has out\nclimbit by the ivy. Anything may have happened to him. Anything. He is\nnot used to going out alone. He is too young.\n\n\"Perhaps if I call--\"\n\nAnd suddenly he had gone off round the house crying: \"Beelee! Beelee!\nHere is an almond for you! An almond, Beelee!\"\n\n\"Makes me want to get up and help,\" said Mr. Direck. \"It's a tragedy.\"\n\nEverybody else was helping. Even the gardener and his boy knocked off\nwork and explored the upper recesses of various possible trees.\n\n\"He is too young,\" said Herr Heinrich, drifting back.... And then\npresently: \"If he heard my voice I am sure he would show himself. But he\ndoes not show himself.\"\n\nIt was clear he feared the worst....\n\nAt supper Billy was the sole topic of conversation, and condolence was\nin the air. The impression that on the whole he had displayed rather a\nbrutal character was combated by Herr Heinrich, who held that a certain\nbrusqueness was Billy's only fault, and told anecdotes, almost sacred\nanecdotes, of the little creature's tenderer, nobler side. \"When I feed\nhim always he says, 'Thank you,'\" said Herr Heinrich. \"He never fails.\"\nHe betrayed darker thoughts. \"When I went round by the barn there was a\ncat that sat and looked at me out of a laurel bush,\" he said. \"I do not\nlike cats.\"\n\nMr. Lawrence Carmine, who had dropped in, was suddenly reminded of that\nlugubrious old ballad, \"The Mistletoe Bough,\" and recited large worn\nfragments of it impressively. It tells of how a beautiful girl hid away\nin a chest during a Christmas game of hide-and-seek, and how she was\nfound, a dried vestige, years afterwards. It took a very powerful hold\nupon Herr Heinrich's imagination. \"Let us now,\" he said, \"make an\nexamination of every box and cupboard and drawer. Marking each as we\ngo....\"\n\nWhen Mr. Britling went to bed that night, after a long gossip with\nCarmine about the Bramo Samaj and modern developments of Indian thought\ngenerally, the squirrel was still undiscovered.\n\nThe worthy modern thinker undressed slowly, blew out his candle and got\ninto bed. Still meditating deeply upon the God of the Tagores, he thrust\nhis right hand under his pillow according to his usual practice, and\nencountered something soft and warm and active. He shot out of bed\nconvulsively, lit his candle, and lifted his pillow discreetly.\n\nHe discovered the missing Billy looking crumpled and annoyed.\n\nFor some moments there was a lively struggle before Billy was gripped.\nHe chattered furiously and bit Mr. Britling twice. Then Mr. Britling was\nout in the passage with the wriggling lump of warm fur in his hand, and\npaddling along in the darkness to the door of Herr Heinrich. He opened\nit softly.\n\nA startled white figure sat up in bed sharply.\n\n\"Billy,\" said Mr. Britling by way of explanation, dropped his capture on\nthe carpet, and shut the door on the touching reunion.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nA day was to come when Mr. Britling was to go over the history of that\nsunny July with incredulous minuteness, trying to trace the real\nsuccession of events that led from the startling crime at Sarajevo to\nEurope's last swift rush into war. In a sense it was untraceable; in a\nsense it was so obvious that he was amazed the whole world had not\nwatched the coming of disaster. The plain fact of the case was that\nthere was no direct connection; the Sarajevo murders were dropped for\ntwo whole weeks out of the general consciousness, they went out of the\npapers, they ceased to be discussed; then they were picked up again and\nused as an excuse for war. Germany, armed so as to be a threat to all\nthe world, weary at last of her mighty vigil, watching the course of\nevents, decided that her moment had come, and snatched the dead archduke\nout of his grave again to serve her tremendous ambition.\n\nIt may well have seemed to the belligerent German patriot that all her\npossible foes were confused, divided within themselves, at an extremity\nof distraction and impotence. The British Isles seemed slipping steadily\ninto civil war. Threat was met by counter-threat, violent fool competed\nwith violent fool for the admiration of the world, the National\nVolunteers armed against the Ulster men; everything moved on with a kind\nof mechanical precision from parade and meeting towards the fatal\ngun-running of Howth and the first bloodshed in Dublin streets. That\nwretched affray, far more than any other single thing, must have\nstiffened Germany in the course she had chosen. There can be no doubt of\nit; the mischief makers of Ireland set the final confirmation upon the\nEuropean war. In England itself there was a summer fever of strikes;\nLiverpool was choked by a dockers' strike, the East Anglian agricultural\nlabourers were in revolt, and the building trade throughout the country\nwas on the verge of a lockout. Russia seemed to be in the crisis of a\nsocial revolution. From Baku to St. Petersburg there were\ninsurrectionary movements in the towns, and on the 23rd--the very day of\nthe Austrian ultimatum--Cossacks were storming barbed wire entanglements\nin the streets of the capital. The London Stock Exchange was in a state\nof panic disorganisation because of a vast mysterious selling of\nsecurities from abroad. And France, France it seemed was lost to all\nother consideration in the enthralling confrontations and denunciations\nof the Caillaux murder trial, the trial of the wife of her ex-prime\nMinister for the murder of a blackmailing journalist. It was a case full\nof the vulgarest sexual violence. Before so piquant a spectacle France\nit seemed could have no time nor attention for the revelation of M.\nHumbert, the Reporter of the Army Committee, proclaiming that the\nartillery was short of ammunition, that her infantry had boots \"thirty\nyears old\" and not enough of those....\n\nSuch were the appearances of things. Can it be wondered if it seemed to\nthe German mind that the moment for the triumphant assertion of the\nGerman predominance in the world had come? A day or so before the Dublin\nshooting, the murder of Sarajevo had been dragged again into the\nforeground of the world's affairs by an ultimatum from Austria to Serbia\nof the extremest violence. From the hour when the ultimatum was\ndischarged the way to Armageddon lay wide and unavoidable before the\nfeet of Europe. After the Dublin conflict there was no turning back. For\na week Europe was occupied by proceedings that were little more than the\nrecital of a formula. Austria could not withdraw her unqualified threats\nwithout admitting error and defeat, Russia could not desert Serbia\nwithout disgrace, Germany stood behind Austria, France was bound to\nRussia by a long confederacy of mutual support, and it was impossible\nfor England to witness the destruction of France or the further\nstrengthening of a loud and threatening rival. It may be that Germany\ncounted on Russia giving way to her, it may be she counted on the\nindecisions and feeble perplexities of England, both these possibilities\nwere in the reckoning, but chiefly she counted on war. She counted on\nwar, and since no nation in all the world had ever been so fully\nprepared in every way for war as she was, she also counted on victory.\n\nOne writes \"Germany.\" That is how one writes of nations, as though they\nhad single brains and single purposes. But indeed while Mr. Britling lay\nawake and thought of his son and Lady Frensham and his smashed\nautomobile and Mrs. Harrowdean's trick of abusive letter-writing and of\nGod and evil and a thousand perplexities, a multitude of other brains\nmust also have been busy, lying also in beds or sitting in studies or\nwatching in guard-rooms or chatting belatedly in cafés or smoking-rooms\nor pacing the bridges of battleships or walking along in city or\ncountry, upon this huge possibility the crime of Sarajevo had just\nopened, and of the state of the world in relation to such possibilities.\nFew women, one guesses, heeded what was happening, and of the men, the\nmen whose decision to launch that implacable threat turned the destinies\nof the world to war, there is no reason to believe that a single one of\nthem had anything approaching the imaginative power needed to understand\nfully what it was they were doing. We have looked for an hour or so into\nthe seething pot of Mr. Britling's brain and marked its multiple\nstrands, its inconsistencies, its irrational transitions. It was but a\nspecimen. Nearly every brain of the select few that counted in this\ncardinal determination of the world's destinies, had its streak of\npersonal motive, its absurd and petty impulses and deflections. One man\ndecided to say _this_ because if he said _that_ he would contradict\nsomething he had said and printed four or five days ago; another took a\ncertain line because so he saw his best opportunity of putting a rival\ninto a perplexity. It would be strange if one could reach out now and\nrecover the states of mind of two such beings as the German Kaiser and\nhis eldest son as Europe stumbled towards her fate through the long days\nand warm, close nights of that July. Here was the occasion for which so\nmuch of their lives had been but the large pretentious preparation,\ncoming right into their hands to use or forgo, here was the opportunity\nthat would put them into the very forefront of history forever; this\njournalist emperor with the paralysed arm, this common-fibred, sly,\nlascivious son. It is impossible that they did not dream of glory over\nall the world, of triumphant processions, of a world-throne that would\noutshine Caesar's, of a godlike elevation, of acting Divus Caesar while\nyet alive. And being what they were they must have imagined spectators,\nand the young man, who was after all a young man of particularly poor\nquality, imagined no doubt certain women onlookers, certain humiliated\nand astonished friends, and thought of the clothes he would wear and\nthe gestures he would make. The nickname his English cousins had given\nthis heir to all the glories was the \"White Rabbit.\" He was the backbone\nof the war party at court. And presently he stole bric-à-brac. That will\nhelp posterity to the proper values of things in 1914. And the Teutonic\ngenerals and admirals and strategists with their patient and perfect\nplans, who were so confident of victory, each within a busy skull must\nhave enacted anticipatory dreams of his personal success and marshalled\nhis willing and unwilling admirers. Readers of histories and memoirs as\nmost of this class of men are, they must have composed little eulogistic\ndescriptions of the part themselves were to play in the opening drama,\nimagined pleasing vindications and interesting documents. Some of them\nperhaps saw difficulties, but few foresaw failure. For all this set of\nbrains the thing came as a choice to take or reject; they could make war\nor prevent it. And they chose war.\n\nIt is doubtful if any one outside the directing intelligence of Germany\nand Austria saw anything so plain. The initiative was with Germany. The\nRussian brains and the French brains and the British brains, the few\nthat were really coming round to look at this problem squarely, had a\nfar less simple set of problems and profounder uncertainties. To Mr.\nBritling's mind the Round Table Conference at Buckingham Palace was\ntypical of the disunion and indecision that lasted up to the very\noutbreak of hostilities. The solemn violence of Sir Edward Carson was\nintensely antipathetic to Mr. Britling, and in his retrospective\ninquiries he pictured to himself that dark figure with its dropping\nunder-lip, seated, heavy and obstinate, at that discussion, still\nimplacable though the King had but just departed after a little speech\nthat was packed with veiled intimations of imminent danger...\n\nMr. Britling had no mercy in his mind for the treason of obstinate\negotism and for persistence in a mistaken course. His own temperamental\nweaknesses lay in such different directions. He was always ready to\nleave one trail for another; he was always open to conviction, trusting\nto the essentials of his character for an ultimate consistency. He hated\nCarson in those days as a Scotch terrier might hate a bloodhound, as\nsomething at once more effective and impressive, and exasperatingly,\ninfinitely less intelligent.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nThus--a vivid fact as yet only in a few hundred skulls or so--the vast\ncatastrophe of the Great War gathered behind the idle, dispersed and\nconfused spectacle of an indifferent world, very much as the storms and\nrains of late September gathered behind the glow and lassitudes of\nAugust, and with scarcely more of set human intention. For the greater\npart of mankind the European international situation was at most\nsomething in the papers, no more important than the political\ndisturbances in South Africa, where the Herzogites were curiously\nuneasy, or the possible trouble between Turkey and Greece. The things\nthat really interested people in England during the last months of peace\nwere boxing and the summer sales. A brilliant young Frenchman,\nCarpentier, who had knocked out Bombardier Wells, came over again to\ndefeat Gunboat Smith, and did so to the infinite delight of France and\nthe whole Latin world, amidst the generous applause of Anglo-Saxondom.\nAnd there was also a British triumph over the Americans at polo, and a\nlively and cultured newspaper discussion about a proper motto for the\narms of the London County Council. The trial of Madame Caillaux filled\nthe papers with animated reports and vivid pictures; Gregori Rasputin\nwas stabbed and became the subject of much lively gossip about the\nRussian Court; and Ulivi, the Italian impostor who claimed he could\nexplode mines by means of an \"ultra-red\" ray, was exposed and fled with\na lady, very amusingly. For a few days all the work at Woolwich Arsenal\nwas held up because a certain Mr. Entwhistle, having refused to erect a\nmachine on a concrete bed laid down by non-unionists, was rather\nuncivilly dismissed, and the Irish trouble pounded along its tiresome\nmischievous way. People gave a divided attention to these various\ntopics, and went about their individual businesses.\n\nAnd at Dower House they went about their businesses. Mr. Direck's arm\nhealed rapidly; Cecily Corner and he talked of their objects in life and\nUtopias and the books of Mr. Britling, and he got down from a London\nbookseller Baedeker's guides for Holland and Belgium, South Germany and\nItaly; Herr Heinrich after some doubt sent in his application form and\nhis preliminary deposit for the Esperanto Conference at Boulogne, and\nBilly consented to be stroked three times but continued to bite with\ngreat vigour and promptitude. And the trouble about Hugh, Mr. Britling's\neldest son, resolved itself into nothing of any vital importance, and\nsettled itself very easily.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nAfter Hugh had cleared things up and gone back to London Mr. Britling\nwas inclined to think that such a thing as apprehension was a sin\nagainst the general fairness and integrity of life.\n\nOf all things in the world Hugh was the one that could most easily rouse\nMr. Britling's unhappy aptitude for distressing imaginations. Hugh was\nnearer by far to his heart and nerves than any other creature. In the\nlast few years Mr. Britling, by the light of a variety of emotional\nexcursions in other directions, had been discovering this. Whatever Mr.\nBritling discovered he talked about; he had evolved from his realisation\nof this tenderness, which was without an effort so much tenderer than\nall the subtle and tremendous feelings he had attempted in\nhis--excursions, the theory that he had expounded to Mr. Direck that it\nis only through our children that we are able to achieve disinterested\nlove, real love. But that left unexplained that far more intimate\nemotional hold of Hugh than of his very jolly little step-brothers. That\nwas a fact into which Mr. Britling rather sedulously wouldn't look....\n\nMr. Britling was probably much franker and more open-eyed with himself\nand the universe than a great number of intelligent people, and yet\nthere were quite a number of aspects of his relations with his wife,\nwith people about him, with his country and God and the nature of\nthings, upon which he turned his back with an attentive persistence. But\na back too resolutely turned may be as indicative as a pointing finger,\nand in this retrogressive way, and tacitly even so far as his formal\nthoughts, his unspoken comments, went, Mr. Britling knew that he loved\nhis son because he had lavished the most hope and the most imagination\nupon him, because he was the one living continuation of that dear life\nwith Mary, so lovingly stormy at the time, so fine now in memory, that\nhad really possessed the whole heart of Mr. Britling. The boy had been\nthe joy and marvel of the young parents; it was incredible to them that\nthere had ever been a creature so delicate and sweet, and they brought\nconsiderable imagination and humour to the detailed study of his minute\npersonality and to the forecasting of his future. Mr. Britling's mind\nblossomed with wonderful schemes for his education. All that mental\ngrowth no doubt contributed greatly to Mr. Britling's peculiar\naffection, and with it there interwove still tenderer and subtler\nelements, for the boy had a score of Mary's traits. But there were other\nthings still more conspicuously ignored. One silent factor in the slow\nwidening of the breach between Edith and Mr. Britling was her cool\nestimate of her stepson. She was steadfastly kind to this shock-headed,\nuntidy little dreamer, he was extremely well cared for in her hands, she\nliked him and she was amused by him--it is difficult to imagine what\nmore Mr. Britling could have expected--but it was as plain as daylight\nthat she felt that this was not the child she would have cared to have\nborne. It was quite preposterous and perfectly natural that this should\nseem to Mr. Britling to be unfair to Hugh.\n\nEdith's home was more prosperous than Mary's; she brought her own money\nto it; the bringing up of her children was a far more efficient business\nthan Mary's instinctive proceedings. Hugh had very nearly died in his\nfirst year of life; some summer infection had snatched at him; that had\ntied him to his father's heart by a knot of fear; but no infection had\never come near Edith's own nursery. And it was Hugh that Mr. Britling\nhad seen, small and green-faced and pitiful under an anaesthetic for\nsome necessary small operation to his adenoids. His younger children had\nnever stabbed to Mr. Britling's heart with any such pitifulness; they\nwere not so thin-skinned as their elder brother, not so assailable by\nthe little animosities of dust and germ. And out of such things as this\nevolved a shapeless cloud of championship for Hugh. Jealousies and\nsuspicions are latent in every human relationship. We go about the\naffairs of life pretending magnificently that they are not so,\npretending to the generosities we desire. And in all step-relationships\njealousy and suspicion are not merely latent, they stir.\n\nIt was Mr. Britling's case for Hugh that he was something exceptional,\nsomething exceptionally good, and that the peculiar need there was to\ntake care of him was due to a delicacy of nerve and fibre that was\nultimately a virtue. The boy was quick, quick to hear, quick to move,\nvery accurate in his swift way, he talked unusually soon, he began to\nsketch at an early age with an incurable roughness and a remarkable\nexpressiveness. That he was sometimes ungainly, often untidy, that he\nwould become so mentally preoccupied as to be uncivil to people about\nhim, that he caught any malaise that was going, was all a part of that.\nThe sense of Mrs. Britling's unexpressed criticisms, the implied\ncontrasts with the very jolly, very uninspired younger family, kept up\na nervous desire in Mr. Britling for evidences and manifestations of\nHugh's quality. Not always with happy results; it caused much mutual\nirritation, but not enough to prevent the growth of a real response on\nHugh's part to his father's solicitude. The youngster knew and felt that\nhis father was his father just as certainly as he felt that Mrs.\nBritling was not his mother. To his father he brought his successes and\nto his father he appealed.\n\nBut he brought his successes more readily than he brought his troubles.\nSo far as he himself was concerned he was disposed to take a humorous\nview of the things that went wrong and didn't come off with him, but as\na \"Tremendous Set-Down for the Proud Parent\" they resisted humorous\ntreatment....\n\nNow the trouble that he had been hesitating to bring before his father\nwas concerned with that very grave interest of the young, his Object in\nLife. It had nothing to do with those erotic disturbances that had\ndistressed his father's imagination. Whatever was going on below the\nsurface of Hugh's smiling or thoughtful presence in that respect had\nstill to come to the surface and find expression. But he was bothered\nvery much by divergent strands in his own intellectual composition. Two\nsets of interests pulled at him, one--it will seem a dry interest to\nmany readers, but for Hugh it glittered and fascinated--was\ncrystallography and molecular physics; the other was caricature. Both\naptitudes sprang no doubt from the same exceptional sensitiveness to\nform. As a schoolboy he exercised both very happily, but now he was\ngetting to the age of specialisation, and he was fluctuating very much\nbetween science and art. After a spell of scientific study he would come\nupon a fatigue period and find nothing in life but absurdities and a\nlark that one could represent very amusingly; after a bout of funny\ndrawings his mind went back to his light and crystals and films like a\nMagdalen repenting in a church. After his public school he had refused\nCambridge and gone to University College, London, to work under the\ngreat and inspiring Professor Cardinal; simultaneously Cardinal had been\narranging to go to Cambridge, and Hugh had scarcely embarked upon his\nLondon work when Cardinal was succeeded by the dull, conscientious and\ndepressing Pelkingham, at whose touch crystals became as puddings,\nbubble films like cotton sheets, transparency vanished from the world,\nand X rays dwarfed and died. And Hugh degenerated immediately into a\nscoffing trifler who wished to give up science for art.\n\nHe gave up science for art after grave consultation with his father, and\nthe real trouble that had been fretting him, it seemed, was that now he\nrepented and wanted to follow Cardinal to Cambridge, and--a year\nlost--go on with science again. He felt it was a discreditable\nfluctuation; he knew it would be a considerable expense; and so he took\ntwo weeks before he could screw himself up to broaching the matter.\n\n\"So _that_ is all,\" said Mr. Britling, immensely relieved.\n\n\"My dear Parent, you didn't think I had backed a bill or forged a\ncheque?\"\n\n\"I thought you might have married a chorus girl or something of that\nsort,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Or bought a large cream-coloured motor-car for her on the instalment\nsystem, which she'd smashed up. No, that sort of thing comes later....\nI'll just put myself down on the waiting list of one of those bits of\ndelight in the Cambridge tobacco shops--and go on with my studies for a\nyear or two....\"\n\n\nSection 6\n\nThough Mr. Britling's anxiety about his son was dispelled, his mind\nremained curiously apprehensive throughout July. He had a feeling that\nthings were not going well with the world, a feeling he tried in vain to\ndispel by various distractions. Perhaps some subtler subconscious\nanalysis of the situation was working out probabilities that his\nconscious self would not face. And when presently he bicycled off to\nMrs. Harrowdean for flattery, amusement, and comfort generally, he found\nher by no means the exalting confirmation of everything he wished to\nbelieve about himself and the universe, that had been her delightful\nrôle in the early stages of their romantic friendship. She maintained\nher hostility to Edith; she seemed bent on making things impossible. And\nyet there were one or two phases of the old sustaining intimacies.\n\nThey walked across her absurd little park to the summer-house with the\nview on the afternoon of his arrival, and they discussed the Irish\npamphlet which was now nearly finished.\n\n\"Of course,\" she said, \"it will be a wonderful pamphlet.\"\n\nThere was a reservation in her voice that made him wait.\n\n\"But I suppose all sorts of people could write an Irish pamphlet. Nobody\nbut you could write 'The Silent Places.' Oh, _why_ don't you finish that\ngreat beautiful thing, and leave all this world of reality and\nnewspapers, all these Crude, Vulgar, Quarrelsome, Jarring things to\nother people? You have the magic gift, you might be a poet, you can take\nus out of all these horrid things that are, away to Beautyland, and you\nare just content to be a critic and a disputer. It's your surroundings.\nIt's your sordid realities. It's that Practicality at your elbow. You\nought never to see a newspaper. You ought never to have an American come\nwithin ten miles of you. You ought to live on bowls of milk drunk in\nvalleys of asphodel.\"\n\nMr. Britling, who liked this sort of thing in a way, and yet at the same\ntime felt ridiculously distended and altogether preposterous while it\nwas going on, answered feebly and self-consciously.\n\n\"There was your letter in the _Nation_ the other day,\" she said. \"Why\n_do_ you get drawn into arguments? I wanted to rush into the _Nation_\nand pick you up and wipe the anger off you, and carry you out of it\nall--into some quiet beautiful place.\"\n\n\"But one _has_ to answer these people,\" said Mr. Britling, rolling along\nby the side of her like a full moon beside Venus, and quite artlessly\nfalling in with the tone of her.\n\nShe repeated lines from \"The Silent Places\" from memory. She threw quite\nwonderful emotion into her voice. She made the words glow. And he had\nonly shown her the thing once....\n\nWas he indeed burying a marvellous gift under the dust of current\naffairs? When at last in the warm evening light they strolled back from\nthe summer-house to dinner he had definitely promised her that he would\ntake up and finish \"The Silent Places.\"... And think over the Irish\npamphlet again before he published it....\n\nPyecrafts was like a crystal casket of finer soil withdrawn from the\ntarred highways of the earth....\n\nAnd yet the very next day this angel enemy of controversies broke out in\nthe most abominable way about Edith, and he had to tell her more plainly\nthan he had done hitherto, that he could not tolerate that sort of\nthing. He wouldn't have Edith guyed. He wouldn't have Edith made to seem\nbase. And at that there was much trouble between them, and tears and\ntalk of Oliver....\n\nMr. Britling found himself unable to get on either with \"The Silent\nPlaces\" or the pamphlet, and he was very unhappy....\n\nAfterwards she repented very touchingly, and said that if only he would\nlove her she would swallow a thousand Ediths. He waived a certain\ndisrespect in the idea of her swallowing Edith, and they had a beautiful\nreconciliation and talked of exalted things, and in the evening he\nworked quite well upon \"The Silent Places\" and thought of half-a-dozen\nquite wonderful lines, and in the course of the next day he returned to\nDower House and Mr. Direck and considerable piles of correspondence and\nthe completion of the Irish pamphlet.\n\nBut he was restless. He was more restless in his house than he had ever\nbeen. He could not understand it. Everything about him was just as it\nhad always been, and yet it was unsatisfactory, and it seemed more\nunstable than anything had ever seemed before. He was bored by the\nsolemn development of the Irish dispute; he was irritated by the\nsmouldering threat of the Balkans; he was irritated by the suffragettes\nand by a string of irrational little strikes; by the general absence of\nany main plot as it were to hold all these wranglings and trivialities\ntogether.... At the Dower House the most unpleasant thoughts would come\nto him. He even had doubts whether in \"The Silent Places,\" he had been\nplagiarising, more or less unconsciously, from Henry James's \"Great Good\nPlace.\"...\n\nOn the twenty-first of July Gladys came back repaired and looking none\nthe worse for her misadventure. Next day he drove her very carefully\nover to Pyecrafts, hoping to drug his uneasiness with the pretence of a\ngrand passion and the praises of \"The Silent Places,\" that beautiful\nwork of art that was so free from any taint of application, and alas! he\nfound Mrs. Harrowdean in an evil mood. He had been away from her for ten\ndays--ten whole days. No doubt Edith had manoeuvred to keep him. She\nhadn't! _Hadn't_ she? How was he, poor simple soul! to tell that she\nhadn't? That was the prelude to a stormy afternoon.\n\nThe burthen of Mrs. Harrowdean was that she was wasting her life, that\nshe was wasting the poor, good, patient Oliver's life, that for the sake\nof friendship she was braving the worst imputations and that he treated\nher cavalierly, came when he wished to do so, stayed away heartlessly,\nnever thought she needed _little_ treats, _little_ attentions, _little_\npresents. Did he think she could settle down to her poor work, such as\nit was, in neglect and loneliness? He forgot women were dear little\ntender things, and had to be made happy and _kept_ happy. Oliver might\nnot be clever and attractive but he did at least in his clumsy way\nunderstand and try and do his duty....\n\nTowards the end of the second hour of such complaints the spirit of Mr.\nBritling rose in revolt. He lifted up his voice against her, he charged\nhis voice with indignant sorrow and declared that he had come over to\nPyecrafts with no thought in his mind but sweet and loving thoughts,\nthat he had but waited for Gladys to be ready before he came, that he\nhad brought over the manuscript of \"The Silent Places\" with him to\npolish and finish up, that \"for days and days\" he had been longing to do\nthis in the atmosphere of the dear old summer-house with its distant\nview of the dear old sea, and that now all that was impossible, that\nMrs. Harrowdean had made it impossible and that indeed she was rapidly\nmaking everything impossible....\n\nAnd having delivered himself of this judgment Mr. Britling, a little\nsurprised at the rapid vigour of his anger, once he had let it loose,\ncame suddenly to an end of his words, made a renunciatory gesture with\nhis arms, and as if struck with the idea, rushed out of her room and out\nof the house to where Gladys stood waiting. He got into her and started\nher up, and after some trouble with the gear due to the violence of his\nemotion, he turned her round and departed with her--crushing the corner\nof a small bed of snapdragon as he turned--and dove her with a sulky\nsedulousness back to the Dower House and newspapers and correspondence\nand irritations, and that gnawing and irrational sense of a hollow and\naimless quality in the world that he had hoped Mrs. Harrowdean would\nassuage. And the further he went from Mrs. Harrowdean the harsher and\nunjuster it seemed to him that he had been to her.\n\nBut he went on because he did not see how he could very well go back.\n\n\nSection 7\n\nMr. Direck's broken wrist healed sooner than he desired. From the first\nhe had protested that it was the sort of thing that one can carry about\nin a sling, that he was quite capable of travelling about and taking\ncare of himself in hotels, that he was only staying on at Matching's\nEasy because he just loved to stay on and wallow in Mrs. Britling's\nkindness and Mr. Britling's company. While as a matter of fact he\nwallowed as much as he could in the freshness and friendliness of Miss\nCecily Corner, and for more than a third of this period Mr. Britling was\naway from home altogether.\n\nMr. Direck, it should be clear by this time, was a man of more than\nEuropean simplicity and directness, and his intentions towards the young\nlady were as simple and direct and altogether honest as such intentions\ncan be. It is the American conception of gallantry more than any other\npeople's, to let the lady call the tune in these affairs; the man's\nplace is to be protective, propitiatory, accommodating and clever, and\nthe lady's to be difficult but delightful until he catches her and\nhouses her splendidly and gives her a surprising lot of pocket-money,\nand goes about his business; and upon these assumptions Mr. Direck went\nto work. But quite early it was manifest to him that Cecily did not\nrecognise his assumptions. She was embarrassed when he got down one or\ntwo little presents of chocolates and flowers for her from London--the\nBritling boys were much more appreciative--she wouldn't let him contrive\ncostly little expeditions for her, and she protested against compliments\nand declared she would stay away when he paid them. And she was not\ncontented by his general sentiments about life, but asked the most\ndirect questions about his occupation and his activities. His chief\noccupation was being the well provided heir of a capable lawyer, and\nhis activities in the light of her inquiries struck him as being light\nand a trifle amateurish, qualities he had never felt as any drawback\nabout them before. So that he had to rely rather upon aspirations and\nthe possibility, under proper inspiration, of a more actively\nserviceable life in future.\n\n\"There's a feeling in the States,\" he said, \"that we've had rather a\ntendency to overdo work, and that there is scope for a leisure class to\ndevelop the refinement and the wider meanings of life.\"\n\n\"But a leisure class doesn't mean a class that does nothing,\" said\nCecily. \"It only means a class that isn't busy in business.\"\n\n\"You're too hard on me,\" said Mr. Direck with that quiet smile of his.\n\nAnd then by way of putting her on the defensive he asked her what she\nthought a man in his position ought to do.\n\n\"_Something_,\" she said, and in the expansion of this vague demand they\ntouched on a number of things. She said that she was a Socialist, and\nthere was still in Mr. Direck's composition a streak of the\nold-fashioned American prejudice against the word. He associated\nSocialists with Anarchists and deported aliens. It was manifest too that\nshe was deeply read in the essays and dissertations of Mr. Britling. She\nthought everybody, man or woman, ought to be chiefly engaged in doing\nsomething definite for the world at large. (\"There's my secretaryship of\nthe Massachusetts Modern Thought Society, anyhow,\" said Mr. Direck.) And\nshe herself wanted to be doing something--it was just because she did\nnot know what it was she ought to be doing that she was reading so\nextensively and voraciously. She wanted to lose herself in something.\nDeep in the being of Mr. Direck was the conviction that what she ought\nto be doing was making love in a rapturously egotistical manner, and\nenjoying every scrap of her own delightful self and her own delightful\nvitality--while she had it, but for the purposes of their conversation\nhe did not care to put it any more definitely than to say that he\nthought we owed it to ourselves to develop our personalities. Upon which\nshe joined issue with great vigour.\n\n\"That is just what Mr. Britling says about you in his 'American\nImpressions,'\" she said. \"He says that America overdoes the development\nof personalities altogether, that whatever else is wrong about America\nthat is where America is most clearly wrong. I read that this morning,\nand directly I read it I thought, 'Yes, that's exactly it! Mr. Direck is\noverdoing the development of personalities.'\"\n\n\"Me!\"\n\n\"Yes. I like talking to you and I don't like talking to you. And I see\nnow it is because you keep on talking of my Personality and your\nPersonality. That makes me uncomfortable. It's like having some one\nfollowing me about with a limelight. And in a sort of way I do like it.\nI like it and I'm flattered by it, and then I go off and dislike it,\ndislike the effect of it. I find myself trying to be what you have told\nme I am--sort of acting myself. I want to glance at looking-glasses to\nsee if I am keeping it up. It's just exactly what Mr. Britling says in\nhis book about American women. They act themselves, he says; they get a\nkind of story and explanation about themselves and they are always\ntrying to make it perfectly plain and clear to every one. Well, when you\ndo that you can't think nicely of other things.\"\n\n\"We like a clear light on people,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"We don't. I suppose we're shadier,\" said Cecily.\n\n\"You're certainly much more in half-tones,\" said Mr. Direck. \"And I\nconfess it's the half-tones get hold of me. But still you haven't told\nme, Miss Cissie, what you think I ought to do with myself. Here I am,\nyou see, very much at your disposal. What sort of business do you think\nit's my duty to go in for?\"\n\n\"That's for some one with more experience than I have, to tell you. You\nshould ask Mr. Britling.\"\n\n\"I'd rather have it from you.\"\n\n\"I don't even know for myself,\" she said.\n\n\"So why shouldn't we start to find out together?\" he asked.\n\nIt was her tantalising habit to ignore all such tentatives.\n\n\"One can't help the feeling that one is in the world for something more\nthan oneself,\" she said....\n\n\nSection 8\n\nSoon Mr. Direck could measure the time that was left to him at the Dower\nHouse no longer by days but by hours. His luggage was mostly packed, his\ntickets to Rotterdam, Cologne, Munich, Dresden, Vienna, were all in\norder. And things were still very indefinite between him and Cecily. But\nGod has not made Americans clean-shaven and firm-featured for nothing,\nand he determined that matters must be brought to some sort of\ndefinition before he embarked upon travels that were rapidly losing\ntheir attractiveness in this concentration of his attention....\n\nA considerable nervousness betrayed itself in his voice and manner when\nat last he carried out his determination.\n\n\"There's just a lil' thing,\" he said to her, taking advantage of a\nmoment when they were together after lunch, \"that I'd value now more\nthan anything else in the world.\"\n\nShe answered by a lifted eyebrow and a glance that had not so much\ninquiry in it as she intended.\n\n\"If we could just take a lil' walk together for a bit. Round by\nClaverings Park and all that. See the deer again and the old trees. Sort\nof scenery I'd like to remember when I'm away from it.\"\n\nHe was a little short of breath, and there was a quite disproportionate\ngravity about her moment for consideration.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said with a cheerful acquiescence that came a couple of bars\ntoo late. \"Let's. It will be jolly.\"\n\n\"These fine English afternoons are wonderful afternoons,\" he remarked\nafter a moment or so of silence. \"Not quite the splendid blaze we get in\nour summer, but--sort of glowing.\"\n\n\"It's been very fine all the time you've been here,\" she said....\n\nAfter which exchanges they went along the lane, into the road by the\npark fencing, and so to the little gate that lets one into the park,\nwithout another word.\n\nThe idea took hold of Mr. Direck's mind that until they got through the\npark gate it would be quite out of order to say anything. The lane and\nthe road and the stile and the gate were all so much preliminary stuff\nto be got through before one could get to business. But after the little\nwhite gate the way was clear, the park opened out and one could get\nahead without bothering about the steering. And Mr. Direck had, he felt,\nbeen diplomatically involved in lanes and by-ways long enough.\n\n\"Well,\" he said as he rejoined her after very carefully closing the\ngate. \"What I really wanted was an opportunity of just mentioning\nsomething that happens to be of interest to you--if it does happen to\ninterest you.... I suppose I'd better put the thing as simply as\npossible.... Practically.... I'm just right over the head and all in\nlove with you.... I thought I'd like to tell you....\"\n\nImmense silences.\n\n\"Of course I won't pretend there haven't been others,\" Mr. Direck\nsuddenly resumed. \"There have. One particularly. But I can assure you\nI've never felt the depth and height or anything like the sort of Quiet\nClear Conviction.... And now I'm just telling you these things, Miss\nCorner, I don't know whether it will interest you if I tell you that\nyou're really and truly the very first love I ever had as well as my\nlast. I've had sent over--I got it only yesterday--this lil' photograph\nof a miniature portrait of one of my ancestor's relations--a Corner just\nas you are. It's here....\"\n\nHe had considerable difficulties with his pockets and papers. Cecily,\nmute and flushed and inconvenienced by a preposterous and unaccountable\nimpulse to weep, took the picture he handed her.\n\n\"When I was a lil' fellow of fifteen,\" said Mr. Direck in the tone of\none producing a melancholy but conclusive piece of evidence, \"I\n_worshipped_ that miniature. It seemed to me--the loveliest person....\nAnd--it's just you....\"\n\nHe too was preposterously moved.\n\nIt seemed a long time before Cecily had anything to say, and then what\nshe had to say she said in a softened, indistinct voice. \"You're very\nkind,\" she said, and kept hold of the little photograph.\n\nThey had halted for the photograph. Now they walked on again.\n\n\"I thought I'd like to tell you,\" said Mr. Direck and became\ntremendously silent.\n\nCecily found him incredibly difficult to answer. She tried to make\nherself light and offhand, and to be very frank with him.\n\n\"Of course,\" she said, \"I knew--I felt somehow--you meant to say\nsomething of this sort to me--when you asked me to come with you--\"\n\n\"Well?\" he said.\n\n\"And I've been trying to make my poor brain think of something to say to\nyou.\"\n\nShe paused and contemplated her difficulties....\n\n\"Couldn't you perhaps say something of the same kind--such as I've been\ntrying to say?\" said Mr. Direck presently, with a note of earnest\nhelpfulness. \"I'd be very glad if you could.\"\n\n\"Not exactly,\" said Cecily, more careful than ever.\n\n\"Meaning?\"\n\n\"I think you know that you are the best of friends. I think you are,\noh--a Perfect Dear.\"\n\n\"Well--that's all right--so far.\"\n\n\"That _is_ as far.\"\n\n\"You don't know whether you love me? That's what you mean to say.\"\n\n\"No.... I feel somehow it isn't that.... Yet....\"\n\n\"There's nobody else by any chance?\"\n\n\"No.\" Cecily weighed things. \"You needn't trouble about that.\"\n\n\"Only ... only you don't know.\"\n\nCecily made a movement of assent.\n\n\"It's no good pretending I haven't thought about you,\" she said.\n\n\"Well, anyhow I've done my best to give you the idea,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\"I seem now to have been doing that pretty nearly all the time.\"\n\n\"Only what should we do?\"\n\nMr. Direck felt this question was singularly artless. \"Why!--we'd\nmarry,\" he said. \"And all that sort of thing.\"\n\n\"Letty has married--and all that sort of thing,\" said Cecily, fixing her\neye on him very firmly because she was colouring brightly. \"And it\ndoesn't leave Letty very much--forrader.\"\n\n\"Well now, they have a good time, don't they? I'd have thought they have\na lovely time!\"\n\n\"They've had a lovely time. And Teddy is the dearest husband. And they\nhave a sweet little house and a most amusing baby. And they play hockey\nevery Sunday. And Teddy does his work. And every week is like every\nother week. It is just heavenly. Just always the same heavenly. Every\nSunday there is a fresh week of heavenly beginning. And this, you see,\nisn't heaven; it is earth. And they don't know it but they are getting\nbored. I have been watching them, and they are getting dreadfully bored.\nIt's heart-breaking to watch, because they are almost my dearest people.\nTeddy used to be making perpetual jokes about the house and the baby and\nhis work and Letty, and now--he's made all the possible jokes. It's only\nnow and then he gets a fresh one. It's like spring flowers and\nthen--summer. And Letty sits about and doesn't sing. They want something\nnew to happen.... And there's Mr. and Mrs. Britling. They love each\nother. Much more than Mrs. Britling dreams, or Mr. Britling for the\nmatter of that. Once upon a time things were heavenly for them too, I\nsuppose. Until suddenly it began to happen to them that nothing new ever\nhappened....\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Direck, \"people can travel.\"\n\n\"But that isn't _real_ happening,\" said Cecily.\n\n\"It keeps one interested.\"\n\n\"But real happening is doing something.\"\n\n\"You come back to that,\" said Mr. Direck. \"I never met any one before\nwho'd quite got that spirit as you have it. I wouldn't alter it. It's\npart of you. It's part of this place. It's what Mr. Britling always\nseems to be saying and never quite knowing he's said it. It's just as\nthough all the things that are going on weren't the things that ought to\nbe going on--but something else quite different. Somehow one falls into\nit. It's as if your daily life didn't matter, as if politics didn't\nmatter, as if the King and the social round and business and all those\nthings weren't anything really, and as though you felt there was\nsomething else--out of sight--round the corner--that you ought to be\ngetting at. Well, I admit, that's got hold of me too. And it's all mixed\nup with my idea of you. I don't see that there's really a contradiction\nin it at all. I'm in love with you, all my heart's in love with you,\nwhat's the good of being shy about it? I'd just die for your littlest\nwish right here now, it's just as though I'd got love in my veins\ninstead of blood, but that's not taking me away from that other thing.\nIt's bringing me round to that other thing. I feel as if without you I\nwasn't up to anything at all, but _with_ you--We'd not go settling down\nin a cottage or just touring about with a Baedeker Guide or anything of\nthat kind. Not for long anyhow. We'd naturally settle down side by side\nand _do_ ...\"\n\n\"But what should we do?\" asked Cecily.\n\nThere came a hiatus in their talk.\n\nMr. Direck took a deep breath.\n\n\"You see that old felled tree there. I was sitting on it the day before\nyesterday and thinking of you. Will you come there and sit with me on\nit? When you sit on it you get a view, oh! a perfectly lovely English\nview, just a bit of the house and those clumps of trees and the valley\naway there with the lily pond. I'd love to have you in my memory of\nit....\"\n\nThey sat down, and Mr. Direck opened his case. He was shy and clumsy\nabout opening it, because he had been thinking dreadfully hard about it,\nand he hated to seem heavy or profound or anything but artless and\nspontaneous to Cecily. And he felt even when he did open his case that\nthe effect of it was platitudinous and disappointing. Yet when he had\nthought it out it had seemed very profound and altogether living.\n\n\"You see one doesn't want to use terms that have been used in a thousand\ndifferent senses in any way that isn't a perfectly unambiguous sense,\nand at the same time one doesn't want to seem to be canting about things\nor pitching anything a note or two higher than it ought legitimately to\ngo, but it seems to me that this sort of something that Mr. Britling is\nalways asking for in his essays and writings and things, and what you\nare looking for just as much and which seems so important to you that\neven love itself is a secondary kind of thing until you can square the\ntwo together, is nothing more nor less than Religion--I don't mean this\nReligion or that Religion but just Religion itself, a Big, Solemn,\nComprehensive Idea that holds you and me and all the world together in\none great, grand universal scheme. And though it isn't quite the sort of\nidea of love-making that's been popular--well, in places like\nCarrierville--for some time, it's the right idea; it's got to be\nfollowed out if we don't want love-making to be a sort of idle,\ntroublesome game of treats and flatteries that is sure as anything to\nlead right away to disappointments and foolishness and unfaithfulness\nand--just Hell. What you are driving at, according to my interpretation,\nis that marriage has got to be a religious marriage or else you are\nsplitting up life, that religion and love are most of life and all the\npower there is in it, and that they can't afford to be harnessed in two\ndifferent directions.... I never had these ideas until I came here and\nmet you, but they come up now in my mind as though they had always been\nthere.... And that's why you don't want to marry in a hurry. And that's\nwhy I'm glad almost that you don't want to marry in a hurry.\"\n\nHe considered. \"That's why I'll have to go on to Germany and just let\nboth of us turn things over in our minds.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Cecily, weighing his speech. \"_I_ think that is it. I think\nthat I do want a religious marriage, and that what is wrong with Teddy\nand Letty is that they aren't religious. They pretend they are religious\nsomewhere out of sight and round the corner.... Only--\"\n\nHe considered her gravely.\n\n\"What _is_ Religion?\" she asked.\n\nHere again there was a considerable pause.\n\n\"Very nearly two-thirds of the papers read before our Massachusetts\nsociety since my connection with it, have dealt with that very\nquestion,\" Mr. Direck began. \"And one of our most influential members\nwas able to secure the services of a very able and highly trained young\nwoman from Michigan University, to make a digest of all these\nrepresentative utterances. We are having it printed in a thoroughly\nartistic mariner, as the club book for our autumn season. The drift of\nher results is that religion isn't the same thing as religions. That\nmost religions are old and that religion is always new.... Well, putting\nit simply, religion is the perpetual rediscovery of that Great Thing Out\nThere.... What the Great Thing is goes by all sorts of names, but if you\nknow it's there and if you remember it's there, you've got religion....\nThat's about how she figured it out.... I shall send you the book as\nsoon as a copy comes over to me.... I can't profess to put it as clearly\nas she puts it. She's got a real analytical mind. But it's one of the\nmost suggestive lil' books I've ever seen. It just takes hold of you and\n_makes_ you think.\"\n\nHe paused and regarded the ground before him--thoughtfully.\n\n\"Life,\" said Cecily, \"has either got to be religious or else it goes to\npieces.... Perhaps anyhow it goes to pieces....\"\n\nMr. Direck endorsed these observations by a slow nodding of the head.\n\nHe allowed a certain interval to elapse. Then a vaguely apprehended\npurpose that had been for a time forgotten in these higher interests\ncame back to him. He took it up with a breathless sense of temerity.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"then you don't hate me?\"\n\nShe smiled.\n\n\"You don't dislike me or despise me?\"\n\nShe was still reassuring.\n\n\"You don't think I'm just a slow American sort of portent?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"You think, on the whole, I might even--someday--?\"\n\nShe tried to meet his eyes with a pleasant frankness, and perhaps she\nwas franker than she meant to be.\n\n\"Look here,\" said Mr. Direck, with a little quiver of emotion softening\nhis mouth. \"I'll ask you something. We've got to wait. Until you feel\nclearer. Still.... Could you bring yourself--? If just once--I could\nkiss you....\n\n\"I'm going away to Germany,\" he went on to her silence. \"But I shan't be\ngiving so much attention to Germany as I supposed I should when I\nplanned it out. But somehow--if I felt--that I'd kissed you....\"\n\nWith a delusive effect of calmness the young lady looked first over her\nleft shoulder and then over her right and surveyed the park about them.\nThen she stood up. \"We can go that way home,\" she said with a movement\nof her head, \"through the little covert.\"\n\nMr. Direck stood up too.\n\n\"If I was a poet or a bird,\" said Mr. Direck, \"I should sing. But being\njust a plain American citizen all I can do is just to talk about all I'd\ndo if I wasn't....\"\n\nAnd when they had reached the little covert, with its pathway of soft\nmoss and its sheltering screen of interlacing branches, he broke the\nsilence by saying, \"Well, what's wrong with right here and now?\" and\nCecily stood up to him as straight as a spear, with gifts in her clear\neyes. He took her soft cool face between his trembling hands, and kissed\nher sweet half-parted lips. When he kissed her she shivered, and he held\nher tighter and would have kissed her again. But she broke away from\nhim, and he did not press her. And muter than ever, pondering deeply,\nand secretly trembling in the queerest way, these two outwardly sedate\nyoung people returned to the Dower House....\n\nAnd after tea the taxicab from the junction came for him and he\nvanished, and was last seen as a waving hat receding along the top of\nthe dog-rose hedge that ran beyond the hockey field towards the village.\n\n\"He will see Germany long before I shall,\" said Herr Heinrich with a\ngust of nostalgia. \"I wish almost I had not agreed to go to Boulogne.\"\n\nAnd for some days Miss Cecily Corner was a very grave and dignified\nyoung woman indeed. Pondering....\n\n\nSection 9\n\nAfter the departure of Mr. Direck things international began to move\nforward with great rapidity. It was exactly as if his American\ndeliberation had hitherto kept things waiting. Before his postcard from\nRotterdam reached the Dower House Austria had sent an ultimatum to\nSerbia, and before Cecily had got the letter he wrote her from Cologne,\na letter in that curiously unformed handwriting the stenographer and the\ntypewriter are making an American characteristic, Russia was mobilising,\nand the vast prospect of a European war had opened like the rolling up\nof a curtain on which the interests of the former week had been but a\ntrivial embroidery. So insistent was this reality that revealed itself\nthat even the shooting of the Dublin people after the gun-running of\nHowth was dwarfed to unimportance. The mind of Mr. Britling came round\nfrom its restless wanderings to a more and more intent contemplation of\nthe hurrying storm-clouds that swept out of nothingness to blacken all\nhis sky. He watched it, he watched amazed and incredulous, he watched\nthis contradiction of all his reiterated confessions of faith in German\nsanity and pacifism, he watched it with all that was impersonal in his\nbeing, and meanwhile his personal life ran in a continually deeper and\nnarrower channel as his intelligence was withdrawn from it.\n\nNever had the double refraction of his mind been more clearly defined.\nOn the one hand the Britling of the disinterested intelligence saw the\nhabitual peace of the world vanish as the daylight vanishes when a\nshutter falls over the window of a cell; and on the other the Britling\nof the private life saw all the pleasant comfort of his relations with\nMrs. Harrowdean disappearing in a perplexing irrational quarrel. He did\nnot want to lose Mrs. Harrowdean; he contemplated their breach with a\nprofound and profoundly selfish dismay. It seemed the wanton termination\nof an arrangement of which he was only beginning to perceive the extreme\nand irreplaceable satisfactoriness.\n\nIt wasn't that he was in love with her. He knew almost as clearly as\nthough he had told himself as much that he was not. But then, on the\nother hand, it was equally manifest in its subdued and ignored way that\nas a matter of fact she was hardly more in love with him. What\nconstituted the satisfactoriness of the whole affair was its essential\nunlovingness and friendly want of emotion. It left their minds free to\nplay with all the terms and methods of love without distress. She could\nsummon tears and delights as one summons servants, and he could act his\npart as lover with no sense of lost control. They supplied in each\nother's lives a long-felt want--if only, that is, she could control her\ncurious aptitude for jealousy and the sexual impulse to vex. There, he\nfelt, she broke the convention of their relations and brought in serious\nrealities, and this little rift it was that had widened to a now\nconsiderable breach. He knew that in every sane moment she dreaded and\nwished to heal that breach as much as he did. But the deep simplicities\nof the instincts they had tacitly agreed to bridge over washed the piers\nof their reconciliation away.\n\nAnd unless they could restore the bridge things would end, and Mr.\nBritling felt that the ending of things would involve for him the most\nextraordinary exasperation. She would go to Oliver for comfort; she\nwould marry Oliver; and he knew her well enough to be sure that she\nwould thrust her matrimonial happiness with Oliver unsparingly upon his\nattention; while he, on the other hand, being provided with no\ncorresponding Olivette, would be left, a sort of emotional celibate,\nwith his slack times and his afternoons and his general need for\nflattery and amusement dreadfully upon his own hands. He would be\ntormented by jealousy. In which case--and here he came to verities--his\nwork would suffer. It wouldn't grip him while all these vague demands\nshe satisfied fermented unassuaged.\n\nAnd, after the fashion of our still too adolescent world, Mr. Britling\nand Mrs. Harrowdean proceeded to negotiate these extremely unromantic\nmatters in the phrases of that simple, honest and youthful\npassionateness which is still the only language available, and at times\nMr. Britling came very near persuading himself that he had something of\nthe passionate love for her that he had once had for his Mary, and that\nthe possible loss of her had nothing to do with the convenience of\nPyecrafts or any discretion in the world. Though indeed the only thing\nin the whole plexus of emotional possibility that still kept anything of\nits youthful freshness in his mind was the very strong objection indeed\nhe felt to handing her over to anybody else in the world. And in\naddition he had just a touch of fatherly feeling that a younger man\nwould not have had, and it made him feel very anxious to prevent her\nmaking a fool of herself by marrying a man out of spite. He felt that\nsince an obstinate lover is apt to be an exacting husband, in the end\nthe heavy predominance of Oliver might wring much sincerer tears from\nher than she had ever shed for himself. But that generosity was but the\nbright edge to a mainly possessive jealousy.\n\nIt was Mr. Britling who reopened the correspondence by writing a little\napology for the corner of the small snapdragon bed, and this evoked an\nadmirably touching reply. He replied quite naturally with assurances and\ndeclarations. But before she got his second letter her mood had changed.\nShe decided that if he had really and truly been lovingly sorry, instead\nof just writing a note to her he would have rushed over to her in a\nwild, dramatic state of mind, and begged forgiveness on his knees. She\nwrote therefore a second letter to this effect, crossing his second one,\nand, her literary gift getting the better of her, she expanded her\nthesis into a general denunciation of his habitual off-handedness with\nher, to an abandonment of all hope of ever being happy with him, to a\ndecision to end the matter once for all, and after a decent interval of\ndignified regrets to summon Oliver to the reward of his patience and\ngoodness. The European situation was now at a pitch to get upon Mr.\nBritling's nerves, and he replied with a letter intended to be\nconciliatory, but which degenerated into earnest reproaches for her\n\"unreasonableness.\" Meanwhile she had received his second and tenderly\neloquent letter; it moved her deeply, and having now cleared her mind of\nmuch that had kept it simmering uncomfortably, she replied with a\nsweetly loving epistle. From this point their correspondence had a kind\nof double quality, being intermittently angry and loving; her third\nletter was tender, and it was tenderly answered in his fourth; but in\nthe interim she had received his third and answered it with considerable\nacerbity, to which his fifth was a retort, just missing her generous and\nconclusive fifth. She replied to his fifth on a Saturday evening--it was\nthat eventful Saturday, Saturday the First of August, 1914--by a\ntelegram. Oliver was abroad in Holland, engaged in a much-needed\nemotional rest, and she wired to Mr. Britling: \"Have wired for Oliver,\nhe will come to me, do not trouble to answer this.\"\n\nShe was astonished to get no reply for two days. She got no reply for\ntwo days because remarkable things were happening to the telegraph wires\nof England just then, and her message, in the hands of a boy scout on a\nbicycle, reached Mr. Britling's house only on Monday afternoon. He was\nthen at Claverings discussing the invasion of Belgium that made\nBritain's participation in the war inevitable, and he did not open the\nlittle red-brown envelope until about half-past six. He failed to mark\nthe date and hours upon it, but he perceived that it was essentially a\nchallenge. He was expected, he saw, to go over at once with his\nrenovated Gladys and end this unfortunate clash forever in one striking\nand passionate scene. His mind was now so full of the war that he found\nthis the most colourless and unattractive of obligations. But he felt\nbound by the mysterious code of honour of the illicit love affair to\nplay his part. He postponed his departure until after supper--there was\nno reason why he should be afraid of motoring by moonlight if he went\ncarefully--because Hugh came in with Cissie demanding a game of hockey.\nHockey offered a nervous refreshment, a scampering forgetfulness of the\ntremendous disaster of this war he had always believed impossible, that\nnothing else could do, and he was very glad indeed of the irruption....\n\n\nSection 10\n\nFor days the broader side of Mr. Britling's mind, as distinguished from\nits egotistical edge, had been reflecting more and more vividly and\ncoherently the spectacle of civilisation casting aside the thousand\ndispersed activities of peace, clutching its weapons and setting its\nteeth, for a supreme struggle against militarist imperialism. From the\npoint of view of Matching's Easy that colossal crystallising of\naccumulated antagonisms was for a time no more than a confusion of\nheadlines and a rearrangement of columns in the white windows of the\nnewspapers through which those who lived in the securities of England\nlooked out upon the world. It was a display in the sphere of thought and\nprint immeasurably remote from the real green turf on which one walked,\nfrom the voice and the church-bells of Mr. Dimple that sounded their\nample caresses in one's ears, from the clashing of the stags who were\nbeginning to knock the velvet from their horns in the park, or the\nclatter of the butcher's cart and the respectful greeting of the butcher\nboy down the lane. It was the spectacle of the world less real even to\nmost imaginations than the world of novels or plays. People talked of\nthese things always with an underlying feeling that they romanced and\nintellectualised.\n\nOn Thursday, July 23rd, the Austro-Hungarian minister at Belgrade\npresented his impossible ultimatum to the Serbian government, and\ndemanded a reply within forty-eight hours. With the wisdom of retrospect\nwe know now clearly enough what that meant. The Sarajevo crime was to be\nresuscitated and made an excuse for war. But nine hundred and\nninety-nine Europeans out of a thousand had still no suspicion of what\nwas happening to them. The ultimatum figured prominently in the morning\npapers that came to Matching's Easy on Friday, but it by no means\ndominated the rest of the news; Sir Edward Carson's rejection of the\ngovernment proposals for Ulster was given the pride of place, and almost\nequally conspicuous with the Serbian news were the Caillaux trial and\nthe storming of the St. Petersburg barricades by Cossacks. Herr\nHeinrich's questions at lunch time received reassuring replies.\n\nOn Saturday Sir Edward Carson was still in the central limelight, Russia\nhad intervened and demanded more time for Serbia, and the _Daily\nChronicle_ declared the day a critical one for Europe. Dublin with\nbayonet charges and bullets thrust Serbia into a corner on Monday. No\nshots had yet been fired in the East, and the mischief in Ireland that\nGermany had counted on was well ahead. Sir Edward Grey was said to be\nworking hard for peace.\n\n\"It's the cry of wolf,\" said Mr. Britling to Herr Heinrich.\n\n\"But at last there did come a wolf,\" said Herr Heinrich. \"I wish I had\nnot sent my first moneys to that Conference upon Esperanto. I feel sure\nit will be put off.\"\n\n\"See!\" said Teddy very cheerfully to Herr Heinrich on Tuesday, and held\nup the paper, in which \"The Bloodshed in Dublin\" had squeezed the \"War\nCloud Lifting\" into a quite subordinate position.\n\n\"What did we tell you?\" said Mrs. Britling. \"Nobody wants a European\nwar.\"\n\nBut Wednesday's paper vindicated his fears. Germany had commanded Russia\nnot to mobilise.\n\n\"Of course Russia will mobilise,\" said Herr Heinrich.\n\n\"Or else forever after hold her peace,\" said Teddy.\n\n\"And then Germany will mobilise,\" said Herr Heinrich, \"and all my\nholiday will vanish. I shall have to go and mobilise too. I shall have\nto fight. I have my papers.\"\n\n\"I never thought of you as a soldier before,\" said Teddy.\n\n\"I have deferred my service until I have done my thesis,\" said Herr\nHeinrich. \"Now all that will be--Piff! And my thesis three-quarters\nfinished.\"\n\n\"That is serious,\" said Teddy.\n\n\"_Verdammte Dummheit!_\" said Herr Heinrich. \"Why do they do such\nthings?\"\n\nOn Thursday, the 30th of July, Caillaux, Carson, strikes, and all the\ncommon topics of life had been swept out of the front page of the paper\naltogether; the stock exchanges were in a state of wild perturbation,\nand food prices were leaping fantastically. Austria was bombarding\nBelgrade, contrary to the rules of war hitherto accepted; Russia was\nmobilising; Mr. Asquith was, he declared, not relaxing his efforts \"to\ndo everything possible to circumscribe the area of possible conflict,\"\nand the Vienna Conference of Peace Societies was postponed. \"I do not\nsee why a conflict between Russia and Austria should involve Western\nEurope,\" said Mr. Britling. \"Our concern is only for Belgium and\nFrance.\"\n\nBut Herr Heinrich knew better. \"No,\" he said. \"It is the war. It has\ncome. I have heard it talked about in Germany many times. But I have\nnever believed that it was obliged to come. Ach! It considers no one. So\nlong as Esperanto is disregarded, all these things must be.\"\n\nFriday brought photographs of the mobilisation in Vienna, and the news\nthat Belgrade was burning. Young men in straw hats very like English or\nFrench or Belgian young men in straw hats were shown parading the\nstreets of Vienna, carrying flags and banners portentously, blowing\ntrumpets or waving hats and shouting. Saturday saw all Europe\nmobilising, and Herr Heinrich upon Teddy's bicycle in wild pursuit of\nevening papers at the junction. Mobilisation and the emotions of Herr\nHeinrich now became the central facts of the Dower House situation. The\ntwo younger Britlings mobilised with great vigour upon the playroom\nfloor. The elder had one hundred and ninety toy soldiers with a\nconsiderable equipment of guns and wagons; the younger had a force of a\nhundred and twenty-three, not counting three railway porters (with\ntrucks complete), a policeman, five civilians and two ladies. Also they\nmade a number of British and German flags out of paper. But as neither\nwould allow his troops to be any existing foreign army, they agreed to\nbe Redland and Blueland, according to the colour of their prevailing\nuniforms. Meanwhile Herr Heinrich confessed almost promiscuously the\ncomplication of his distresses by a hitherto unexpected emotional\ninterest in the daughter of the village publican. She was a placid\nreceptive young woman named Maud Hickson, on whom the young man had, it\nseemed, imposed the more poetical name of Marguerite.\n\n\"Often we have spoken together, oh yes, often,\" he assured Mrs.\nBritling. \"And now it must all end. She loves flowers, she loves birds.\nShe is most sweet and innocent. I have taught her many words in German\nand several times I have tried to draw her in pencil, and now I must go\naway and never see her any more.\"\n\nHis implicit appeal to the whole literature of Teutonic romanticism\ndisarmed Mrs. Britling's objection that he had no business whatever to\nknow the young woman at all.\n\n\"Also,\" cried Herr Heinrich, facing another aspect of his distresses,\n\"how am I to pack my things? Since I have been here I have bought many\nthings, many books, and two pairs of white flannel trousers and some\nshirts and a tin instrument that I cannot work, for developing privately\nKodak films. All this must go into my little portmanteau. And it will\nnot go into my little portmanteau!\n\n\"And there is Billy! Who will now go on with the education of Billy?\"\n\nThe hands of fate paused not for Herr Heinrich's embarrassments and\ndistresses. He fretted from his room downstairs and back to his room, he\nwent out upon mysterious and futile errands towards the village inn, he\nprowled about the garden. His head and face grew pinker and pinker; his\neyes were flushed and distressed. Everybody sought to say and do kind\nand reassuring things to him.\n\n\"Ach!\" he said to Teddy; \"you are a civilian. You live in a free\ncountry. It is not your war. You can be amused at it....\"\n\nBut then Teddy was amused at everything.\n\nSomething but very dimly apprehended at Matching's Easy, something\nmethodical and compelling away in London, seemed to be fumbling and\nfeeling after Herr Heinrich, and Herr Heinrich it appeared was\nresponding. Sunday's post brought the decision.\n\n\"I have to go,\" he said. \"I must go right up to London to-day. To an\naddress in Bloomsbury. Then they will tell me how to go to Germany. I\nmust pack and I must get the taxi-cab from the junction and I must go.\nWhy are there no trains on the branch line on Sundays for me to go by\nit?\"\n\nAt lunch he talked politics. \"I am entirely opposed to the war,\" he\nsaid. \"I am entirely opposed to any war.\"\n\n\"Then why go?\" asked Mr. Britling. \"Stay here with us. We all like you.\nStay here and do not answer your mobilisation summons.\"\n\n\"But then I shall lose all my country. I shall lose my papers. I shall\nbe outcast. I must go.\"\n\n\"I suppose a man should go with his own country,\" Mr. Britling\nreflected.\n\n\"If there was only one language in all the world, none of such things\nwould happen,\" Herr Heinrich declared. \"There would be no English, no\nGermans, no Russians.\"\n\n\"Just Esperantists,\" said Teddy.\n\n\"Or Idoists,\" said Herr Heinrich. \"I am not convinced of which. In some\nways Ido is much better.\"\n\n\"Perhaps there would have to be a war between Ido and Esperanto to\nsettle it,\" said Teddy.\n\n\"Who shall we play skat with when you have gone?\" asked Mrs. Britling.\n\n\"All this morning,\" said Herr Heinrich, expanding in the warmth of\nsympathy, \"I have been trying to pack and I have been unable to pack. My\nmind is too greatly disordered. I have been told not to bring much\nluggage. Mrs. Britling, please.\"\n\nMrs. Britling became attentive.\n\n\"If I could leave much of my luggage, my clothes, some of them, and\nparticularly my violin, it would be much more to my convenience. I do\nnot care to be mobilised with my violin. There may be much crowding.\nThen I would but just take my rucksack....\"\n\n\"If you will leave your things packed up.\"\n\n\"And afterwards they could be sent.\"\n\nBut he did not leave them packed up. The taxi-cab, to order which he had\ngone to the junction in the morning on Teddy's complaisant machine, came\npresently to carry him off, and the whole family and the first\ncontingent of the usual hockey players gathered about it to see him off.\nThe elder boy of the two juniors put a distended rucksack upon the seat.\nHerr Heinrich then shook hands with every one.\n\n\"Write and tell us how you get on,\" cried Mrs. Britling.\n\n\"But if England also makes war!\"\n\n\"Write to Reynolds--let me give you his address; he is my agent in New\nYork,\" said Mr. Britling, and wrote it down.\n\n\"We'll come to the village corner with you, Herr Heinrich,\" cried the\nboys.\n\n\"No,\" said Herr Heinrich, sitting down into the automobile, \"I will part\nwith you altogether. It is too much....\"\n\n\"_Auf Wiedersehen!_\" cried Mr. Britling. \"Remember, whatever happens\nthere will be peace at last!\"\n\n\"Then why not at the beginning?\" Herr Heinrich demanded with a\nreasonable exasperation and repeated his maturer verdict on the whole\nEuropean situation; \"_Verdammte Bummelei!_\"\n\n\"Go,\" said Mr. Britling to the taxi driver.\n\n\"_Auf Wiedersehen_, Herr Heinrich!\"\n\n\"_Auf Wiedersehen!_\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Herr Heinrich!\"\n\n\"Good luck, Herr Heinrich!\"\n\nThe taxi started with a whir, and Herr Heinrich passed out of the gates\nand along the same hungry road that had so recently consumed Mr. Direck.\n\"Give him a last send-off,\" cried Teddy. \"One, Two, Three! _Auf\nWiedersehen!_\"\n\nThe voices, gruff and shrill, sounded raggedly together. The dog-rose\nhedge cut off the sight of the little face. Then the pink head bobbed up\nagain. He was standing up and waving the panama hat. Careless of\nsunstroke....\n\nThen Herr Heinrich had gone altogether....\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Britling, turning away.\n\n\"I do hope they won't hurt him,\" said a visitor.\n\n\"Oh, they won't put a youngster like that in the fighting line,\" said\nMr. Britling. \"He's had no training yet. And he has to wear glasses. How\ncan he shoot? They'll make a clerk of him.\"\n\n\"He hasn't packed at all,\" said Mrs. Britling to her husband. \"Just come\nup for an instant and peep at his room. It's--touching.\"\n\nIt was touching.\n\nIt was more than touching; in its minute, absurd way it was symbolical\nand prophetic, it was the miniature of one small life uprooted.\n\nThe door stood wide open, as he had left it open, careless of all the\nlittle jealousies and privacies of occupation and ownership. Even the\nwindows were wide open as though he had needed air; he who had always so\nsedulously shut his windows since first he came to England. Across the\nempty fireplace stretched the great bough of oak he had brought in for\nBilly, but now its twigs and leaves had wilted, and many had broken off\nand fallen on the floor. Billy's cage stood empty upon a little table in\nthe corner of the room. Instead of packing, the young man had evidently\npaced up and down in a state of emotional elaboration; the bed was\ndisordered as though he had several times flung himself upon it, and his\nbooks had been thrown about the room despairfully. He had made some\nlittle commencements of packing in a borrowed cardboard box. The violin\nlay as if it lay in state upon the chest of drawers, the drawers were\nall partially open, and in the middle of the floor sprawled a pitiful\nshirt of blue, dropped there, the most flattened and broken-hearted of\ngarments. The fireplace contained an unsuccessful pencil sketch of a\ngirl's face, torn across....\n\nHusband and wife regarded the abandoned room in silence for a time, and\nwhen Mr. Britling spoke he lowered his voice.\n\n\"I don't see Billy,\" he said.\n\n\"Perhaps he has gone out of the window,\" said Mrs. Britling also in a\nhushed undertone....\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Britling abruptly and loudly, turning away from this\nfirst intimation of coming desolations, \"let us go down to our hockey!\nHe had to go, you know. And Billy will probably come back again when he\nbegins to feel hungry....\"\n\n\nSection 11\n\nMonday was a public holiday, the First Monday in August, and the day\nconsecrated by long-established custom to the Matching's Easy Flower\nShow in Claverings Park. The day was to live in Mr. Britling's memory\nwith a harsh brightness like the brightness of that sunshine one sees at\ntimes at the edge of a thunderstorm. There were tents with the exhibits,\nand a tent for \"Popular Refreshments,\" there was a gorgeous gold and\nyellow steam roundabout with motor-cars and horses, and another in green\nand silver with wonderfully undulating ostriches and lions, and each had\nan organ that went by steam; there were cocoanut shies and many\ningenious prize-giving shooting and dart-throwing and ring-throwing\nstalls, each displaying a marvellous array of crockery, clocks, metal\nornaments, and suchlike rewards. There was a race of gas balloons, each\nwith a postcard attached to it begging the finder to say where it\ndescended, and you could get a balloon for a shilling and have a chance\nof winning various impressive and embarrassing prizes if your balloon\nwent far enough--fish carvers, a silver-handled walking-stick, a bog-oak\ngramophone-record cabinet, and things like that. And by a special gate\none could go for sixpence into the Claverings gardens, and the sixpence\nwould be doubled by Lady Homartyn and devoted next winter to the\nMatching's Easy coal club. And Mr. Britling went through all the shows\nwith his boys, and finally left them with a shilling each and his\nblessing and paid his sixpence for the gardens and made his way as he\nhad promised, to have tea with Lady Homartyn.\n\nThe morning papers had arrived late, and he had been reading them and\nre-reading them and musing over them intermittently until his family had\ninsisted upon his coming out to the festivities. They said that if for\nno other reason he must come to witness Aunt Wilshire's extraordinary\nskill at the cocoanut shy. She could beat everybody. Well, one must not\nmiss a thing like that. The headlines proclaimed, \"The Great Powers at\nWar; France Invaded by Germany; Germany invaded by Russia; 100,000\nGermans march into Luxemburg; Can England Abstain? Fifty Million Loan to\nbe Issued.\" And Germany had not only violated the Treaty of London but\nshe had seized a British ship in the Kiel Canal.... The roundabouts were\nvery busy and windily melodious, and the shooting gallery kept popping\nand jingling as people shot and broke bottles, and the voices of the\nyoung men and women inviting the crowd to try their luck at this and\nthat rang loud and clear. Teddy and Letty and Cissie and Hugh were\ndeveloping a quite disconcerting skill at the dart-throwing, and were\nbent upon compiling a complete tea-set for the Teddy cottage out of\ntheir winnings. There was a score of automobiles and a number of traps\nand gigs about the entrance to the portion of the park that had been\nrailed off for the festival, the small Britling boys had met some\nnursery visitors from Claverings House and were busy displaying skill\nand calm upon the roundabout ostriches, and less than four hundred miles\naway with a front that reached from Nancy to Liège more than a million\nand a quarter of grey-clad men, the greatest and best-equipped host the\nworld had ever seen, were pouring westward to take Paris, grip and\nparalyse France, seize the Channel ports, invade England, and make the\nGerman Empire the master-state of the earth. Their equipment was a\nmarvel of foresight and scientific organisation, from the motor kitchens\nthat rumbled in their wake to the telescopic sights of the\nsharp-shooters, the innumerable machine-guns of the infantry, the supply\nof entrenching material, the preparations already made in the invaded\ncountry....\n\n\"Let's try at the other place for the sugar-basin!\" said Teddy, hurrying\npast. \"Don't get _two_ sugar-basins,\" said Cissie breathless in\npursuit. \"Hugh is trying for a sugar-basin at the other place.\"\n\nThen Mr. Britling heard a bellicose note.\n\n\"Let's have a go at the bottles,\" said a cheerful young farmer. \"Ought\nto keep up our shooting, these warlike times....\"\n\nMr. Britling ran against Hickson from the village inn and learnt that he\nwas disturbed about his son being called up as a reservist. \"Just when\nhe was settling down here. It seems a pity they couldn't leave him for a\nbit.\"\n\n\"'Tis a noosence,\" said Hickson, \"but anyhow, they give first prize to\nhis radishes. He'll be glad to hear they give first prize to his\nradishes. Do you think, Sir, there's very much probability of this war?\nIt do seem to be beginning like.\"\n\n\"It looks more like beginning than it has ever done,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\"It's a foolish business.\"\n\n\"I suppose if they start in on us we got to hit back at them,\" said Mr.\nHickson. \"Postman--he's got his papers too....\"\n\nMr. Britling made his way through the drifting throng towards the little\nwicket that led into the Gardens....\n\nHe was swung round suddenly by a loud bang.\n\nIt was the gun proclaiming the start of the balloon race.\n\nHe stood for some moments watching the scene. The balloon start had\ngathered a little crowd of people, village girls in white gloves and\ncheerful hats, young men in bright ties and ready-made Sunday suits,\nfathers and mothers, boy scouts, children, clerks in straw hats,\nbicyclists and miscellaneous folk. Over their heads rose Mr. Cheshunt,\nthe factotum of the estate. He was standing on a table and handing the\nlittle balloons up into the air one by one. They floated up from his\nhand like many-coloured grapes, some rising and falling, some soaring\nsteadily upward, some spinning and eddying, drifting eastward before the\ngentle breeze, a string of bubbles against the sky and the big trees\nthat bounded the park. Farther away to the right were the striped\ncanvas tents of the flower-show, still farther off the roundabouts\nchurned out their music, the shooting galleries popped, and the swing\nboats creaked through the air. Cut off from these things by a line of\nfencing lay the open park in which the deer grouped themselves under the\ngreat trees and regarded the festival mistrustfully. Teddy and Hugh\nappeared breaking away from the balloon race cluster, and hurrying back\nto their dart-throwing. A man outside a little tent that stood apart was\nputting up a brave-looking notice, \"Unstinted Teas One Shilling.\" The\nTeddy perambulator was moored against the cocoanut shy, and Aunt\nWilshire was still displaying her terrible prowess at the cocoanuts.\nAlready she had won twenty-seven. Strange children had been impressed by\nher to carry them, and formed her retinue. A wonderful old lady was Aunt\nWilshire....\n\nThen across all the sunshine of this artless festival there appeared, as\nif it were writing showing through a picture, \"France Invaded by\nGermany; Germany Invaded by Russia.\"\n\nMr. Britling turned again towards the wicket, with its collectors of\ntribute, that led into the Gardens.\n\n\nSection 12\n\nThe Claverings gardens, and particularly the great rockery, the lily\npond, and the herbaceous borders, were unusually populous with\nunaccustomed visitors and shy young couples. Mr. Britling had to go to\nthe house for instructions, and guided by the under-butler found Lady\nHomartyn hiding away in the walled Dutch garden behind the dairy. She\nhad been giving away the prizes of the flower-show, and she was resting\nin a deck chair while a spinster relation presided over the tea. Mrs.\nBritling had fled the outer festival earlier, and was sitting by the\ntea-things. Lady Meade and two or three visitors had motored out from\nHartleytree to assist, and Manning had come in with his tremendous\nconfirmation of all that the morning papers had foreshadowed.\n\n\"Have you any news?\" asked Mr. Britling.\n\n\"It's _war!_\" said Mrs. Britling.\n\n\"They are in Luxemburg,\" said Manning. \"That can only mean that they are\ncoming through Belgium.\"\n\n\"Then I was wrong,\" said Mr. Britling, \"and the world is altogether mad.\nAnd so there is nothing else for us to do but win.... Why could they not\nleave Belgium alone?\"\n\n\"It's been in all their plans for the last twenty years,\" said Manning.\n\n\"But it brings us in for certain.\"\n\n\"I believe they have reckoned on that.\"\n\n\"Well!\" Mr. Britling took his tea and sat down, and for a time he said\nnothing.\n\n\"It is three against three,\" said one of the visitors, trying to count\nthe Powers engaged.\n\n\"Italy,\" said Manning, \"will almost certainly refuse to fight. In fact\nItaly is friendly to us. She is bound to be. This is, to begin with, an\nAustrian war. And Japan will fight for us....\"\n\n\"I think,\" said old Lady Meade, \"that this is the suicide of Germany.\nThey cannot possibly fight against Russia and France and ourselves. Why\nhave they ever begun it?\"\n\n\"It may be a longer and more difficult war than people suppose,\" said\nManning. \"The Germans reckon they are going to win.\"\n\n\"Against us all?\"\n\n\"Against us all. They are tremendously prepared.\"\n\n\"It is impossible that Germany should win,\" said Mr. Britling, breaking\nhis silence. \"Against her Germany has something more than armies; all\nreason, all instinct--the three greatest peoples in the world.\"\n\n\"At present very badly supplied with war material.\"\n\n\"That may delay things; it may make the task harder; but it will not\nalter the end. Of course we are going to win. Nothing else is thinkable.\nI have never believed they meant it. But I see now they meant it. This\ninsolent arming and marching, this forty years of national blustering;\nsooner or later it had to topple over into action....\"\n\nHe paused and found they were listening, and he was carried on by his\nown thoughts into further speech.\n\n\"This isn't the sort of war,\" he said, \"that is settled by counting guns\nand rifles. Something that has oppressed us all has become intolerable\nand has to be ended. And it will be ended. I don't know what soldiers\nand politicians think of our prospects, but I do know what ordinary\nreasonable men think of the business. I know that all we millions of\nreasonable civilised onlookers are prepared to spend our last shillings\nand give all our lives now, rather than see Germany unbeaten. I know\nthat the same thing is felt in America, and that given half a chance,\ngiven just one extra shake of that foolish mailed fist in the face of\nAmerica, and America also will be in this war by our side. Italy will\ncome in. She is bound to come in. France will fight like one man. I'm\nquite prepared to believe that the Germans have countless rifles and\nguns; have got the most perfect maps, spies, plans you can imagine. I'm\nquite prepared to hear that they have got a thousand tremendous\nsurprises in equipment up their sleeves. I'm quite prepared for sweeping\nvictories for them and appalling disasters for us. Those are the first\nthings. What I do know is that the Germans understand nothing of the\nspirit of man; that they do not dream for a moment of the devil of\nresentment this war will arouse. Didn't we all trust them not to let off\ntheir guns? Wasn't that the essence of our liberal and pacific faith?\nAnd here they are in the heart of Europe letting off their guns?\"\n\n\"And such a lot of guns,\" said Manning.\n\n\"Then you think it will be a long war, Mr. Britling?\" said Lady Meade.\n\n\"Long or short, it will end in the downfall of Germany. But I do not\nbelieve it will be long. I do not agree with Manning. Even now I cannot\nbelieve that a whole great people can be possessed by war madness. I\nthink the war is the work of the German armaments party and of the Court\nparty. They have forced this war on Germany. Well--they must win and go\non winning. So long as they win, Germany will hold together, so long as\ntheir armies are not clearly defeated nor their navy destroyed. But once\ncheck them and stay them and beat them, then I believe that suddenly the\nspirit of Germany will change even as it changed after Jena....\"\n\n\"Willie Nixon,\" said one of the visitors, \"who came back from Hamburg\nyesterday, says they are convinced they will have taken Paris and St.\nPetersburg and one or two other little places and practically settled\neverything for us by about Christmas.\"\n\n\"And London?\"\n\n\"I forgot if he said London. But I suppose a London more or less hardly\nmatters. They don't think we shall dare come in, but if we do they will\nZeppelin the fleet and walk through our army--if you can call it an\narmy.\"\n\nManning nodded confirmation.\n\n\"They do not understand,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Sir George Padish told me the same sort of thing,\" said Lady Homartyn.\n\"He was in Berlin in June.\"\n\n\"Of course the efficiency of their preparations is almost incredible,\"\nsaid another of Lady Meade's party.\n\n\"They have thought out and got ready for everything--literally\neverything.\"\n\n\nSection 13\n\nMr. Britling had been a little surprised by the speech he had made. He\nhadn't realised before he began to talk how angry and scornful he was at\nthis final coming into action of the Teutonic militarism that had so\nlong menaced his world. He had always said it would never really\nfight--and here it was fighting! He was furious with the indignation of\nan apologist betrayed. He had only realised the strength and passion of\nhis own belligerent opinions as he had heard them, and as he walked back\nwith his wife through the village to the Dower House, he was still in\nthe swirl of this self-discovery; he was darkly silent, devising\nfiercely denunciatory phrases against Krupp and Kaiser. \"Krupp and\nKaiser,\" he grasped that obvious, convenient alliteration. \"It is all\nthat is bad in mediævalism allied to all that is bad in modernity,\" he\ntold himself.\n\n\"The world,\" he said, startling Mrs. Britling with his sudden speech,\n\"will be intolerable to live in, it will be unendurable for a decent\nhuman being, unless we win this war.\n\n\"We must smash or be smashed....\"\n\nHis brain was so busy with such stuff that for a time he stared at Mrs.\nHarrowdean's belated telegram without grasping the meaning of a word of\nit. He realised slowly that it was incumbent upon him to go over to her,\nbut he postponed his departure very readily in order to play hockey.\nBesides which it would be a full moon, and he felt that summer moonlight\nwas far better than sunset and dinner time for the declarations he was\nexpected to make. And then he went on phrase-making again about Germany\nuntil he had actually bullied off at hockey.\n\nSuddenly in the midst of the game he had an amazing thought. It came to\nhim like a physical twinge.\n\n\"What the devil are we doing at this hockey?\" he asked abruptly of\nTeddy, who was coming up to bully after a goal. \"We ought to be drilling\nor shooting against those infernal Germans.\"\n\nTeddy looked at him questioningly.\n\n\"Oh, come on!\" said Mr. Britling with a gust of impatience, and snapped\nthe sticks together.\n\n\nSection 14\n\nMr. Britling started for his moonlight ride about half-past nine that\nnight. He announced that he could neither rest nor work, the war had\nthrown him into a fever; the driving of the automobile was just the\ndistraction he needed; he might not, he added casually, return for a day\nor so. When he felt he could work again he would come back. He filled up\nhis petrol tank by the light of an electric torch, and sat in his car in\nthe garage and studied his map of the district. His thoughts wandered\nfrom the road to Pyecrafts to the coast, and to the possible route of a\nraider. Suppose the enemy anticipated a declaration of war! Here he\nmight come, and here....\n\nHe roused himself from these speculations to the business in hand.\n\nThe evening seemed as light as day, a cool moonshine filled the world.\nThe road was silver that flushed to pink at the approach of Mr.\nBritling's headlight, the dark turf at the wayside and the bushes on the\nbank became for a moment an acid green as the glare passed. The full\nmoon was climbing up the sky, and so bright that scarcely a star was\nvisible in the blue grey of the heavens. Houses gleamed white a mile\naway, and ever and again a moth would flutter and hang in the light of\nthe lamps, and then vanish again in the night.\n\nGladys was in excellent condition for a run, and so was Mr. Britling. He\nwent neither fast nor slow, and with a quite unfamiliar confidence.\nLife, which had seemed all day a congested confusion darkened by\nthreats, became cool, mysterious and aloof and with a quality of\ndignified reassurance.\n\nHe steered along the narrow road by the black dog-rose hedge, and so\ninto the high road towards the village. The village was alight at\nseveral windows but almost deserted. Out beyond, a coruscation of lights\nburnt like a group of topaz and rubies set in the silver shield of the\nnight. The festivities of the Flower Show were still in full progress,\nand the reduction of the entrance fee after seven had drawn in every\nlingering outsider. The roundabouts churned out their relentless music,\nand the bottle-shooting galleries popped and crashed. The\nwell-patronised ostriches and motorcars flickered round in a pulsing\nrhythm; black, black, black, before the naphtha flares.\n\nMr. Britling pulled up at the side of the road, and sat for a little\nwhile watching the silhouettes move hither and thither from shadow to\nshadow across the bright spaces.\n\n\"On the very brink of war--on the brink of Armageddon,\" he whispered at\nlast. \"Do they understand? Do any of us understand?\"\n\nHe slipped in his gear to starting, and was presently running quietly\nwith his engine purring almost inaudibly along the level road to\nHartleytree. The sounds behind him grew smaller and smaller, and died\naway leaving an immense unruffled quiet under the moon. There seemed no\nmotion but his own, no sound but the neat, subdued, mechanical rhythm in\nfront of his feet. Presently he ran out into the main road, and heedless\nof the lane that turned away towards Pyecrafts, drove on smoothly\ntowards the east and the sea. Never before had he driven by night. He\nhad expected a fumbling and tedious journey; he found he had come into\nan undreamt-of silvery splendour of motion. For it seemed as though even\nthe automobile was running on moonlight that night.... Pyecrafts could\nwait. Indeed the later he got to Pyecrafts the more moving and romantic\nthe little comedy of reconciliation would be. And he was in no hurry for\nthat comedy. He felt he wanted to apprehend this vast summer calm about\nhim, that alone of all the things of the day seemed to convey anything\nwhatever of the majestic tragedy that was happening to mankind. As one\nslipped through this still vigil one could imagine for the first time\nthe millions away there marching, the wide river valleys, villages,\ncities, mountain-ranges, ports and seas inaudibly busy.\n\n\"Even now,\" he said, \"the battleships may be fighting.\"\n\nHe listened, but the sound was only the low intermittent drumming of his\ncylinders as he ran with his throttle nearly closed, down a stretch of\ngentle hill.\n\nHe felt that he must see the sea. He would follow the road beyond the\nRodwell villages, and then turn up to the crest of Eastonbury Hill. And\nthither he went and saw in the gap of the low hills beyond a V-shaped\nlevel of moonlit water that glittered and yet lay still. He stopped his\ncar by the roadside, and sat for a long time looking at this and musing.\nAnd once it seemed to him three little shapes like short black needles\npassed in line ahead across the molten silver.\n\nBut that may have been just the straining of the eyes....\n\nAll sorts of talk had come to Mr. Britling's ears about the navies of\nEngland and France and Germany; there had been public disputes of\nexperts, much whispering and discussion in private. We had the heavier\nvessels, the bigger guns, but it was not certain that we had the\npreeminence in science and invention. Were they relying as we were\nrelying on Dreadnoughts, or had they their secrets and surprises for us?\nTo-night, perhaps, the great ships were steaming to conflict....\n\nTo-night all over the world ships must be in flight and ships pursuing;\nten thousand towns must be ringing with the immediate excitement of\nwar....\n\nOnly a year ago Mr. Britling had been lunching on a battleship and\nlooking over its intricate machinery. It had seemed to him then that\nthere could be no better human stuff in the world than the quiet,\nsunburnt, disciplined men and officers he had met.... And our little\narmy, too, must be gathering to-night, the little army that had been\nchastened and reborn in South Africa, that he was convinced was\nindividually more gallant and self-reliant and capable than any other\narmy in the world. He would have sneered or protested if he had heard\nanother Englishman say that, but in his heart he held the dear\nbelief....\n\nAnd what other aviators in the world could fly as the Frenchmen and\nEnglishmen he had met once or twice at Eastchurch and Salisbury could\nfly? These are things of race and national quality. Let the German cling\nto his gasbags. \"We shall beat them in the air,\" he whispered. \"We shall\nbeat them on the seas. Surely we shall beat them on the seas. If we have\nmen enough and guns enough we shall beat them on land.... Yet--For years\nthey have been preparing....\"\n\nThere was little room in the heart of Mr. Britling that night for any\nlove but the love of England. He loved England now as a nation of men.\nThere could be no easy victory. Good for us with our too easy natures\nthat there could be no easy victory. But victory we must have now--or\nperish....\n\nHe roused himself with a sigh, restarted his engine, and went on to find\nsome turning place. He still had a colourless impression that the\njourney's end was Pyecrafts.\n\n\"We must all do the thing we can,\" he thought, and for a time the course\nof his automobile along a winding down-hill road held his attention so\nthat he could not get beyond it. He turned about and ran up over the\nhill again and down long slopes inland, running very softly and smoothly\nwith his lights devouring the road ahead and sweeping the banks and\nhedges beside him, and as he came down a little hill through a village\nhe heard a confused clatter and jingle of traffic ahead, and saw the\ndanger triangle that warns of cross-roads. He slowed down and then\npulled up abruptly.\n\nRiding across the gap between the cottages was a string of horsemen, and\nthen a grey cart, and then a team drawing a heavy object--a gun, and\nthen more horsemen, and then a second gun. It was all a dim brown\nprocession in the moonlight. A mounted officer came up beside him and\nlooked at him and then went back to the cross-roads, but as yet England\nwas not troubling about spies. Four more guns passed, and then a string\nof carts and more mounted men, sitting stiffly. Nobody was singing or\nshouting; scarcely a word was audible, and through all the column there\nwas an effect of quiet efficient haste. And so they passed, and rumbled\nand jingled and clattered out of the scene, leaving Mr. Britling in his\ncar in the dreaming village. He restarted his engine once more, and went\nhis way thoughtfully.\n\nHe went so thoughtfully that presently he missed the road to\nPyecrafts--if ever he had been on the road to Pyecrafts at\nall--altogether. He found himself upon a highway running across a\nflattish plain, and presently discovered by the sight of the Great Bear,\nfaint but traceable in the blue overhead, that he was going due north.\nWell, presently he would turn south and west; that in good time; now he\nwanted to feel; he wanted to think. How could he best help England in\nthe vast struggle for which the empty silence and beauty of this night\nseemed to be waiting? But indeed he was not thinking at all, but\nfeeling, feeling wonder, as he had never felt it since his youth had\npassed from him. This war might end nearly everything in the world as he\nhad known the world; that idea struggled slowly through the moonlight\ninto consciousness, and won its way to dominance in his mind.\n\nThe character of the road changed; the hedges fell away, the pine trees\nand pine woods took the place of the black squat shapes of the hawthorn\nand oak and apple. The houses grew rarer and the world emptier and\nemptier, until he could have believed that he was the only man awake and\nout-of-doors in all the slumbering land....\n\nFor a time a little thing caught hold of his dreaming mind. Continually\nas he ran on, black, silent birds rose startled out of the dust of the\nroad before him, and fluttered noiselessly beyond his double wedge of\nlight. What sort of bird could they be? Were they night-jars? Were they\ndifferent kinds of birds snatching at the quiet of the night for a dust\nbath in the sand? This little independent thread of inquiry ran through\nthe texture of his mind and died away....\n\nAnd at one place there was a great bolting of rabbits across the road,\nalmost under his wheels....\n\nThe phrases he had used that afternoon at Claverings came back presently\ninto his head. They were, he felt assured, the phrases that had to be\nsaid now. This war could be seen as the noblest of wars, as the crowning\nstruggle of mankind against national dominance and national aggression;\nor else it was a mere struggle of nationalities and pure destruction and\ncatastrophe. Its enormous significances, he felt, must not be lost in\nany petty bickering about the minor issues of the conflict. But were\nthese enormous significances being stated clearly enough? Were they\nbeing understood by the mass of liberal and pacific thinkers? He drove\nmore and more slowly as these questions crowded upon his attention until\nat last he came to a stop altogether.... \"Certain things must be said\nclearly,\" he whispered. \"Certain things--The meaning of England.... The\ndeep and long-unspoken desire for kindliness and fairness.... Now is the\ntime for speaking. It must be put as straight now as her gun-fire, as\nhonestly as the steering of her ships.\"\n\nPhrases and paragraphs began to shape themselves in his mind as he sat\nwith one arm on his steering-wheel.\n\nSuddenly he roused himself, turned over the map in the map-case beside\nhim, and tried to find his position....\n\nSo far as he could judge he had strayed right into Suffolk....\n\nAbout one o'clock in the morning he found himself in Newmarket.\nNewmarket too was a moonlit emptiness, but as he hesitated at the\ncross-roads he became aware of a policeman standing quite stiff and\nstill at the corner by the church.\n\n\"Matching's Easy?\" he cried.\n\n\"That road, Sir, until you come to Market Saffron, and then to the\nleft....\"\n\nMr. Britling had a definite purpose now in his mind, and he drove\nfaster, but still very carefully and surely. He was already within a\nmile or so of Market Saffron before he remembered that he had made a\nkind of appointment with himself at Pyecrafts. He stared at two\nconflicting purposes. He turned over certain possibilities.\n\nAt the Market Saffron cross-roads he slowed down, and for a moment he\nhung undecided.\n\n\"Oliver,\" he said, and as he spoke he threw over his steering-wheel\ntowards the homeward way.... He finished his sentence when he had\nnegotiated the corner safely. \"Oliver must have her....\"\n\nAnd then, perhaps fifty yards farther along, and this time almost\nindignantly: \"She ought to have married him long ago....\"\n\nHe put his automobile in the garage, and then went round under the black\nshadow of his cedars to the front door. He had no key, and for a long\ntime he failed to rouse his wife by flinging pebbles and gravel at her\nhalf-open window. But at last he heard her stirring and called out to\nher.\n\nHe explained he had returned because he wanted to write. He wanted\nindeed to write quite urgently. He went straight up to his room, lit his\nreading-lamp, made himself some tea, and changed into his nocturnal\nsuit. Daylight found him still writing very earnestly at his pamphlet.\nThe title he had chosen was: \"And Now War Ends.\"\n\n\nSection 15\n\nIn this fashion it was that the great war began in Europe and came to\none man in Matching's Easy, as it came to countless intelligent men in\ncountless pleasant homes that had scarcely heeded its coming through all\nthe years of its relentless preparation. The familiar scenery of life\nwas drawn aside, and War stood unveiled. \"I am the Fact,\" said War, \"and\nI stand astride the path of life. I am the threat of death and\nextinction that has always walked beside life, since life began. There\ncan be nothing else and nothing more in human life until you have\nreckoned with me.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II\n\nMATCHING'S EASY AT WAR\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST\n\nONLOOKERS\n\n\nSection 1\n\nOn that eventful night of the first shots and the first deaths Mr.\nBritling did not sleep until daylight had come. He sat writing at this\npamphlet of his, which was to hail the last explosion and the ending of\nwar. For a couple of hours he wrote with energy, and then his energy\nflagged. There came intervals when he sat still and did not write. He\nyawned and yawned again and rubbed his eyes. The day had come and the\nbirds were noisy when he undressed slowly, dropping his clothes anyhow\nupon the floor, and got into bed....\n\nHe woke to find his morning tea beside him and the housemaid going out\nof the room. He knew that something stupendous had happened to the\nworld, but for a few moments he could not remember what it was. Then he\nremembered that France was invaded by Germany and Germany by Russia, and\nthat almost certainly England was going to war. It seemed a harsh and\nterrible fact in the morning light, a demand for stresses, a certainty\nof destruction; it appeared now robbed of all the dark and dignified\nbeauty of the night. He remembered just the same feeling of unpleasant,\nanxious expectation as he now felt when the Boer War had begun fifteen\nyears ago, before the first news came. The first news of the Boer War\nhad been the wrecking of a British armoured train near Kimberley. What\nsimilar story might not the overdue paper tell when presently it came?\n\nSuppose, for instance, that some important division of our Fleet had\nbeen surprised and overwhelmed....\n\nSuppose the Germans were already crumpling up the French armies between\nVerdun and Belfort, very swiftly and dreadfully....\n\nSuppose after all that the Cabinet was hesitating, and that there would\nbe no war for some weeks, but only a wrangle about Belgian neutrality.\nWhile the Germans smashed France....\n\nOr, on the other hand, there might be some amazing, prompt success on\nour part. Our army and navy people were narrow, but in their narrow way\nhe believed they were extraordinarily good....\n\nWhat would the Irish do?...\n\nHis thoughts were no more than a thorny jungle of unanswerable questions\nthrough which he struggled in un-progressive circles.\n\nHe got out of bed and dressed in a slow, distraught manner. When he\nreached his braces he discontinued dressing for a time; he opened the\natlas at Northern France, and stood musing over the Belgian border. Then\nhe turned to Whitaker's Almanack to browse upon the statistics of the\ngreat European armies. He was roused from this by the breakfast gong.\n\nAt breakfast there was no talk of anything but war. Hugh was as excited\nas a cat in thundery weather, and the small boys wanted information\nabout flags. The Russian and the Serbian flag were in dispute, and the\nflag page of Webster's Dictionary had to be consulted. Newspapers and\nletters were both abnormally late, and Mr. Britling, tiring of supplying\ntrivial information to his offspring, smoked cigarettes in the garden.\nHe had an idea of intercepting the postman. His eyes and ears informed\nhim of the approach of Mrs. Faber's automobile. It was an old,\nresolute-looking machine painted red, and driven by a trusted gardener;\nthere was no mistaking it.\n\nMrs. Faber was in it, and she stopped it outside the gate and made\nsignals. Mrs. Britling, attracted by the catastrophic sounds of Mrs.\nFaber's vehicle, came out by the front door, and she and her husband\nboth converged upon the caller.\n\n\nSection 2\n\n\"I won't come in,\" cried Mrs. Faber, \"but I thought I'd tell you. I've\nbeen getting food.\"\n\n\"Food?\"\n\n\"Provisions. There's going to be a run on provisions. Look at my flitch\nof bacon!\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\n\"Faber says we have to lay in what we can. This war--it's going to stop\neverything. We can't tell what will happen. I've got the children to\nconsider, so here I am. I was at Hickson's before nine....\"\n\nThe little lady was very flushed and bright-eyed. Her fair hair was\ndisordered, her hat a trifle askew. She had an air of enjoying unwonted\nexcitements. \"All the gold's being hoarded too,\" she said, with a crow\nof delight in her voice. \"Faber says that probably our cheques won't be\nworth _that_ in a few days. He rushed off to London to get gold at his\nclubs--while he can. I had to insist on Hickson taking a cheque.\n'Never,' I said, 'will I deal with you again--never--unless you do....'\nEven then he looked at me almost as if he thought he wouldn't.\n\n\"It's Famine!\" she said, turning to Mr. Britling. \"I've laid hands on\nall I can. I've got the children to consider.\"\n\n\"But why is it famine?\" asked Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Oh! it _is_!\" she said.\n\n\"But why?\"\n\n\"Faber understands,\" she said. \"Of course it's Famine....\"\n\n\"And would you believe me,\" she went on, going back to Mrs. Britling,\n\"that man Hickson stood behind his counter--where I've dealt with him\nfor _years_, and refused absolutely to let me have more than a dozen\ntins of sardines. _Refused!_ Point blank!\n\n\"I was there before nine, and even then Hickson's shop was\ncrowded--_crowded_, my dear!\"\n\n\"What have you got?\" said Mr. Britling with an inquiring movement\ntowards the automobile.\n\nShe had got quite a lot. She had two sides of bacon, a case of sugar,\nbags of rice, eggs, a lot of flour.\n\n\"What are all these little packets?\" said Mr. Britling.\n\nMrs. Faber looked slightly abashed.\n\n\"Cerebos salt,\" she said. \"One gets carried away a little. I just got\nhold of it and carried it out to the car. I thought we might have to\nsalt things later.\"\n\n\"And the jars are pickles?\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Yes. But look at all my flour! That's what will go first....\"\n\nThe lady was a little flurried by Mr. Britling's too detailed\nexamination of her haul. \"What good is blacking?\" he asked. She would\nnot hear him. She felt he was trying to spoil her morning. She declared\nshe must get on back to her home. \"Don't say I didn't warn you,\" she\nsaid. \"I've got no end of things to do. There's peas! I want to show\ncook how to bottle our peas. For this year--it's lucky, we've got no end\nof peas. I came by here just for the sake of telling you.\" And with that\nshe presently departed--obviously ruffled by Mrs. Britling's lethargy\nand Mr. Britling's scepticism.\n\nMr. Britling watched her go off with a slowly rising indignation.\n\n\"And that,\" he said, \"is how England is going to war! Scrambling for\nfood--at the very beginning.\"\n\n\"I suppose she is anxious for the children,\" said Mrs. Britling.\n\n\"Blacking!\"\n\n\"After all,\" said Mr. Britling, \"if other people are doing that sort of\nthing--\"\n\n\"That's the idea of all panics. We've got not to do it.... The country\nhasn't even declared war yet! Hallo, here we are! Better late than\nnever.\"\n\nThe head of the postman, bearing newspapers and letters, appeared\ngliding along the top of the hedge as he cycled down the road towards\nthe Dower House corner.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nEngland was not yet at war, but all the stars were marching to that end.\nIt was as if an event so vast must needs take its time to happen. No\ndoubt was left upon Mr. Britling's mind, though a whole-page\nadvertisement in the _Daily News_, in enormous type and of mysterious\norigin, implored Great Britain not to play into the hands of Russia,\nRussia the Terrible, that bugbear of the sentimental Radicals. The news\nwas wide and sweeping, and rather inaccurate. The Germans were said to\nbe in Belgium and Holland, and they had seized English ships in the Kiel\nCanal. A moratorium had been proclaimed, and the reports of a food panic\nshowed Mrs. Faber to be merely one example of a large class of excitable\npeople.\n\nMr. Britling found the food panic disconcerting. It did not harmonise\nwith his leading _motif_ of the free people of the world rising against\nthe intolerable burthen of militarism. It spoilt his picture....\n\nMrs. Britling shared the paper with Mr. Britling, they stood by the bed\nof begonias near the cedar tree and read, and the air was full of the\ncheerful activities of the lawn-mower that was being drawn by a\ncarefully booted horse across the hockey field.\n\nPresently Hugh came flitting out of the house to hear what had happened.\n\"One can't work somehow, with all these big things going on,\" he\napologised. He secured the _Daily News_ while his father and mother read\n_The Times_. The voices of the younger boys came from the shade of the\ntrees; they had brought all their toy soldiers out of doors, and were\nmaking entrenched camps in the garden.\n\n\"The financial situation is an extraordinary one,\" said Mr. Britling,\nconcentrating his attention.... \"All sorts of staggering things may\nhappen. In a social and economic system that has grown just anyhow....\nNever been planned.... In a world full of Mrs. Fabers....\"\n\n\"Moratorium?\" said Hugh over his _Daily News_. \"In relation to debts and\nso on? Modern side you sent me to, Daddy. I live at hand to mouth in\netymology. Mors and crematorium--do we burn our bills instead of paying\nthem?\"\n\n\"Moratorium,\" reflected Mr. Britling; \"Moratorium. What nonsense you\ntalk! It's something that delays, of course. Nothing to do with death.\nJust a temporary stoppage of payments.... Of course there's bound to be\na tremendous change in values....\"\n\n\nSection 4\n\n\"There's bound to be a tremendous change in values.\"\n\nOn that text Mr. Britling's mind enlarged very rapidly. It produced a\nwonderful crop of possibilities before he got back to his study. He sat\ndown to his desk, but he did not immediately take up his work. He had\ndiscovered something so revolutionary in his personal affairs that even\nthe war issue remained for a time in suspense.\n\nTucked away in the back of Mr. Britling's consciousness was something\nthat had not always been there, something warm and comforting that made\nlife and his general thoughts about life much easier and pleasanter than\nthey would otherwise have been, the sense of a neatly arranged\ninvestment list, a shrewdly and geographically distributed system of\nholdings in national loans, municipal investments, railway debentures,\nthat had amounted altogether to rather over five-and-twenty thousand\npounds; his and Mrs. Britling's, a joint accumulation. This was, so to\nspeak, his economic viscera. It sustained him, and kept him going and\ncomfortable. When all was well he did not feel its existence; he had\nmerely a pleasant sense of general well-being. When here or there a\nsecurity got a little disarranged he felt a vague discomfort. Now he\nbecame aware of grave disorders. It was as if he discovered he had been\naccidentally eating toadstools, and didn't quite know whether they\nweren't a highly poisonous sort. But an analogy may be carried too\nfar....\n\nAt any rate, when Mr. Britling got back to his writing-desk he was much\ntoo disturbed to resume \"And Now War Ends.\"\n\n\"There's bound to be a tremendous change in values!\"\n\nHe had never felt quite so sure as most people about the stability of\nthe modern financial system. He did not, he felt, understand the working\nof this moratorium, or the peculiar advantage of prolonging the bank\nholidays. It meant, he supposed, a stoppage of payment all round, and a\ncutting off of the supply of ready money. And Hickson the grocer,\naccording to Mrs. Faber, was already looking askance at cheques.\n\nEven if the bank did reopen Mr. Britling was aware that his current\nbalance was low; at the utmost it amounted to twenty or thirty pounds.\nHe had been expecting cheques from his English and American publishers,\nand the usual _Times_ cheque. Suppose these payments were intercepted!\n\nAll these people might, so far as he could understand, stop payment\nunder this moratorium! That hadn't at first occurred to him. But, of\ncourse, quite probably they might refuse to pay his account when it fell\ndue.\n\nAnd suppose _The Times_ felt his peculiar vein of thoughtfulness\nunnecessary in these stirring days!\n\nAnd then if the bank really did lock up his deposit account, and his\nsecurities became unsaleable!\n\nMr. Britling felt like an oyster that is invited to leave its shell....\n\nHe sat back from his desk contemplating these things. His imagination\nmade a weak attempt to picture a world in which credit has vanished and\nmoney is of doubtful value. He supposed a large number of people would\njust go on buying and selling at or near the old prices by force of\nhabit.\n\nHis mind and conscience made a valiant attempt to pick up \"And Now War\nEnds\" and go on with it, but before five minutes were out he was back at\nthe thoughts of food panic and bankruptcy....\n\n\nSection 5\n\nThe conflict of interests at Mr. Britling's desk became unendurable. He\nfelt he must settle the personal question first. He wandered out upon\nthe lawn and smoked cigarettes.\n\nHis first conception of a great convergent movement of the nations to\nmake a world peace and an end to militant Germany was being obscured by\nthis second, entirely incompatible, vision of a world confused and\ndisorganised. Mrs. Fabers in great multitudes hoarding provisions,\nriotous crowds attacking shops, moratorium, shut banks and waiting\nqueues. Was it possible for the whole system to break down through a\nshock to its confidence? Without any sense of incongruity the dignified\npacification of the planet had given place in his mind to these more\nintimate possibilities. He heard a rustle behind him, and turned to face\nhis wife.\n\n\"Do you think,\" she asked, \"that there is any chance of a shortage of\nfood?\"\n\n\"If all the Mrs. Fabers in the world run and grab--\"\n\n\"Then every one must grab. I haven't much in the way of stores in the\nhouse.\"\n\n\"H'm,\" said Mr. Britling, and reflected.... \"I don't think we must buy\nstores now.\"\n\n\"But if we are short.\"\n\n\"It's the chances of war,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\nHe reflected. \"Those who join a panic make a panic. After all, there is\njust as much food in the world as there was last month. And short of\nburning it the only way of getting rid of it is to eat it. And the\nharvests are good. Why begin a scramble at a groaning board?\"\n\n\"But people _are_ scrambling! It would be awkward--with the children and\neverything--if we ran short.\"\n\n\"We shan't. And anyhow, you mustn't begin hoarding, even if it means\nhardship.\"\n\n\"Yes. But you won't like it if suddenly there's no sugar for your tea.\"\n\nMr. Britling ignored this personal application.\n\n\"What is far more serious than a food shortage is the possibility of a\nmoney panic.\"\n\nHe paced the lawn with her and talked. He said that even now very few\npeople realised the flimsiness of the credit system by which the modern\nworld was sustained. It was a huge growth of confidence, due very\nlargely to the uninquiring indolence of--everybody. It was sound so long\nas mankind did, on the whole, believe in it; give only a sufficient loss\nof faith and it might suffer any sort of collapse. It might vanish\naltogether--as the credit system vanished at the breaking up of Italy by\nthe Goths--and leave us nothing but tangible things, real property,\npossession nine points of the law, and that sort of thing. Did she\nremember that last novel of Gissing's?--\"Veranilda,\" it was called. It\nwas a picture of the world when there was no wealth at all except what\none could carry hidden or guarded about with one. That sort of thing\ncame to the Roman Empire slowly, in the course of lifetimes, but\nnowadays we lived in a rapider world--with flimsier institutions. Nobody\nknew the strength or the weakness of credit; nobody knew whether even\nthe present shock might not send it smashing down.... And then all the\nlittle life we had lived so far would roll away....\n\nMrs. Britling, he noted, glanced ever and again at her sunlit\nhouse--there were new sunblinds, and she had been happy in her choice of\na colour--and listened with a sceptical expression to this\ndisquisition.\n\n\"A few days ago,\" said Mr. Britling, trying to make things concrete for\nher, \"you and I together were worth five-and-twenty thousand pounds. Now\nwe don't know what we are worth; whether we have lost a thousand or ten\nthousand....\"\n\nHe examined his sovereign purse and announced he had six pounds. \"What\nhave you?\"\n\nShe had about eighteen pounds in the house.\n\n\"We may have to get along with that for an indefinite time.\"\n\n\"But the bank will open again presently,\" she said. \"And people about\nhere trust us.\"\n\n\"Suppose they don't?\"\n\nShe did not trouble about the hypothesis. \"And our investments will\nrecover. They always do recover.\"\n\n\"Everything may recover,\" he admitted. \"But also nothing may recover.\nAll this life of ours which has seemed so settled and secure--isn't\nsecure. I have felt that we were fixed here and rooted--for all our\nlives. Suppose presently things sweep us out of it? It's a possibility\nwe may have to face. I feel this morning as if two enormous gates had\nopened in our lives, like the gates that give upon an arena, gates\ngiving on a darkness--through which anything might come. Even death.\nSuppose suddenly we were to see one of those great Zeppelins in the air,\nor hear the thunder of guns away towards the coast. And if a messenger\ncame upon a bicycle telling us to leave everything and go inland....\"\n\n\"I see no reason why one should go out to meet things like that.\"\n\n\"But there is no reason why one should not envisage them....\"\n\n\"The curious thing,\" said Mr. Britling, pursuing his examination of the\nmatter, \"is that, looking at these things as one does now, as things\nquite possible, they are not nearly so terrifying and devastating to the\nmind as they would have seemed--last week. I believe I should load you\nall into Gladys and start off westward with a kind of exhilaration....\"\n\nShe looked at him as if she would speak, and said nothing. She suspected\nhim of hating his home and affecting to care for it out of politeness to\nher....\n\n\"Perhaps mankind tries too much to settle down. Perhaps these stirrings\nup have to occur to save us from our disposition to stuffy comfort.\nThere's the magic call of the unknown experience, of dangers and\nhardships. One wants to go. But unless some push comes one does not go.\nThere is a spell that keeps one to the lair and the old familiar ways.\nNow I am afraid--and at the same time I feel that the spell is broken.\nThe magic prison is suddenly all doors. You may call this ruin,\nbankruptcy, invasion, flight; they are doors out of habit and\nroutine.... I have been doing nothing for so long, except idle things\nand discursive things.\"\n\n\"I thought that you managed to be happy here. You have done a lot of\nwork.\"\n\n\"Writing is recording, not living. But now I feel suddenly that we are\nliving intensely. It is as if the whole quality of life was changing.\nThere are such times. There are times when the spirit of life changes\naltogether. The old world knew that better than we do. It made a\ndistinction between weekdays and Sabbaths, and between feasts and fasts\nand days of devotion. That is just what has happened now. Week-day rules\nmust be put aside. Before--oh! three days ago, competition was fair, it\nwas fair and tolerable to get the best food one could and hold on to\none's own. But that isn't right now. War makes a Sabbath, and we shut\nthe shops. The banks are shut, and the world still feels as though\nSunday was keeping on....\"\n\nHe saw his own way clear.\n\n\"The scale has altered. It does not matter now in the least if we are\nruined. It does not matter in the least if we have to live upon potatoes\nand run into debt for our rent. These now are the most incidental of\nthings. A week ago they would have been of the first importance. Here we\nare face to face with the greatest catastrophe and the greatest\nopportunity in history. We have to plunge through catastrophe to\nopportunity. There is nothing to be done now in the whole world except\nto get the best out of this tremendous fusing up of all the settled\nthings of life.\" He had got what he wanted. He left her standing upon\nthe lawn and hurried back to his desk....\n\n\nSection 6\n\nWhen Mr. Britling, after a strenuous morning among high ideals,\ndescended for lunch, he found Mr. Lawrence Carmine had come over to join\nhim at that meal. Mr. Carmine was standing in the hall with his legs\nvery wide apart reading _The Times_ for the fourth time. \"I can do no\nwork,\" he said, turning round. \"I can't fix my mind. I suppose we are\ngoing to war. I'd got so used to the war with Germany that I never\nimagined it would happen. Gods! what a bore it will be.... And Maxse and\nall those scaremongers cock-a-hoop and 'I told you so.' Damn these\nGermans!\"\n\nHe looked despondent and worried. He followed Mr. Britling towards the\ndining-room with his hands deep in his pockets.\n\n\"It's going to be a tremendous thing,\" he said, after he had greeted\nMrs. Britling and Hugh and Aunt Wilshire and Teddy, and seated himself\nat Mr. Britling's hospitable board. \"It's going to upset everything. We\ndon't begin to imagine all the mischief it is going to do.\"\n\nMr. Britling was full of the heady draught of liberal optimism he had\nbeen brewing upstairs. \"I am not sorry I have lived to see this war,\" he\nsaid. \"It may be a tremendous catastrophe in one sense, but in another\nit is a huge step forward in human life. It is the end of forty years of\nevil suspense. It is crisis and solution.\"\n\n\"I wish I could see it like that,\" said Mr. Carmine.\n\n\"It is like a thaw--everything has been in a frozen confusion since that\nJew-German Treaty of Berlin. And since 1871.\"\n\n\"Why not since Schleswig-Holstein?\" said Mr. Carmine.\n\n\"Why not? Or since the Treaty of Vienna?\"\n\n\"Or since--One might go back.\"\n\n\"To the Roman Empire,\" said Hugh.\n\n\"To the first conquest of all,\" said Teddy....\n\n\"I couldn't work this morning,\" said Hugh. \"I have been reading in the\nEncyclopædia about races and religions in the Balkans.... It's very\nmixed.\"\n\n\"So long as it could only be dealt with piecemeal,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\"And that is just where the tremendous opportunity of this war comes in.\nNow everything becomes fluid. We can redraw the map of the world. A week\nago we were all quarrelling bitterly about things too little for human\nimpatience. Now suddenly we face an epoch. This is an epoch. The world\nis plastic for men to do what they will with it. This is the end and the\nbeginning of an age. This is something far greater than the French\nRevolution or the Reformation.... And we live in it....\"\n\nHe paused impressively.\n\n\"I wonder what will happen to Albania?\" said Hugh, but his comment was\ndisregarded.\n\n\"War makes men bitter and narrow,\" said Mr. Carmine.\n\n\"War narrowly conceived,\" said Mr. Britling. \"But this is an indignant\nand generous war.\"\n\nThey speculated about the possible intervention of the United States.\nMr. Britling thought that the attack on Belgium demanded the\nintervention of every civilised power, that all the best instincts of\nAmerica would be for intervention. \"The more,\" he said, \"the quicker.\"\n\n\"It would be strange if the last power left out to mediate were to be\nChina,\" said Mr. Carmine. \"The one people in the world who really\nbelieve in peace.... I wish I had your confidence, Britling.\"\n\nFor a time they contemplated a sort of Grand Inquest on Germany and\nmilitarism, presided over by the Wisdom of the East. Militarism was, as\nit were, to be buried as a suicide at four cross-roads, with a stake\nthrough its body to prevent any untimely resuscitation.\n\n\nSection 7\n\nMr. Britling was in a phase of imaginative release. Such a release was\none of the first effects of the war upon many educated minds. Things\nthat had seemed solid forever were visibly in flux; things that had\nseemed stone were alive. Every boundary, every government, was seen for\nthe provisional thing it was. He talked of his World Congress meeting\nyear by year, until it ceased to be a speculation and became a mere\nintelligent anticipation; he talked of the \"manifest necessity\" of a\nSupreme Court for the world. He beheld that vision at the Hague, but Mr.\nCarmine preferred Delhi or Samarkand or Alexandria or Nankin. \"Let us\nget away from the delusion of Europe anyhow,\" said Mr. Carmine....\n\nAs Mr. Britling had sat at his desk that morning and surveyed the\nstupendous vistas of possibility that war was opening, the catastrophe\nhad taken on a more and more beneficial quality. \"I suppose that it is\nonly through such crises as these that the world can reconstruct\nitself,\" I said. And, on the whole that afternoon he was disposed to\nhope that the great military machine would not smash itself too easily.\n\"We want the nations to feel the need of one another,\" he said. \"Too\nbrief a campaign might lead to a squabble for plunder. The Englishman\nhas to learn his dependence on the Irishman, the Russian has to be\ntaught the value of education and the friendship of the Pole.... Europe\nwill now have to look to Asia, and recognise that Indians and Chinamem\nare also 'white.'... But these lessons require time and stresses if\nthey are to be learnt properly....\"\n\nThey discussed the possible duration of the war.\n\nMr. Carmine thought it would be a long struggle; Mr. Britling thought\nthat the Russians would be in Berlin by the next May. He was afraid they\nmight get there before the end of the year. He thought that the Germans\nwould beat out their strength upon the French and Belgian lines, and\nnever be free to turn upon the Russian at all. He was sure they had\nunderrated the strength and energy of the French and of ourselves. \"The\nRussians meanwhile,\" he said, \"will come on, slowly, steadily,\ninevitably....\"\n\n\nSection 8\n\nThat day of vast anticipations drew out into the afternoon. It was a\nday--obsessed. It was the precursor of a relentless series of doomed and\nfettered days. There was a sense of enormous occurrences going on just\nout of sound and sight--behind the mask of Essex peacefulness. From this\nthere was no escape. It made all other interests fitful. Games of\nBadminton were begun and abruptly truncated by the arrival of the\nevening papers; conversations started upon any topic whatever returned\nto the war by the third and fourth remark....\n\nAfter lunch Mr. Britling and Mr. Carmine went on talking. Nothing else\nwas possible. They repeated things they had already said. They went into\nthings more thoroughly. They sat still for a time, and then suddenly\nbroke out with some new consideration....\n\nIt had been their custom to play skat with Herr Heinrich, who had shown\nthem the game very explicitly and thoroughly. But there was no longer\nany Herr Heinrich--and somehow German games were already out of fashion.\nThe two philosophers admitted that they had already considered skat to\nbe complicated without subtlety, and that its chief delight for them had\nbeen the pink earnestness of Herr Heinrich, his inability to grasp\ntheir complete but tacit comprehension of its innocent strategy, and his\ninvariable ill-success to bring off the coups that flashed before his\nimagination.\n\nHe would survey the destructive counter-stroke with unconcealed\nsurprise. He would verify his first impression by craning towards it and\nadjusting his glasses on his nose. He had a characteristic way of doing\nthis with one stiff finger on either side of his sturdy nose.\n\n\"It is very fortunate for you that you have played that card,\" he would\nsay, growing pinker and pinker with hasty cerebration. \"Or else--yes\"--a\nglance at his own cards--\"it would have been altogether bad for you. I\nhad taken only a very small risk.... Now I must--\"\n\nHe would reconsider his hand.\n\n\"_Zo!_\" he would say, dashing down a card....\n\nWell, he had gone and skat had gone. A countless multitude of such links\nwere snapping that day between hundreds of thousands of English and\nGerman homes.\n\n\nSection 9\n\nThe imminence of war produced a peculiar exaltation in Aunt Wilshire.\nShe developed a point of view that was entirely her own.\n\nIt was Mr. Britling's habit, a habit he had set himself to acquire after\nmuch irritating experience, to disregard Aunt Wilshire. She was not,\nstrictly speaking, his aunt; she was one of those distant cousins we\nfind already woven into our lives when we attain to years of\nresponsibility. She had been a presence in his father's household when\nMr. Britling was a boy. Then she had been called \"Jane,\" or \"Cousin\nJane,\" or \"Your cousin Wilshire.\" It had been a kindly freak of Mr.\nBritling's to promote her to Aunty rank.\n\nShe eked out a small inheritance by staying with relatives. Mr.\nBritling's earlier memories presented her as a slender young woman of\nthirty, with a nose upon which small boys were forbidden to comment. Yet\nshe commented upon it herself, and called his attention to its marked\nresemblance to that of the great Duke of Wellington. \"He was, I am\ntold,\" said Cousin Wilshire to the attentive youth, \"a great friend of\nyour great-grandmother's. At any rate, they were contemporaries. Since\nthen this nose has been in the family. He would have been the last to\ndraw a veil over it, but other times, other manners. 'Publish,' he said,\n'and be damned.'\"\n\nShe had a knack of exasperating Mr. Britling's father, a knack which to\na less marked degree she also possessed in relation to the son. But Mr.\nBritling senior never acquired the art of disregarding her. Her\nmethod--if one may call the natural expression of a personality a\nmethod--was an invincibly superior knowledge, a firm and ill-concealed\nbelief that all statements made in her hearing were wrong and most of\nthem absurd, and a manner calm, assured, restrained. She may have been\nborn with it; it is on record that at the age of ten she was pronounced\na singularly trying child. She may have been born with the air of\nthinking the doctor a muff and knowing how to manage all this business\nbetter. Mr. Britling had known her only in her ripeness. As a boy, he\nhad enjoyed her confidences--about other people and the general neglect\nof her advice. He grew up rather to like her--most people rather liked\nher--and to attach a certain importance to her unattainable approval.\nShe was sometimes kind, she was frequently absurd....\n\nWith very little children she was quite wise and Jolly....\n\nSo she circulated about a number of houses which at any rate always\nwelcomed her coming. In the opening days of each visit she performed\nmarvels of tact, and set a watch upon her lips. Then the demons of\ncontroversy and dignity would get the better of her. She would begin to\ncorrect, quietly but firmly, she would begin to disapprove of the tone\nand quality of her treatment. It was quite common for her visit to\nterminate in speechless rage both on the side of host and of visitor.\nThe remarkable thing was that this speechless rage never endured. Though\nshe could exasperate she could never offend. Always after an interval\nduring which she was never mentioned, people began to wonder how Cousin\nJane was getting on.... A tentative correspondence would begin, leading\nslowly up to a fresh invitation.\n\nShe spent more time in Mr. Britling's house than in any other. There was\na legend that she had \"drawn out\" his mind, and that she had \"stood up\"\nfor him against his father. She had certainly contradicted quite a\nnumber of those unfavourable comments that fathers are wont to make\nabout their sons. Though certainly she contradicted everything. And Mr.\nBritling hated to think of her knocking about alone in boarding-houses\nand hydropathic establishments with only the most casual chances for\ncontradiction.\n\nMoreover, he liked to see her casting her eye over the morning paper.\nShe did it with a manner as though she thought the terrestrial globe a\ngreat fool, and quite beyond the reach of advice. And as though she\nunderstood and was rather amused at the way in which the newspaper\npeople tried to keep back the real facts of the case from her.\n\nAnd now she was scornfully entertained at the behaviour of everybody in\nthe war crisis.\n\nShe confided various secrets of state to the elder of the younger\nBritlings--preferably when his father was within earshot.\n\n\"None of these things they are saying about the war,\" she said, \"really\nmatter in the slightest degree. It is all about a spoilt carpet and\nnothing else in the world--a madman and a spoilt carpet. If people had\npaid the slightest attention to common sense none of this war would have\nhappened. The thing was perfectly well known. He was a delicate child,\ndifficult to rear and given to screaming fits. Consequently he was never\ncrossed, allowed to do everything. Nobody but his grandmother had the\nslightest influence with him. And she prevented him spoiling this carpet\nas completely as he wished to do. The story is perfectly well known. It\nwas at Windsor--at the age of eight. After that he had but one thought:\nwar with England....\n\n\"Everybody seemed surprised,\" she said suddenly at tea to Mr. Carmine.\n\"I at least am not surprised. I am only surprised it did not come\nsooner. If any one had asked me I could have told them, three years,\nfive years ago.\"\n\nThe day was one of flying rumours, Germany was said to have declared war\non Italy, and to have invaded Holland as well as Belgium.\n\n\"They'll declare war against the moon next!\" said Aunt Wilshire.\n\n\"And send a lot of Zeppelins,\" said the smallest boy. \"Herr Heinrich\ntold us they can fly thousands of miles.\"\n\n\"He will go on declaring war until there is nothing left to declare war\nagainst. That is exactly what he has always done. Once started he cannot\ndesist. Often he has had to be removed from the dinner-table for fear of\ninjury. _Now_, it is ultimatums.\"\n\nShe was much pleased by a headline in the _Daily Express_ that streamed\nright across the page: \"The Mad Dog of Europe.\" Nothing else, she said,\nhad come so near her feelings about the war.\n\n\"Mark my words,\" said Aunt Wilshire in her most impressive tones. \"He is\ninsane. It will be proved to be so. He will end his days in an\nasylum--as a lunatic. I have felt it myself for years and said so in\nprivate.... Knowing what I did.... To such friends as I could trust not\nto misunderstand me.... Now at least I can speak out.\n\n\"With his moustaches turned up!\" exclaimed Aunt Wilshire after an\ninterval of accumulation.... \"They say he has completely lost the use of\nthe joint in his left arm, he carries it stiff like a Punch and\nJudy--and he wants to conquer Europe.... While his grandmother lived\nthere was some one to keep him in order. He stood in Awe of her. He\nhated her, but he did not dare defy her. Even his uncle had some\ninfluence. Now, nothing restrains him.\n\n\"A double-headed mad dog,\" said Aunt Wilshire. \"Him and his eagles!... A\nman like that ought never to have been allowed to make a war.... Not\neven a little war.... If he had been put under restraint when I said so,\nnone of these things would have happened. But, of course I am nobody....\nIt was not considered worth attending to.\"\n\n\nSection 10\n\nOne remarkable aspect of the English attitude towards the war was the\ndisposition to treat it as a monstrous joke. It is a disposition\ntraceable in a vast proportion of the British literature of the time. In\nspite of violence, cruelty, injustice, and the vast destruction and\nstill vaster dangers of the struggles, that disposition held. The\nEnglish mind refused flatly to see anything magnificent or terrible in\nthe German attack, or to regard the German Emperor or the Crown Prince\nas anything more than figures of fun. From first to last their\nconception of the enemy was an overstrenuous, foolish man, red with\neffort, with protruding eyes and a forced frightfulness of demeanour.\nThat he might be tremendously lethal did not in the least obscure the\nfact that he was essentially ridiculous. And if as the war went on the\njoke grew grimmer, still it remained a joke. The German might make a\ndesert of the world; that could not alter the British conviction that he\nwas making a fool of himself.\n\nAnd this disposition kept coming to the surface throughout the\nafternoon, now in a casual allusion, now in some deliberate jest. The\nsmall boys had discovered the goose step, and it filled their little\nsouls with amazement and delight. That human beings should consent to\nthose ridiculous paces seemed to them almost incredibly funny. They\ntried it themselves, and then set out upon a goose-step propaganda.\nLetty and Cissie had come up to the Dower House for tea and news, and\nthey were enrolled with Teddy and Hugh. The six of them, chuckling and\nswaying, marched, in vast scissor strides across the lawn. \"Left,\" cried\nHugh. \"Left.\"\n\n\"Toes _out_ more,\" said Mr. Lawrence Carmine.\n\n\"Keep stiffer,\" said the youngest Britling.\n\n\"Watch the Zeppelins and look proud,\" said Hugh. \"With the chest out.\n_Zo!_\"\n\nMrs. Britling was so much amused that she went in for her camera, and\ntook a snapshot of the detachment. It was a very successful snapshot,\nand a year later Mr. Britling was to find a print of it among his\npapers, and recall the sunshine and the merriment....\n\n\nSection 11\n\nThat night brought the British declaration of war against Germany. To\nnearly every Englishman that came as a matter of course, and it is one\nof the most wonderful facts in history that the Germans were surprised\nby it. When Mr. Britling, as a sample Englishman, had said that there\nwould never be war between Germany and England, he had always meant that\nit was inconceivable to him that Germany should ever attack Belgium or\nFrance. If Germany had been content to fight a merely defensive war upon\nher western frontier and let Belgium alone, there would scarcely have\nbeen such a thing as a war party in Great Britain. But the attack upon\nBelgium, the westward thrust, made the whole nation flame unanimously\ninto war. It settled a question that was in open debate up to the very\noutbreak of the conflict. Up to the last the English had cherished the\nidea that in Germany, just as in England, the mass of people were\nkindly, pacific, and detached. That had been the English mistake.\nGermany was really and truly what Germany had been professing to be for\nforty years, a War State. With a sigh--and a long-forgotten\nthrill--England roused herself to fight. Even now she still roused\nherself sluggishly. It was going to be an immense thing, but just how\nimmense it was going to be no one in England had yet imagined.\n\nCountless men that day whom Fate had marked for death and wounds stared\nopen-mouthed at the news, and smiled with the excitement of the\nheadlines, not dreaming that any of these things would come within three\nhundred miles of them. What was war to Matching's Easy--to all the\nMatching's Easies great and small that make up England? The last home\nthat was ever burnt by an enemy within a hundred miles of Matching's\nEasy was burnt by the Danes rather more than a thousand years ago....\nAnd the last trace of those particular Danes in England were certain\nhorny scraps of indurated skin under the heads of the nails in the door\nof St. Clement Danes in London....\n\nNow again, England was to fight in a war which was to light fires in\nEngland and bring death to English people on English soil. There were\ninconceivable ideas in August, 1914. Such things must happen before they\ncan be comprehended as possible.\n\n\nSection 12\n\nThis story is essentially the history of the opening and of the\nrealisation of the Great War as it happened to one small group of people\nin Essex, and more particularly as it happened to one human brain. It\ncame at first to all these people in a spectacular manner, as a thing\nhappening dramatically and internationally, as a show, as something in\nthe newspapers, something in the character of an historical epoch rather\nthan a personal experience; only by slow degrees did it and its\nconsequences invade the common texture of English life. If this story\ncould be represented by sketches or pictures the central figure would be\nMr. Britling, now sitting at his desk by day or by night and writing\nfirst at his tract \"And Now War Ends\" and then at other things, now\nwalking about his garden or in Claverings park or going to and fro in\nLondon, in his club reading the ticker or in his hall reading the\nnewspaper, with ideas and impressions continually clustering, expanding,\ndeveloping more and more abundantly in his mind, arranging themselves,\nreacting upon one another, building themselves into generalisations and\nconclusions....\n\nAll Mr. Britling's mental existence was soon threaded on the war. His\nmore or less weekly _Times_ leader became dissertations upon the German\npoint of view; his reviews of books and Literary Supplement articles\nwere all oriented more and more exactly to that one supreme fact....\n\nIt was rare that he really seemed to be seeing the war; few people saw\nit; for most of the world it came as an illimitable multitude of\nincoherent, loud, and confusing impressions. But all the time he was at\nleast doing his utmost to see the war, to simplify it and extract the\nessence of it until it could be apprehended as something epic and\nexplicable, as a stateable issue....\n\nMost typical picture of all would be Mr. Britling writing in a little\ncircle of orange lamplight, with the blinds of his room open for the\nsake of the moonlight, but the window shut to keep out the moths that\nbeat against it. Outside would be the moon and the high summer sky and\nthe old church tower dim above the black trees half a mile away, with\nits clock--which Mr. Britling heard at night but never noted by\nday--beating its way round the slow semicircle of the nocturnal hours.\nHe had always hated conflict and destruction, and felt that war between\ncivilised states was the quintessential expression of human failure, it\nwas a stupidity that stopped progress and all the free variation of\nhumanity, a thousand times he had declared it impossible, but even now\nwith his country fighting he was still far from realising that this was\na thing that could possibly touch him more than intellectually. He did\nnot really believe with his eyes and finger-tips and backbone that\nmurder, destruction, and agony on a scale monstrous beyond precedent was\ngoing on in the same world as that which slumbered outside the black ivy\nand silver shining window-sill that framed his peaceful view.\n\nWar had not been a reality of the daily life of England for more than a\nthousand years. The mental habit of the nation for fifty generations was\nagainst its emotional recognition. The English were the spoilt children\nof peace. They had never been wholly at war for three hundred years, and\nfor over eight hundred years they had not fought for life against a\nforeign power. Spain and France had threatened in turn, but never even\ncrossed the seas. It is true that England had had her civil dissensions\nand had made wars and conquests in every part of the globe and\nestablished an immense empire, but that last, as Mr. Britling had told\nMr. Direck, was \"an excursion.\" She had just sent out younger sons and\nsurplus people, emigrants and expeditionary forces. Her own soil had\nnever seen any successful foreign invasion; her homeland, the bulk of\nher households, her general life, had gone on untouched by these things.\nNineteen people out of twenty, the middle class and most of the lower\nclass, knew no more of the empire than they did of the Argentine\nRepublic or the Italian Renaissance. It did not concern them. War that\ncalls upon every man and threatens every life in the land, war of the\nwhole national being, was a thing altogether outside English experience\nand the scope of the British imagination. It was still incredible, it\nwas still outside the range of Mr. Britling's thoughts all through the\ntremendous onrush and check of the German attack in the west that opened\nthe great war. Through those two months he was, as it were, a more and\nmore excited spectator at a show, a show like a baseball match, a\nspectator with money on the event, rather than a really participating\ncitizen of a nation thoroughly at war....\n\n\nSection 13\n\nAfter the jolt of the food panic and a brief, financial scare, the vast\ninertia of everyday life in England asserted itself. When the public\nwent to the banks for the new paper money, the banks tendered\ngold--apologetically. The supply of the new notes was very insufficient,\nand there was plenty of gold. After the first impression that a\nuniversal catastrophe had happened there was an effect as if nothing had\nhappened.\n\nShops re-opened after the Bank Holiday, in a tentative spirit that\nspeedily became assurance; people went about their business again, and\nthe war, so far as the mass of British folk were concerned, was for some\nweeks a fever of the mind and intelligence rather than a physical and\npersonal actuality. There was a keen demand for news, and for a time\nthere was very little news. The press did its best to cope with this\nimmense occasion. Led by the _Daily Express_, all the halfpenny\nnewspapers adopted a new and more resonant sort of headline, the\nstreamer, a band of emphatic type that ran clean across the page and\nannounced victories or disconcerting happenings. They did this every\nday, whether there was a great battle or the loss of a trawler to\nannounce, and the public mind speedily adapted itself to the new pitch.\n\nThere was no invitation from the government and no organisation for any\ngeneral participation in war. People talked unrestrictedly; every one\nseemed to be talking; they waved flags and displayed much vague\nwillingness to do something. Any opportunity of service was taken very\neagerly. Lord Kitchener was understood to have demanded five hundred\nthousand men; the War Office arrangements for recruiting, arrangements\nconceived on a scale altogether too small, were speedily overwhelmed by\na rush of willing young men. The flow had to be checked by raising the\nphysical standard far above the national average, and recruiting died\ndown to manageable proportions. There was a quite genuine belief that\nthe war might easily be too exclusively considered; that for the great\nmass of people it was a disturbing and distracting rather than a vital\ninterest. The phase \"Business as Usual\" ran about the world, and the\npapers abounded in articles in which going on as though there was no war\nat all was demonstrated to be the truest form of patriotism. \"Leave\nthings to Kitchener\" was another watchword with a strong appeal to the\nnational quality. \"Business as usual during Alterations to the Map of\nEurope\" was the advertisement of one cheerful barber, widely quoted....\n\nHugh was at home all through August. He had thrown up his rooms in\nLondon with his artistic ambitions, and his father was making all the\nnecessary arrangements for him to follow Cardinal to Cambridge.\nMeanwhile Hugh was taking up his scientific work where he had laid it\ndown. He gave a reluctant couple of hours in the afternoon to the\nmysteries of Little-go Greek, and for the rest of his time he was either\nworking at mathematics and mathematical physics or experimenting in a\nlittle upstairs room that had been carved out of the general space of\nthe barn. It was only at the very end of August that it dawned upon him\nor Mr. Britling that the war might have more than a spectacular and\nsympathetic appeal for him. Hitherto contemporary history had happened\nwithout his personal intervention. He did not see why it should not\ncontinue to happen with the same detachment. The last elections--and a\ngeneral election is really the only point at which the life of the\nreasonable Englishman becomes in any way public--had happened four years\nago, when he was thirteen.\n\n\nSection 14\n\nFor a time it was believed in Matching's Easy that the German armies had\nbeen defeated and very largely destroyed at Liège. It was a mistake not\nconfined to Matching's Easy.\n\nThe first raiding attack was certainly repulsed with heavy losses, and\nso were the more systematic assaults on August the sixth and seventh.\nAfter that the news from Liège became uncertain, but it was believed in\nEngland that some or all of the forts were still holding out right up to\nthe German entry into Brussels. Meanwhile the French were pushing into\ntheir lost provinces, occupying Altkirch, Mulhausen and Saarburg; the\nRussians were invading Bukovina and East Prussia; the _Goeben_, the\n_Breslau_ and the _Panther_ had been sunk by the newspapers in an\nimaginary battle in the Mediterranean, and Togoland was captured by the\nFrench and British. Neither the force nor the magnitude of the German\nattack through Belgium was appreciated by the general mind, and it was\npossible for Mr. Britling to reiterate his fear that the war would be\nover too soon, long before the full measure of its possible benefits\ncould be secured. But these apprehensions were unfounded; the lessons\nthe war had in store for Mr. Britling were far more drastic than\nanything he was yet able to imagine even in his most exalted moods.\n\nHe resisted the intimations of the fall of Brussels and the appearance\nof the Germans at Dinant. The first real check to his excessive\nanticipations of victory for the Allies came with the sudden\nreappearance of Mr. Direck in a state of astonishment and dismay at\nMatching's Easy. He wired from the Strand office, \"Coming to tell you\nabout things,\" and arrived on the heels of his telegram.\n\nHe professed to be calling upon Mr. and Mrs. Britling, and to a certain\nextent he was; but he had a quick eye for the door or windows; his\nglance roved irrelevantly as he talked. A faint expectation of Cissie\ncame in with him and hovered about him, as the scent of violets follows\nthe flower.\n\nHe was, however, able to say quite a number of things before Mr.\nBritling's natural tendency to do the telling asserted itself.\n\n\"My word,\" said Mr. Direck, \"but this is _some_ war. It is going on\nregardless of every decent consideration. As an American citizen I\nnaturally expected to be treated with some respect, war or no war. That\nexpectation has not been realised.... Europe is dislocated.... You have\nno idea here yet how completely Europe is dislocated....\n\n\"I came to Europe in a perfectly friendly spirit--and I must say I am\nsurprised. Practically I have been thrown out, neck and crop. All my\nluggage is lost. Away at some one-horse junction near the Dutch frontier\nthat I can't even learn the name of. There's joy in some German home, I\nguess, over my shirts; they were real good shirts. This tweed suit I\nhave is all the wardrobe I've got in the world. All my money--good\nAmerican notes--well, they laughed at them. And when I produced English\ngold they suspected me of being English and put me under arrest.... I\ncan assure you that the English are most unpopular in Germany at the\npresent time, thoroughly unpopular.... Considering that they are getting\nexactly what they were asking for, these Germans are really remarkably\nannoyed.... Well, I had to get the American consul to advance me money,\nand I've done more waiting about and irregular fasting and travelling on\nan empty stomach and viewing the world, so far as it was permitted, from\nrailway sidings--for usually they made us pull the blinds down when\nanything important was on the track--than any cow that ever came to\nChicago.... I was handed as freight--low grade freight.... It doesn't\nbear recalling.\"\n\nMr. Direck assumed as grave and gloomy an expression as the facial\nhabits of years would permit.\n\n\"I tell you I never knew there was such a thing as war until this\nhappened to me. In America we don't know there is such a thing. It's\nlike pestilence and famine; something in the story books. We've\nforgotten it for anything real. There's just a few grandfathers go\naround talking about it. Judge Holmes and sage old fellows like him.\nOtherwise it's just a game the kids play at.... And then suddenly here's\neverybody running about in the streets--hating and threatening--and nice\nold gentlemen with white moustaches and fathers of families scheming and\nplanning to burn houses and kill and hurt and terrify. And nice young\nwomen, too, looking for an Englishman to spit at; I tell you I've been\nwithin range and very uncomfortable several times.... And what one can't\nbelieve is that they are really doing these things. There's a little\nvillage called Visé near the Dutch frontier; some old chap got fooling\nthere with a fowling-piece; and they've wiped it out. Shot the people by\nthe dozen, put them out in rows three deep and shot them, and burnt the\nplace. Short of scalping, Red Indians couldn't have done worse.\nRespectable German soldiers....\n\n\"No one in England really seems to have any suspicion what is going on\nin Belgium. You hear stories--People tell them in Holland. It takes your\nbreath away. They have set out just to cow those Belgians. They have\nstarted in to be deliberately frightful. You do not begin to\nunderstand.... Well.... Outrages. The sort of outrages Americans have\nnever heard of. That one doesn't speak of.... Well.... Rape.... They\nhave been raping women for disciplinary purposes on tables in the\nmarket-place of Liège. Yes, sir. It's a fact. I was told it by a man who\nhad just come out of Belgium. Knew the people, knew the place, knew\neverything. People over here do not seem to realise that those women are\nthe same sort of women that you might find in Chester or Yarmouth, or in\nMatching's Easy for the matter of that. They still seem to think that\nContinental women are a different sort of women--more amenable to that\nsort of treatment. They seem to think there is some special Providential\nlaw against such things happening to English people. And it's within\ntwo hundred miles of you--even now. And as far as I can see there's\nprecious little to prevent it coming nearer....\"\n\nMr. Britling thought there were a few little obstacles.\n\n\"I've seen the new British army drilling in London, Mr. Britling. I\ndon't know if you have. I saw a whole battalion. And they hadn't got\nhalf-a-dozen uniforms, and not a single rifle to the whole battalion.\n\n\"You don't begin to realise in England what you are up against. You have\nno idea what it means to be in a country where everybody, the women, the\nelderly people, the steady middle-aged men, are taking war as seriously\nas business. They haven't the slightest compunction. I don't know what\nGermany was like before the war, I had hardly gotten out of my train\nbefore the war began; but Germany to-day is one big armed camp. It's all\ncrawling with soldiers. And every soldier has his uniform and his boots\nand his arms and his kit.\n\n\"And they're as sure of winning as if they had got London now. They mean\nto get London. They're cocksure they are going to walk through Belgium,\ncocksure they will get to Paris by Sedan day, and then they are going to\ndestroy your fleet with Zeppelins and submarines and make a dash across\nthe Channel. They say it's England they are after, in this invasion of\nBelgium. They'll just down France by the way. They say they've got guns\nto bombard Dover from Calais. They make a boast of it. They know for\ncertain you can't arm your troops. They know you can't turn out ten\nthousand rifles a week. They come and talk to any one in the trains, and\nexplain just how your defeat is going to be managed. It's just as though\nthey were talking of rounding up cattle.\"\n\nMr. Britling said they would soon be disillusioned.\n\nMr. Direck, with the confidence of his authentic observations, remarked\nafter a perceptible interval, \"I wonder how.\"\n\nHe reverted to the fact that had most struck upon his imagination.\n\n\"Grown-up people, ordinary intelligent experienced people, taking war\nseriously, talking of punishing England; it's a revelation. A sort of\nsolemn enthusiasm. High and low....\n\n\"And the trainloads of men and the trainloads of guns....\"\n\n\"Liège,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Liège was just a scratch on the paint,\" said Mr. Direck. \"A few\nthousand dead, a few score thousand dead, doesn't matter--not a red cent\nto them. There's a man arrived at the Cecil who saw them marching into\nBrussels. He sat at table with me at lunch yesterday. All day it went\non, a vast unending river of men in grey. Endless waggons, endless guns,\nthe whole manhood of a nation and all its stuff, marching....\n\n\"I thought war,\" said Mr. Direck, \"was a thing when most people stood\nabout and did the shouting, and a sort of special team did the fighting.\nWell, Germany isn't fighting like that.... I confess it, I'm scared....\nIt's the very biggest thing on record; it's the very limit in wars.... I\ndreamt last night of a grey flood washing everything in front of it. You\nand me--and Miss Corner--curious thing, isn't it? that she came into\nit--were scrambling up a hill higher and higher, with that flood pouring\nafter us. Sort of splashing into a foam of faces and helmets and\nbayonets--and clutching hands--and red stuff.... Well, Mr. Britling, I\nadmit I'm a little bit overwrought about it, but I can assure you you\ndon't begin to realise in England what it is you've butted against....\"\n\n\nSection 15\n\nCissie did not come up to the Dower House that afternoon, and so Mr.\nDireck, after some vague and transparent excuses, made his way to the\ncottage.\n\nHere his report become even more impressive. Teddy sat on the writing\ndesk beside the typewriter and swung his legs slowly. Letty brooded in\nthe armchair. Cissie presided over certain limited crawling operations\nof the young heir.\n\n\"They could have the equal of the whole British Army killed three times\nover and scarcely know it had happened. They're _all_ in it. It's a\nwhole country in arms.\"\n\nTeddy nodded thoughtfully.\n\n\"There's our fleet,\" said Letty.\n\n\"Well, _that_ won't save Paris, will it?\"\n\nMr. Direck didn't, he declared, want to make disagreeable talk, but this\nwas a thing people in England had to face. He felt like one of them\nhimself--\"naturally.\" He'd sort of hurried home to them--it was just\nlike hurrying home--to tell them of the tremendous thing that was going\nto hit them. He felt like a man in front of a flood, a great grey flood.\nHe couldn't hide what he had been thinking. \"Where's our army?\" asked\nLetty suddenly.\n\n\"Lost somewhere in France,\" said Teddy. \"Like a needle in a bottle of\nhay.\"\n\n\"What I keep on worrying at is this,\" Mr. Direck resumed. \"Suppose they\ndid come, suppose somehow they scrambled over, sixty or seventy thousand\nmen perhaps.\"\n\n\"Every man would turn out and take a shot at them,\" said Letty.\n\n\"But there's no rifles!\"\n\n\"There's shot guns.\"\n\n\"That's exactly what I'm afraid of,\" said Mr. Direck. \"They'd\nmassacre....\n\n\"You may be the bravest people on earth,\" said Mr. Direck, \"but if you\nhaven't got arms and the other chaps have--you're just as if you were\nsheep.\"\n\nHe became gloomily pensive.\n\nHe roused himself to describe his experiences at some length, and the\nextraordinary disturbance of his mind. He related more particularly his\nattempts to see the sights of Cologne during the stir of mobilisation.\nAfter a time his narrative flow lost force, and there was a general\nfeeling that he ought to be left alone with Cissie. Teddy had a letter\nthat must be posted; Letty took the infant to crawl on the mossy stones\nunder the pear tree. Mr. Direck leant against the window-sill and became\nsilent for some moments after the door had closed on Letty.\n\n\"As for you, Cissie,\" he began at last, \"I'm anxious. I'm real anxious.\nI wish you'd let me throw the mantle of Old Glory over you.\"\n\nHe looked at her earnestly.\n\n\"Old Glory?\" asked Cissie.\n\n\"Well--the Stars and Stripes. I want you to be able to claim American\ncitizenship--in certain eventualities. It wouldn't be so very difficult.\nAll the world over, Cissie, Americans are respected.... Nobody dares\ntouch an American citizen. We are--an inviolate people.\"\n\nHe paused. \"But how?\" asked Cissie.\n\n\"It would be perfectly easy--perfectly.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Just marry an American citizen,\" said Mr. Direck, with his face beaming\nwith ingenuous self-approval. \"Then you'd be safe, and I'd not have to\nworry.\"\n\n\"Because we're in for a stiff war!\" cried Cissie, and Direck perceived\nhe had blundered.\n\n\"Because we may be invaded!\" she said, and Mr. Direck's sense of error\ndeepened.\n\n\"I vow--\" she began.\n\n\"No!\" cried Mr. Direck, and held out a hand.\n\nThere was a moment of crisis.\n\n\"Never will I desert my country--while she is at war,\" said Cissie,\nreducing her first fierce intention, and adding as though she regretted\nher concession, \"Anyhow.\"\n\n\"Then it's up to me to end the war, Cissie,\" said Mr. Direck, trying to\nget her back to a less spirited attitude.\n\nBut Cissie wasn't to be got back so easily. The war was already\nbeckoning to them in the cottage, and drawing them down from the\nauditorium into the arena.\n\n\"This is the rightest war in history,\" she said. \"If I was an American I\nshould be sorry to be one now and to have to stand out of it. I wish I\nwas a man now so that I could do something for all the decency and\ncivilisation the Germans have outraged. I can't understand how any man\ncan be content to keep out of this, and watch Belgium being destroyed.\nIt is like looking on at a murder. It is like watching a dog killing a\nkitten....\"\n\nMr. Direck's expression was that of a man who is suddenly shown strange\nlights upon the world.\n\n\nSection 16\n\nMr. Britling found Mr. Direck's talk very indigestible.\n\nHe was parting very reluctantly from his dream of a disastrous collapse\nof German imperialism, of a tremendous, decisive demonstration of the\ninherent unsoundness of militarist monarchy, to be followed by a world\nconference of chastened but hopeful nations, and--the Millennium. He\ntried now to think that Mr. Direck had observed badly and misconceived\nwhat he saw. An American, unused to any sort of military occurrences,\nmight easily mistake tens of thousands for millions, and the excitement\nof a few commercial travellers for the enthusiasm of a united people.\nBut the newspapers now, with a kindred reluctance, were beginning to\nqualify, bit by bit, their first representation of the German attack\nthrough Belgium as a vast and already partly thwarted parade of\nincompetence. The Germans, he gathered, were being continually beaten in\nBelgium; but just as continually they advanced. Each fresh newspaper\nname he looked up on the map marked an oncoming tide. Alost--Charleroi.\nFarther east the French were retreating from the Saales Pass. Surely the\nBritish, who had now been in France for a fortnight, would presently be\nmanifest, stemming the onrush; somewhere perhaps in Brabant or East\nFlanders. It gave Mr. Britling an unpleasant night to hear at Claverings\nthat the French were very ill-equipped; had no good modern guns either\nat Lille or Maubeuge, were short of boots and equipment generally, and\nrather depressed already at the trend of things. Mr. Britling dismissed\nthis as pessimistic talk, and built his hopes on the still invisible\nBritish army, hovering somewhere--\n\nHe would sit over the map of Belgium, choosing where he would prefer to\nhave the British hover....\n\nNamur fell. The place names continued to shift southward and westward.\nThe British army or a part of it came to light abruptly at Mons. It had\nbeen fighting for thirty-eight hours and defeating enormously superior\nforces of the enemy. That was reassuring until a day or so later \"the\nCambray--Le Cateau line\" made Mr. Britling realise that the victorious\nBritish had recoiled five and twenty miles....\n\nAnd then came the Sunday of _The Times_ telegram, which spoke of a\n\"retreating and a broken army.\" Mr. Britling did not see this, but Mr.\nManning brought over the report of it in a state of profound\nconsternation. Things, he said, seemed to be about as bad as they could\nbe. The English were retreating towards the coast and in much disorder.\nThey were \"in the air\" and already separated from the Trench. They had\nnarrowly escaped \"a Sedan\" under the fortifications of Maubeuge.... Mr.\nBritling was stunned. He went to his study and stared helplessly at\nmaps. It was as if David had flung his pebble--and missed!\n\nBut in the afternoon Mr. Manning telephoned to comfort his friend. A\nreassuring despatch from General French had been published and--all was\nwell--practically--and the British had been splendid. They had been\nfighting continuously for several days round and about Mons; they had\nbeen attacked at odds of six to one, and they had repulsed and\ninflicted enormous losses on the enemy. They had established an\nincontestable personal superiority over the Germans. The Germans had\nbeen mown down in heaps; the British had charged through their cavalry\nlike charging through paper. So at last and very gloriously for the\nBritish, British and German had met in battle. After the hard fighting\nof the 26th about Landrecies, the British had been comparatively\nunmolested, reinforcements covering double the losses had joined them\nand the German advance was definitely checked ... Mr. Britling's mind\nswung back to elation. He took down the entire despatch from Mr.\nManning's dictation, and ran out with it into the garden where Mrs.\nBritling, with an unwonted expression of anxiety, was presiding over the\nteas of the usual casual Sunday gathering.... The despatch was read\naloud twice over. After that there was hockey and high spirits, and then\nMr. Britling went up to his study to answer a letter from Mrs.\nHarrowdean, the first letter that had come from her since their breach\nat the outbreak of the war, and which he was now in a better mood to\nanswer than he had been hitherto.\n\nShe had written ignoring his silence and absence, or rather treating it\nas if it were an incident of no particular importance. Apparently she\nhad not called upon the patient and devoted Oliver as she had\nthreatened; at any rate, there were no signs of Oliver in her\ncommunication. But she reproached Mr. Britling for deserting her, and\nshe clamoured for his presence and for kind and strengthening words. She\nwas, she said, scared by this war. She was only a little thing, and it\nwas all too dreadful, and there was not a soul in the world to hold her\nhand, at least no one who understood in the slightest degree how she\nfelt. (But why was not Oliver holding her hand?) She was like a child\nleft alone in the dark. It was perfectly horrible the way that people\nwere being kept in the dark. The stories one heard, \"_often from quite\ntrustworthy sources_,\" were enough to depress and terrify any one.\nBattleship after battleship had been sunk by German torpedoes, a thing\nkept secret from us for no earthly reason, and Prince Louis of\nBattenberg had been discovered to be a spy and had been sent to the\nTower. Haldane too was a spy. Our army in France had been \"practically\n_sold_\" by the French. Almost all the French generals were in German\npay. The censorship and the press were keeping all this back, but what\ngood was it to keep it back? It was folly not to trust people! But it\nwas all too dreadful for a poor little soul whose only desire was to\nlive happily. Why didn't he come along to her and make her feel she had\nprotecting arms round her? She couldn't think in the daytime: she\ncouldn't sleep at night....\n\nThen she broke away into the praises of serenity. Never had she thought\nso much of his beautiful \"Silent Places\" as she did now. How she longed\nto take refuge in some such dreamland from violence and treachery and\nfoolish rumours! She was weary of every reality. She wanted to fly away\ninto some secret hiding-place and cultivate her simple garden there--as\nVoltaire had done.... Sometimes at night she was afraid to undress. She\nimagined the sound of guns, she imagined landings and frightful scouts\n\"in masks\" rushing inland on motor bicycles....\n\nIt was an ill-timed letter. The nonsense about Prince Louis of\nBattenberg and Lord Haldane and the torpedoed battleships annoyed him\nextravagantly. He had just sufficient disposition to believe such tales\nas to find their importunity exasperating. The idea of going over to\nPyecrafts to spend his days in comforting a timid little dear obsessed\nby such fears, attracted him not at all. He had already heard enough\nadverse rumours at Claverings to make him thoroughly uncomfortable. He\nhad been doubting whether after all his \"Examination of War\" was really\nmuch less of a futility than \"And Now War Ends\"; his mind was full of a\nsense of incomplete statements and unsubstantial arguments. He was\nindeed in a state of extreme intellectual worry. He was moreover\nextraordinarily out of love with Mrs. Harrowdean. Never had any\naffection in the whole history of Mr. Britling's heart collapsed so\nswiftly and completely. He was left incredulous of ever having cared for\nher at all. Probably he hadn't. Probably the whole business had been\ndeliberate illusion from first to last. The \"dear little thing\"\nbusiness, he felt, was all very well as a game of petting, but times\nwere serious now, and a woman of her intelligence should do something\nbetter than wallow in fears and elaborate a winsome feebleness. A very\nunnecessary and tiresome feebleness. He came almost to the pitch of\nwriting that to her.\n\nThe despatch from General French put him into a kindlier frame of mind.\nHe wrote instead briefly but affectionately. As a gentleman should. \"How\ncould you doubt our fleet or our army?\" was the gist of his letter. He\nignored completely every suggestion of a visit to Pyecrafts that her\nletter had conveyed. He pretended that it had contained nothing of the\nsort.... And with that she passed out of his mind again under the stress\nof more commanding interests....\n\nMr. Britling's mood of relief did not last through the week. The\ndefeated Germans continued to advance. Through a week of deepening\ndisillusionment the main tide of battle rolled back steadily towards\nParis. Lille was lost without a struggle. It was lost with mysterious\nease.... The next name to startle Mr. Britling as he sat with newspaper\nand atlas following these great events was Compiègne. \"Here!\" Manifestly\nthe British were still in retreat. Then the Germans were in possession\nof Laon and Rheims and still pressing south. Maubeuge surrounded and cut\noff for some days, had apparently fallen....\n\nIt was on Sunday, September the sixth, that the final capitulation of\nMr. Britling's facile optimism occurred.\n\nHe stood in the sunshine reading the _Observer_ which the gardener's boy\nhad just brought from the May Tree. He had spread it open on a garden\ntable under the blue cedar, and father and son were both reading it,\neach as much as the other would let him. There was fresh news from\nFrance, a story of further German advances, fighting at Senlis--\"But\nthat is quite close to Paris!\"--and the appearance of German forces at\nNogent-sur-Seine. \"Sur Seine!\" cried Mr. Britling. \"But where can that\nbe? South of the Marne? Or below Paris perhaps?\"\n\nIt was not marked upon the _Observer's_ map, and Hugh ran into the house\nfor the atlas.\n\nWhen he returned Mr. Manning was with his father, and they both looked\ngrave.\n\nHugh opened the map of northern France. \"Here it is,\" he said.\n\nMr. Britling considered the position.\n\n\"Manning says they are at Rouen,\" he told Hugh. \"Our base is to be moved\nround to La Rochelle....\"\n\nHe paused before the last distasteful conclusion.\n\n\"Practically,\" he admitted, taking his dose, \"they have got Paris. It is\nalmost surrounded now.\"\n\nHe sat down to the map. Mr. Manning and Hugh stood regarding him. He\nmade a last effort to imagine some tremendous strategic reversal, some\nstone from an unexpected sling that should fell this Goliath in the\nmidst of his triumph.\n\n\"Russia,\" he said, without any genuine hope....\n\n\nSection 17\n\nAnd then it was that Mr. Britling accepted the truth.\n\n\"One talks,\" he said, \"and then weeks and months later one learns the\nmeaning of the things one has been saying. I was saying a month ago that\nthis is the biggest thing that has happened in history. I said that\nthis was the supreme call upon the will and resources of England. I\nsaid there was not a life in all our empire that would not be vitally\nchanged by this war. I said all these things; they came through my\nmouth; I suppose there was a sort of thought behind them.... Only at\nthis moment do I understand what it is that I said. Now--let me say it\nover as if I had never said it before; this _is_ the biggest thing in\nhistory, that we _are_ all called upon to do our utmost to resist this\ntremendous attack upon the peace and freedom of the world. Well, doing\nour utmost does not mean standing about in pleasant gardens waiting for\nthe newspaper.... It means the abandonment of ease and security....\n\n\"How lazy we English are nowadays! How readily we grasp the comforting\ndelusion that excuses us from exertion. For the last three weeks I have\nbeen deliberately believing that a little British army--they say it is\nscarcely a hundred thousand men--would somehow break this rush of\nmillions. But it has been driven back, as any one not in love with easy\ndreams might have known it would be driven back--here and then here and\nthen here. It has been fighting night and day. It has made the most\nsplendid fight--and the most ineffectual fight.... You see the vast\nswing of the German flail through Belgium. And meanwhile we have been\nstanding about talking of the use we would make of our victory....\n\n\"We have been asleep,\" he said. \"This country has been asleep....\n\n\"At the back of our minds,\" he went on bitterly, \"I suppose we thought\nthe French would do the heavy work on land--while we stood by at sea. So\nfar as we thought at all. We're so temperate-minded; we're so full of\nqualifications and discretions.... And so leisurely.... Well, France is\ndown. We've got to fight for France now over the ruins of Paris. Because\nyou and I, Manning, didn't grasp the scale of it, because we indulged in\ngeneralisations when we ought to have been drilling and working.\nBecause we've been doing 'business as usual' and all the rest of that\nsort of thing, while Western civilisation has been in its death agony.\nIf this is to be another '71, on a larger scale and against not merely\nFrance but all Europe, if Prussianism is to walk rough-shod over\ncivilisation, if France is to be crushed and Belgium murdered, then life\nis not worth having. Compared with such an issue as that no other issue,\nno other interest matters. Yet what are we doing to decide it--you and\nI? How can it end in anything but a German triumph if you and I, by the\nmillion, stand by....\"\n\nHe paused despairfully and stared at the map.\n\n\"What ought we to be doing?\" asked Mr. Manning.\n\n\"Every man ought to be in training,\" said Mr. Britling. \"Every one ought\nto be participating.... In some way.... At any rate we ought not to be\ntaking our ease at Matching's Easy any more....\"\n\n\nSection 18\n\n\"It interrupts everything,\" said Hugh suddenly. \"These Prussians are the\nbiggest nuisance the world has ever seen.\"\n\nHe considered. \"It's like every one having to run out because the house\ncatches fire. But of course we have to beat them. It has to be done. And\nevery one has to take a share.\n\n\"Then we can get on with our work again.\"\n\nMr. Britling turned his eyes to his eldest son with a startled\nexpression. He had been speaking--generally. For the moment he had\nforgotten Hugh.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND\n\nTAKING PART\n\n\nSection 1\n\nThere were now two chief things in the mind of Mr. Britling. One was a\nlarge and valiant thing, a thing of heroic and processional quality, the\nidea of taking up one's share in the great conflict, of leaving the\nDower House and its circle of habits and activities and going out--.\nFrom that point he wasn't quite sure where he was to go, nor exactly\nwhat he meant to do. His imagination inclined to the figure of a\nvolunteer in an improvised uniform inflicting great damage upon a\nraiding invader from behind a hedge. The uniform, one presumes, would\nhave been something in the vein of the costume in which he met Mr.\nDireck. With a \"brassard.\" Or he thought of himself as working at a\ntelephone or in an office engaged upon any useful quasi-administrative\nwork that called for intelligence rather than training. Still, of\ncourse, with a \"brassard.\" A month ago he would have had doubts about\nthe meaning of \"brassard\"; now it seemed to be the very keyword for\nnational organisation. He had started for London by the early train on\nMonday morning with the intention of immediate enrolment in any such\nservice that offered; of getting, in fact, into his brassard at once.\nThe morning papers he bought at the station dashed his conviction of the\ninevitable fall of Paris into hopeful doubts, but did not shake his\nresolution. The effect of rout and pursuit and retreat and retreat and\nretreat had disappeared from the news. The German right was being\ncounter-attacked, and seemed in danger of getting pinched between Paris\nand Verdun with the British on its flank. This relieved his mind, but\nit did nothing to modify his new realisation of the tremendous gravity\nof the war. Even if the enemy were held and repulsed a little there was\nstill work for every man in the task of forcing them back upon their own\ncountry. This war was an immense thing, it would touch everybody....\nThat meant that every man must give himself. That he had to give\nhimself. He must let nothing stand between him and that clear\nunderstanding. It was utterly shameful now to hold back and not to do\none's utmost for civilisation, for England, for all the ease and safety\none had been given--against these drilled, commanded, obsessed millions.\n\nMr. Britling was a flame of exalted voluntaryism, of patriotic devotion,\nthat day.\n\nBut behind all this bravery was the other thing, the second thing in the\nmind of Mr. Britling, a fear. He was prepared now to spread himself like\nsome valiant turkey-gobbler, every feather at its utmost, against the\naggressor. He was prepared to go out and flourish bayonets, march and\ndig to the limit of his power, shoot, die in a ditch if needful, rather\nthan permit German militarism to dominate the world. He had no fear for\nhimself. He was prepared to perish upon the battlefield or cut a valiant\nfigure in the military hospital. But what he perceived very clearly and\ndid his utmost not to perceive was this qualifying and discouraging\nfact, that the war monster was not nearly so disposed to meet him as he\nwas to meet the war, and that its eyes were fixed on something beside\nand behind him, that it was already only too evidently stretching out a\nlong and shadowy arm past him towards Teddy--and towards Hugh....\n\nThe young are the food of war....\n\nTeddy wasn't Mr. Britling's business anyhow. Teddy must do as he thought\nproper. Mr. Britling would not even advise upon that. And as for Hugh--\n\nMr. Britling did his best to brazen it out.\n\n\"My eldest boy is barely seventeen,\" he said. \"He's keen to go, and I'd\nbe sorry if he wasn't. He'll get into some cadet corps of course--he's\nalready done something of that kind at school. Or they'll take him into\nthe Territorials. But before he's nineteen everything will be over, one\nway or another. I'm afraid, poor chap, he'll feel sold....\"\n\nAnd having thrust Hugh safely into the background of his mind\nas--juvenile, doing a juvenile share, no sort of man yet--Mr. Britling\ncould give a free rein to his generous imaginations of a national\nuprising. From the idea of a universal participation in the struggle he\npassed by an easy transition to an anticipation of all Britain armed and\ngravely embattled. Across gulfs of obstinate reality. He himself was\nprepared to say, and accordingly he felt that the great mass of the\nBritish must be prepared to say to the government: \"Here we are at your\ndisposal. This is not a diplomatists' war nor a War Office war; this is\na war of the whole people. We are all willing and ready to lay aside our\nusual occupations and offer our property and ourselves. Whim and\nindividual action are for peace times. Take us and use us as you think\nfit. Take all we possess.\" When he thought of the government in this\nway, he forgot the governing class he knew. The slack-trousered Raeburn,\nthe prim, attentive Philbert, Lady Frensham at the top of her voice,\nstern, preposterous Carson, boozy Bandershoot and artful Taper, wily\nAsquith, the eloquent yet unsubstantial George, and the immobile Grey,\nvanished out of his mind; all those representative exponents of the way\nthings are done in Great Britain faded in the glow of his imaginative\neffort; he forgot the dreary debates, the floundering newspapers, the\n\"bluffs,\" the intrigues, the sly bargains of the week-end party, the\n\"schoolboy honour\" of grown men, the universal weak dishonesty in\nthinking; he thought simply of a simplified and ideal government that\ngoverned. He thought vaguely of something behind and beyond them,\nEngland, the ruling genius of the land; something with a dignified\nassurance and a stable will. He imagined this shadowy ruler miraculously\nprovided with schemes and statistics against this supreme occasion which\nhad for so many years been the most conspicuous probability before the\ncountry. His mind leaping forwards to the conception of a great nation\nreluctantly turning its vast resources to the prosecution of a righteous\ndefensive war, filled in the obvious corollaries of plan and\ncalculation. He thought that somewhere \"up there\" there must be people\nwho could count and who had counted everything that we might need for\nsuch a struggle, and organisers who had schemed and estimated down to\npracticable and manageable details....\n\nSuch lapses from knowledge to faith are perhaps necessary that human\nheroism may be possible....\n\nHis conception of his own share in the great national uprising was a\nvery modest one. He was a writer, a footnote to reality; he had no trick\nof command over men, his rôle was observation rather than organisation,\nand he saw himself only as an insignificant individual dropping from his\nindividuality into his place in a great machine, taking a rifle in a\ntrench, guarding a bridge, filling a cartridge--just with a brassard or\nsomething like that on--until the great task was done. Sunday night was\nfull of imaginations of order, of the countryside standing up to its\ntask, of roads cleared and resources marshalled, of the petty interests\nof the private life altogether set aside. And mingling with that it was\nstill possible for Mr. Britling, he was still young enough, to produce\nsuch dreams of personal service, of sudden emergencies swiftly and\nbravely met, of conspicuous daring and exceptional rewards, such dreams\nas hover in the brains of every imaginative recruit....\n\nThe detailed story of Mr. Britling's two days' search for some easy and\nconvenient ladder into the service of his threatened country would be a\nvoluminous one. It would begin with the figure of a neatly brushed\npatriot, with an intent expression upon his intelligent face, seated in\nthe Londonward train, reading the war news--the first comforting war\nnews for many days--and trying not to look as though his life was torn\nup by the roots and all his being aflame with devotion; and it would\nconclude after forty-eight hours of fuss, inquiry, talk, waiting,\ntelephoning, with the same gentleman, a little fagged and with a kind of\nweary apathy in his eyes, returning by the short cut from the station\nacross Claverings park to resume his connection with his abandoned\nroots. The essential process of the interval had been the correction of\nMr. Britling's temporary delusion that the government of the British\nEmpire is either intelligent, instructed, or wise.\n\nThe great \"Business as Usual\" phase was already passing away, and London\nwas in the full tide of recruiting enthusiasm. That tide was breaking\nagainst the most miserable arrangements for enlistment it is possible to\nimagine. Overtaxed and not very competent officers, whose one idea of\nbeing very efficient was to refuse civilian help and be very, very slow\nand circumspect and very dignified and overbearing, sat in dirty little\nrooms and snarled at this unheard-of England that pressed at door and\nwindow for enrolment. Outside every recruiting office crowds of men and\nyouths waited, leaning against walls, sitting upon the pavements, waited\nfor long hours, waiting to the end of the day and returning next\nmorning, without shelter, without food, many sick with hunger; men who\nhad hurried up from the country, men who had thrown up jobs of every\nkind, clerks, shopmen, anxious only to serve England and \"teach those\ndamned Germans a lesson.\" Between them and this object they had\ndiscovered a perplexing barrier; an inattention. As Mr. Britling made\nhis way by St. Martin's Church and across Trafalgar Square and marked\nthe weary accumulation of this magnificently patriotic stuff, he had his\nfirst inkling of the imaginative insufficiency of the War Office that\nhad been so suddenly called upon to organise victory. He was to be more\nfully informed when he reached his club.\n\nHis impression of the streets through which he passed was an impression\nof great unrest. There were noticeably fewer omnibuses and less road\ntraffic generally, but there was a quite unusual number of drifting\npedestrians. The current on the pavements was irritatingly sluggish.\nThere were more people standing about, and fewer going upon their\nbusiness. This was particularly the case with the women he saw. Many of\nthem seemed to have drifted in from the suburbs and outskirts of London\nin a state of vague expectation, unable to stay in their homes.\n\nEverywhere there were the flags of the Allies; in shop windows, over\ndoors, on the bonnets of automobiles, on people's breasts, and there was\na great quantity of recruiting posters on the hoardings and in windows:\n\"Your King and Country Need You\" was the chief text, and they still\ncalled for \"A Hundred Thousand Men\" although the demand of Lord\nKitchener had risen to half a million. There were also placards calling\nfor men on nearly all the taxicabs. The big windows of the offices of\nthe Norddeutscher Lloyd in Cockspur Street were boarded up, and\nplastered thickly with recruiting appeals.\n\nAt his club Mr. Britling found much talk and belligerent stir. In the\nhall Wilkins the author was displaying a dummy rifle of bent iron rod to\nseveral interested members. It was to be used for drilling until rifles\ncould be got, and it could be made for eighteen pence. This was the\nfirst intimation Mr. Britling got that the want of foresight of the War\nOffice only began with its unpreparedness for recruits. Men were talking\nvery freely in the club; one of the temporary effects of the war in its\nearlier stages was to produce a partial thaw in the constitutional\nBritish shyness; and men who had glowered at Mr. Britling over their\nlunches and had been glowered at by Mr. Britling in silence for years\nnow started conversations with him.\n\n\"What is a man of my sort to do?\" asked a clean-shaven barrister.\n\n\"Exactly what I have been asking,\" said Mr. Britling. \"They are fixing\nthe upward age for recruits at thirty; it's absurdly low. A man well\nover forty like myself is quite fit to line a trench or guard a bridge.\nI'm not so bad a shot....\"\n\n\"We've been discussing home defence volunteers,\" said the barrister.\n\"Anyhow we ought to be drilling. But the War Office sets its face as\nsternly against our doing anything of the sort as though we were going\nto join the Germans. It's absurd. Even if we older men aren't fit to go\nabroad, we could at least release troops who could.\"\n\n\"If you had the rifles,\" said a sharp-featured man in grey to the right\nof Mr. Britling.\n\n\"I suppose they are to be got,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\nThe sharp-featured man indicated by appropriate facial action and\nhead-shaking that this was by no means the case.\n\n\"Every dead man, many wounded men, most prisoners,\" he said, \"mean each\none a rifle lost. We have lost five-and-twenty thousand rifles alone\nsince the war began. Quite apart from arming new troops we have to\nreplace those rifles with the drafts we send out. Do you know what is\nthe maximum weekly output of rifles at the present time in this\ncountry?\"\n\nMr. Britling did not know.\n\n\"Nine thousand.\"\n\nMr. Britling suddenly understood the significance of Wilkins and his\ndummy gun.\n\nThe sharp-featured man added with an air of concluding the matter: \"It's\nthe barrels are the trouble. Complicated machinery. We haven't got it\nand we can't make it in a hurry. And there you are!\"\n\nThe sharp-featured man had a way of speaking almost as if he was\nthrowing bombs. He threw one now. \"Zinc,\" he said.\n\n\"We're not short of zinc?\" said the lawyer.\n\nThe sharp-featured man nodded, and then became explicit.\n\nZinc was necessary for cartridges; it had to be refined zinc and very\npure, or the shooting went wrong. Well, we had let the refining business\ndrift away from England to Belgium and Germany. There were just one or\ntwo British firms still left.... Unless we bucked up tremendously we\nshould get caught short of cartridges.... At any rate of cartridges so\nmade as to ensure good shooting. \"And there you are!\" said the\nsharp-featured man.\n\nBut the sharp-featured man did not at that time represent any\nconsiderable section of public thought. \"I suppose after all we can get\nrifles from America,\" said the lawyer. \"And as for zinc, if the shortage\nis known the shortage will be provided for....\"\n\nThe prevailing topic in the smoking-room upstairs was the inability of\nthe War Office to deal with the flood of recruits that was pouring in,\nand its hostility to any such volunteering as Mr. Britling had in mind.\nQuite a number of members wanted to volunteer; there was much talk of\ntheir fitness; \"I'm fifty-four,\" said one, \"and I could do my\ntwenty-five miles in marching kit far better than half those boys of\nnineteen.\" Another was thirty-eight. \"I must hold the business\ntogether,\" he said; \"but why anyhow shouldn't I learn to shoot and use a\nbayonet?\" The personal pique of the rejected lent force to their\ncriticisms of the recruiting and general organisation. \"The War Office\nhas one incurable system,\" said a big mine-owner. \"During peace time it\nruns all its home administration with men who will certainly be wanted\nat the front directly there is a war. Directly war comes, therefore,\nthere is a shift all round, and a new untried man--usually a dug-out in\nan advanced state of decay--is stuck into the job. Chaos follows\nautomatically. The War Office always has done this, and so far as one\ncan see it always will. It seems incapable of realising that another\nman will be wanted until the first is taken away. Its imagination\ndoesn't even run to that.\"\n\nMr. Britling found a kindred spirit in Wilkins.\n\nWilkins was expounding his tremendous scheme for universal volunteering.\nEverybody was to be accepted. Everybody was to be assigned and\nregistered and--_badged_.\n\n\"A brassard,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"It doesn't matter whether we really produce a fighting force or not,\"\nsaid Wilkins. \"Everybody now is enthusiastic--and serious. Everybody is\nwilling to put on some kind of uniform and submit to some sort of\norders. And the thing to do is to catch them in the willing stage. Now\nis the time to get the country lined up and organised, ready to meet the\ninternal stresses that are bound to come later. But there's no\ndisposition whatever to welcome this universal offering. It's just as\nthough this war was a treat to which only the very select friends of the\nWar Office were to be admitted. And I don't admit that the national\nvolunteers would be ineffective--even from a military point of view.\nThere are plenty of fit men of our age, and men of proper age who are\nbetter employed at home--armament workers for example, and there are all\nthe boys under the age. They may not be under the age before things are\nover....\"\n\nHe was even prepared to plan uniforms.\n\n\"A brassard,\" repeated Mr. Britling, \"and perhaps coloured strips on the\nrevers of a coat.\"\n\n\"Colours for the counties,\" said Wilkins, \"and if there isn't coloured\ncloth to be got there's--red flannel. Anything is better than leaving\nthe mass of people to mob about....\"\n\nA momentary vision danced before Mr. Britling's eyes of red flannel\npetticoats being torn up in a rapid improvisation of soldiers to resist\na sudden invasion. Passing washerwomen suddenly requisitioned. But one\nmust not let oneself be laughed out of good intentions because of\nridiculous accessories. The idea at any rate was the sound one....\n\nThe vision of what ought to be done shone brightly while Mr. Britling\nand Mr. Wilkins maintained it. But presently under discouraging\nreminders that there were no rifles, no instructors, and, above all, the\nopen hostility of the established authorities, it faded again....\n\nAfterwards in other conversations Mr. Britling reverted to more modest\nambitions.\n\n\"Is there no clerical work, no minor administrative work, a man might be\nused for?\" he asked.\n\n\"Any old dug-out,\" said the man with the thin face, \"any old doddering\nColonel Newcome, is preferred to you in that matter....\"\n\nMr. Britling emerged from his club about half-past three with his mind\nrather dishevelled and with his private determination to do something\npromptly for his country's needs blunted by a perplexing \"How?\" His\nsearch for doors and ways where no doors and ways existed went on with a\ngathering sense of futility.\n\nHe had a ridiculous sense of pique at being left out, like a child shut\nout from a room in which a vitally interesting game is being played.\n\n\"After all, it is _our_ war,\" he said.\n\nHe caught the phrase as it dropped from his lips with a feeling that it\nsaid more than he intended. He turned it over and examined it, and the\nmore he did so the more he was convinced of its truth and soundness....\n\n\nSection 2\n\nBy night there was a new strangeness about London. The authorities were\ntrying to suppress the more brilliant illumination of the chief\nthoroughfares, on account of the possibility of an air raid. Shopkeepers\nwere being compelled to pull down their blinds, and many of the big\nstandard lights were unlit. Mr. Britling thought these precautions were\nvery fussy and unnecessary, and likely to lead to accidents amidst the\ntraffic. But it gave a Rembrandtesque quality to the London scene,\nturned it into mysterious arrangements of brown shadows and cones and\nbars of light. At first many people were recalcitrant, and here and\nthere a restaurant or a draper's window still blazed out and broke the\ngloom. There were also a number of insubordinate automobiles with big\nhead-lights. But the police were being unusually firm....\n\n\"It will all glitter again in a little time,\" he told himself.\n\nHe heard an old lady who was projecting from an offending automobile at\nPiccadilly Circus in hot dispute with a police officer. \"Zeppelins\nindeed!\" she said. \"What nonsense! As if they would _dare_ to come here!\nWho would _let_ them, I should like to know?\"\n\nProbably a friend of Lady Frensham's, he thought. Still--the idea of\nZeppelins over London did seem rather ridiculous to Mr. Britling. He\nwould not have liked to have been caught talking of it himself.... There\nnever had been Zeppelins over London. They were gas bags....\n\n\nSection 3\n\nOn Wednesday morning Mr. Britling returned to the Dower House, and he\nwas still a civilian unassigned.\n\nIn the hall he found a tall figure in khaki standing and reading _The\nTimes_ that usually lay upon the hall table. The figure turned at Mr.\nBritling's entry, and revealed the aquiline features of Mr. Lawrence\nCarmine. It was as if his friend had stolen a march on him.\n\nBut Carmine's face showed nothing of the excitement and patriotic\nsatisfaction that would have seemed natural to Mr. Britling. He was\nwhite and jaded, as if he had not slept for many nights. \"You see,\" he\nexplained almost apologetically of the three stars upon his sleeve, \"I\nused to be a captain of volunteers.\" He had been put in charge of a\nvolunteer force which had been re-embodied and entrusted with the care\nof the bridges, gasworks, factories and railway tunnels, and with a\nnumber of other minor but necessary duties round about Easinghampton.\n\"I've just got to shut up my house,\" said Captain Carmine, \"and go into\nlodgings. I confess I hate it.... But anyhow it can't last six\nmonths.... But it's beastly.... Ugh!...\"\n\nHe seemed disposed to expand that \"Ugh,\" and then thought better of it.\nAnd presently Mr. Britling took control of the conversation.\n\nHis two days in London had filled him with matter, and he was glad to\nhave something more than Hugh and Teddy and Mrs. Britling to talk it\nupon. What was happening now in Great Britain, he declared, was\n_adjustment_. It was an attempt on the part of a great unorganised\nnation, an attempt, instinctive at present rather than intelligent, to\nreadjust its government and particularly its military organisation to\nthe new scale of warfare that Germany had imposed upon the world. For\ntwo strenuous decades the British navy had been growing enormously under\nthe pressure of German naval preparations, but the British military\nestablishment had experienced no corresponding expansion. It was true\nthere had been a futile, rather foolishly conducted agitation for\nuniversal military service, but there had been no accumulation of\nmaterial, no preparation of armament-making machinery, no planning and\nno foundations for any sort of organisation that would have facilitated\nthe rapid expansion of the fighting forces of a country in a time of\ncrisis. Such an idea was absolutely antagonistic to the mental habits of\nthe British military caste. The German method of incorporating all the\nstrength and resources of the country into one national fighting machine\nwas quite strange to the British military mind--still. Even after a\nmonth of war. War had become the comprehensive business of the German\nnation; to the British it was an incidental adventure. In Germany the\nnation was militarised, in England the army was specialised. The nation\nfor nearly every practical purpose got along without it. Just as\npolitical life had also become specialised.... Now suddenly we wanted a\ngovernment to speak for every one, and an army of the whole people. How\nwere we to find it?\n\nMr. Britling dwelt upon this idea of the specialised character of the\nBritish army and navy and government. It seemed to him to be the clue to\neverything that was jarring in the London spectacle. The army had been a\nthing aloof, for a special end. It had developed all the characteristics\nof a caste. It had very high standards along the lines of its\nspecialisation, but it was inadaptable and conservative. Its\nexclusiveness was not so much a deliberate culture as a consequence of\nits detached function. It touched the ordinary social body chiefly\nthrough three other specialised bodies, the court, the church, and the\nstage. Apart from that it saw the great unofficial civilian world as\nsomething vague, something unsympathetic, something possibly\nantagonistic, which it comforted itself by snubbing when it dared and\ntricking when it could, something that projected members of Parliament\ntowards it and was stingy about money. Directly one grasped how apart\nthe army lived from the ordinary life of the community, from\nindustrialism or from economic necessities, directly one understood that\nthe great mass of Englishmen were simply \"outsiders\" to the War Office\nmind, just as they were \"outsiders\" to the political clique, one began\nto realise the complete unfitness of either government or War Office for\nthe conduct of so great a national effort as was now needed. These\npeople \"up there\" did not know anything of the broad mass of English\nlife at all, they did not know how or where things were made; when they\nwanted things they just went to a shop somewhere and got them. This was\nthe necessary psychology of a small army under a clique government.\nNothing else was to be expected. But now--somehow--the nation had to\ntake hold of the government that it had neglected so long....\n\n\"You see,\" said Mr. Britling, repeating a phrase that was becoming more\nand more essential to his thoughts, \"this is _our_ war....\n\n\"Of course,\" said Mr. Britling, \"these things are not going to be done\nwithout a conflict. We aren't going to take hold of our country which we\nhave neglected so long without a lot of internal friction. But in\nEngland we can make these readjustments without revolution. It is our\nstrength....\n\n\"At present England is confused--but it's a healthy confusion. It's\nastir. We have more things to defeat than just Germany....\n\n\"These hosts of recruits--weary, uncared for, besieging the recruiting\nstations. It's symbolical.... Our tremendous reserves of will and\nmanhood. Our almost incredible insufficiency of direction....\n\n\"Those people up there have no idea of the Will that surges up in\nEngland. They are timid little manoeuvring people, afraid of property,\nafraid of newspapers, afraid of trade-unions. They aren't leading us\nagainst the Germans; they are just being shoved against the Germans by\nnecessity....\"\n\nFrom this Mr. Britling broke away into a fresh addition to his already\nlarge collection of contrasts between England and Germany. Germany was a\nnation which has been swallowed up and incorporated by an army and an\nadministration; the Prussian military system had assimilated to itself\nthe whole German life. It was a State in a state of repletion, a State\nthat had swallowed all its people. Britain was not a State. It was an\nunincorporated people. The British army, the British War Office, and the\nBritish administration had assimilated nothing; they were little old\npartial things; the British nation lay outside them, beyond their\nunderstanding and tradition; a formless new thing, but a great thing;\nand now this British nation, this real nation, the \"outsiders,\" had to\ntake up arms. Suddenly all the underlying ideas of that outer, greater\nEnglish life beyond politics, beyond the services, were challenged, its\ntolerant good humour, its freedom, and its irresponsibility. It was not\nsimply English life that was threatened; it was all the latitudes of\ndemocracy, it was every liberal idea and every liberty. It was\ncivilisation in danger. The uncharted liberal system had been taken by\nthe throat; it had to \"make good\" or perish....\n\n\"I went up to London expecting to be told what to do. There is no one to\ntell any one what to do.... Much less is there any one to compel us what\nto do....\n\n\"There's a War Office like a college during a riot, with its doors and\nwindows barred; there's a government like a cockle boat in an Atlantic\ngale....\n\n\"One feels the thing ought to have come upon us like the sound of a\ntrumpet. Instead, until now, it has been like a great noise, that we\njust listened to, in the next house.... And now slowly the nation\nawakes. London is just like a dazed sleeper waking up out of a deep\nsleep to fire and danger, tumult and cries for help, near at hand. The\nstreets give you exactly that effect. People are looking about and\nlistening. One feels that at any moment, in a pause, in a silence, there\nmay come, from far away, over the houses, faint and little, the boom of\nguns or the small outcries of little French or Belgian villages in\nagony....\"\n\nSuch was the gist of Mr. Britling's discourse.\n\nHe did most of the table talk, and all that mattered. Teddy was an\nassenting voice, Hugh was silent and apparently a little inattentive,\nMrs. Britling was thinking of the courses and the servants and the boys,\nand giving her husband only half an ear, Captain Carmine said little and\nseemed to be troubled by some disagreeable preoccupation. Now and then\nhe would endorse or supplement the things Mr. Britling was saying.\nThrice he remarked: \"People still do not begin to understand.\"...\n\n\nSection 4\nIt was only when they sat together in the barn court out of the way of\nMrs. Britling and the children that Captain Carmine was able to explain\nhis listless bearing and jaded appearance. He was suffering from a bad\nnervous shock. He had hardly taken over his command before one of his\nmen had been killed--and killed in a manner that had left a scar upon\nhis mind.\n\nThe man had been guarding a tunnel, and he had been knocked down by one\ntrain when crossing the line behind another. So it was that the bomb of\nSarajevo killed its first victim in Essex. Captain Carmine had found the\nbody. He had found the body in a cloudy moonlight; he had almost fallen\nover it; and his sensations and emotions had been eminently\ndisagreeable. He had had to drag the body--it was very dreadfully\nmangled--off the permanent way, the damaged, almost severed head had\ntwisted about very horribly in the uncertain light, and afterwards he\nhad found his sleeves saturated with blood. He had not noted this at the\ntime, and when he had discovered it he had been sick. He had thought the\nwhole thing more horrible and hateful than any nightmare, but he had\nsucceeded in behaving with a sufficient practicality to set an example\nto his men. Since this had happened he had not had an hour of dreamless\nsleep.\n\n\"One doesn't expect to be called upon like that,\" said Captain Carmine,\n\"suddenly here in England.... When one is smoking after supper....\"\n\nMr. Britling listened to this experience with distressed brows. All his\ntalking and thinking became to him like the open page of a monthly\nmagazine. Across it this bloody smear, this thing of red and black, was\ndragged....\n\n\nSection 5\n\nThe smear was still bright red in Mr. Britling's thoughts when Teddy\ncame to him.\n\n\"I must go,\" said Teddy, \"I can't stop here any longer.\"\n\n\"Go where?\"\n\n\"Into khaki. I've been thinking of it ever since the war began. Do you\nremember what you said when we were bullying off at hockey on Bank\nHoliday--the day before war was declared?\"\n\nMr. Britling had forgotten completely; he made an effort. \"What did I\nsay?\"\n\n\"You said, 'What the devil are we doing at this hockey? We ought to be\ndrilling or shooting against those confounded Germans!' ... I've never\nforgotten it.... I ought to have done it before. I've been a\nscout-master. In a little while they will want officers. In London, I'm\ntold, there are a lot of officers' training corps putting men through\nthe work as quickly as possible.... If I could go....\"\n\n\"What does Letty think?\" said Mr. Britling after a pause. This was\nright, of course--the only right thing--and yet he was surprised.\n\n\"She says if you'd let her try to do my work for a time....\"\n\n\"She _wants_ you to go?\"\n\n\"Of course she does,\" said Teddy. \"She wouldn't like me to be a\nshirker.... But I can't unless you help.\"\n\n\"I'm quite ready to do that,\" said Mr. Britling. \"But somehow I didn't\nthink it of you. I hadn't somehow thought of _you_--\"\n\n\"What _did_ you think of me?\" asked Teddy.\n\n\"It's bringing the war home to us.... Of course you ought to go--if you\nwant to go.\"\n\nHe reflected. It was odd to find Teddy in this mood, strung up and\nserious and businesslike. He felt that in the past he had done Teddy\ninjustice; this young man wasn't as trivial as he had thought him....\n\nThey fell to discussing ways and means; there might have to be a loan\nfor Teddy's outfit, if he did presently secure a commission. And there\nwere one or two other little matters.... Mr. Britling dismissed a\nridiculous fancy that he was paying to send Teddy away to something that\nneither that young man nor Letty understood properly....\n\nThe next day Teddy vanished Londonward on his bicycle. He was going to\nlodge in London in order to be near his training. He was zealous. Never\nbefore had Teddy been zealous. Mrs. Teddy came to the Dower House for\nthe correspondence, trying not to look self-conscious and important.\n\nTwo Mondays later a very bright-eyed, excited little boy came running to\nMr. Britling, who was smoking after lunch in the rose garden. \"Daddy!\"\nsquealed the small boy. \"Teddy! In khaki!\"\n\nThe other junior Britling danced in front of the hero, who was walking\nbeside Mrs. Britling and trying not to be too aggressively a soldierly\nfigure. He looked a very man in khaki and more of a boy than ever. Mrs.\nTeddy came behind, quietly elated.\n\nMr. Britling had a recurrence of that same disagreeable fancy that these\nyoung people didn't know exactly what they were going into. He wished he\nwas in khaki himself; then he fancied this compunction wouldn't trouble\nhim quite so much.\n\nThe afternoon with them deepened his conviction that they really didn't\nin the slightest degree understand. Life had been so good to them\nhitherto, that even the idea of Teddy's going off to the war seemed a\nsort of fun to them. It was just a thing he was doing, a serious,\nseriously amusing, and very creditable thing. It involved his dressing\nup in these unusual clothes, and receiving salutes in the street....\nThey discussed every possible aspect of his military outlook with the\nzest of children, who recount the merits of a new game. They were\nputting Teddy through his stages at a tremendous pace. In quite a little\ntime he thought he would be given the chance of a commission.\n\n\"They want subalterns badly. Already they've taken nearly a third of our\npeople,\" he said, and added with the wistfulness of one who glances at\ninaccessible delights: \"one or two may get out to the front quite soon.\"\n\nHe spoke as a young actor might speak of a star part. And with a touch\nof the quality of one who longs to travel in strange lands.... One must\nbe patient. Things come at last....\n\n\"If I'm killed she gets eighty pounds a year,\" Teddy explained among\nmany other particulars.\n\nHe smiled--the smile of a confident immortal at this amusing idea.\n\n\"He's my little annuity,\" said Letty, also smiling, \"dead or alive.\"\n\n\"We'll miss Teddy in all sorts of ways,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"It's only for the duration of the war,\" said Teddy. \"And Letty's very\nintelligent. I've done my best to chasten the evil in her.\"\n\n\"If you think you're going to get back your job after the war,\" said\nLetty, \"you're very much mistaken. I'm going to raise the standard.\"\n\n\"_You_!\" said Teddy, regarding her coldly, and proceeded ostentatiously\nto talk of other things.\n\n\nSection 6\n\n\"Hugh's going to be in khaki too,\" the elder junior told Teddy. \"He's\ntoo young to go out in Kitchener's army, but he's joined the\nTerritorials. He went off on Thursday.... I wish Gilbert and me was\nolder....\"\n\nMr. Britling had known his son's purpose since the evening of Teddy's\nannouncement.\n\nHugh had come to his father's study as he was sitting musing at his\nwriting-desk over the important question whether he should continue his\n\"Examination of War\" uninterruptedly, or whether he should not put that\non one side for a time and set himself to state as clearly as possible\nthe not too generally recognised misfit between the will and strength of\nBritain on the one hand and her administrative and military organisation\non the other. He felt that an enormous amount of human enthusiasm and\nenergy was being refused and wasted; that if things went on as they were\ngoing there would continue to be a quite disastrous shortage of gear,\nand that some broadening change was needed immediately if the swift\nexemplary victory over Germany that his soul demanded was to be ensured.\nSuppose he were to write some noisy articles at once, an article, for\ninstance, to be called \"The War of the Mechanics\" or \"The War of Gear,\"\nand another on \"Without Civil Strength there is no Victory.\" If he wrote\nsuch things would they be noted or would they just vanish\nindistinguishably into the general mental tumult? Would they be audible\nand helpful shouts, or just waste of shouting?... That at least was what\nhe supposed himself to be thinking; it was, at any rate, the main\ncurrent of his thinking; but all the same, just outside the circle of\nhis attention a number of other things were dimly apprehended, bobbing\nup and down in the flood and ready at the slightest chance to swirl into\nthe centre of his thoughts. There was, for instance, Captain Carmine in\nthe moonlight lugging up a railway embankment something horrible,\nsomething loose and wet and warm that had very recently been a man.\nThere was Teddy, serious and patriotic--filling a futile penman with\nincredulous respect. There was the thin-faced man at the club, and a\ncurious satisfaction he had betrayed in the public disarrangement. And\nthere was Hugh. Particularly there was Hugh, silent but watchful. The\nboy never babbled. He had his mother's gift of deep dark silences. Out\nof which she was wont to flash, a Black Princess waving a sword. He\nwandered for a little while among memories.... But Hugh didn't come out\nlike that, though it always seemed possible he might--perhaps he didn't\ncome out because he was a son. Revelation to his father wasn't his\nbusiness.... What was he thinking of it all? What was he going to do?\nMr. Britling was acutely anxious that his son should volunteer; he was\nalmost certain that he would volunteer, but there was just a little\nshadow of doubt whether some extraordinary subtlety of mind mightn't\nhave carried the boy into a pacifist attitude. No! that was impossible.\nIn the face of Belgium.... But as greatly--and far more deeply in the\nwarm flesh of his being--did Mr. Britling desire that no harm, no evil\nshould happen to Hugh....\n\nThe door opened, and Hugh came in....\n\nMr. Britling glanced over his shoulder with an affectation of\nindifference. \"Hal-_lo!_\" he said. \"What do you want?\"\n\nHugh walked awkwardly to the hearthrug.\n\n\"Oh!\" he said in an off-hand tone; \"I suppose I've got to go soldiering\nfor a bit. I just thought--I'd rather like to go off with a man I know\nto-morrow....\"\n\nMr. Britling's manner remained casual.\n\n\"It's the only thing to do now, I'm afraid,\" he said.\n\nHe turned in his chair and regarded his son. \"What do you mean to do?\nO.T.C.?\"\n\n\"I don't think I should make much of an officer. I hate giving orders to\nother people. We thought we'd just go together into the Essex Regiment\nas privates....\"\n\nThere was a little pause. Both father and son had rehearsed this scene\nin their minds several times, and now they found that they had no use\nfor a number of sentences that had been most effective in these\nrehearsals. Mr. Britling scratched his cheek with the end of his pen.\n\"I'm glad you want to go, Hugh,\" he said.\n\n\"I _don't_ want to go,\" said Hugh with his hands deep in his pockets. \"I\nwant to go and work with Cardinal. But this job has to be done by every\none. Haven't you been saying as much all day?... It's like turning out\nto chase a burglar or suppress a mad dog. It's like necessary\nsanitation....\"\n\n\"You aren't attracted by soldiering?\"\n\n\"Not a bit. I won't pretend it, Daddy. I think the whole business is a\nbore. Germany seems to me now just like some heavy horrible dirty mass\nthat has fallen across Belgium and France. We've got to shove the stuff\nback again. That's all....\"\n\nHe volunteered some further remarks to his father's silence.\n\n\"You know I can't get up a bit of tootle about this business,\" he said.\n\"I think killing people or getting killed is a thoroughly nasty\nhabit.... I expect my share will be just drilling and fatigue duties and\nroute marches, and loafing here in England....\"\n\n\"You can't possibly go out for two years,\" said Mr. Britling, as if he\nregretted it.\n\nA slight hesitation appeared in Hugh's eyes. \"I suppose not,\" he said.\n\n\"Things ought to be over by then--anyhow,\" Mr. Britling added, betraying\nhis real feelings.\n\n\"So it's really just helping at the furthest end of the shove,\" Hugh\nendorsed, but still with that touch of reservation in his manner....\n\nThe pause had the effect of closing the theoretical side of the\nquestion. \"Where do you propose to enlist?\" said Mr. Britling, coming\ndown to practical details.\n\n\nSection 7\n\nThe battle of the Marne passed into the battle of the Aisne, and then\nthe long lines of the struggle streamed north-westward until the British\nwere back in Belgium failing to clutch Menin and then defending Ypres.\nThe elation of September followed the bedazzlement and dismay of August\ninto the chapter of forgotten moods; and Mr. Britling's sense of the\nmagnitude, the weight and duration of this war beyond all wars,\nincreased steadily. The feel of it was less and less a feeling of crisis\nand more and more a feeling of new conditions. It wasn't as it had\nseemed at first, the end of one human phase and the beginning of\nanother; it was in itself a phase. It was a new way of living. And still\nhe could find no real point of contact for himself with it all except\nthe point of his pen. Only at his writing-desk, and more particularly at\nnight, were the great presences of the conflict his. Yet he was always\ndesiring some more personal and physical participation.\n\nHugh came along one day in October in an ill-fitting uniform, looking\nalready coarser in fibre and with a nose scorched red by the autumnal\nsun. He said the life was rough, but it made him feel extraordinarily\nwell; perhaps man was made to toil until he dropped asleep from\nexhaustion, to fast for ten or twelve hours and then eat like a wolf. He\nwas acquiring a taste for Woodbine cigarettes, and a heady variety of\nmineral waters called Monsters. He feared promotion; he felt he could\nnever take the high line with other human beings demanded of a corporal.\nHe was still trying to read a little chemistry and crystallography, but\nit didn't \"go with the life.\" In the scanty leisure of a recruit in\ntraining it was more agreeable to lie about and write doggerel verses\nand draw caricatures of the men in one's platoon. Invited to choose what\nhe liked by his family, he demanded a large tuckbox such as he used to\nhave at school, only \"_much_ larger,\" and a big tin of insect powder.\nIt must be able to kill ticks....\n\nWhen he had gone, the craving for a personal share in the nation's\nphysical exertions became overpowering in Mr. Britling. He wanted, he\nfelt, to \"get his skin into it.\" He had decided that the volunteer\nmovement was a hopeless one. The War Office, after a stout resistance to\nany volunteer movement at all, decided to recognise it in such a manner\nas to make it ridiculous. The volunteers were to have no officers and no\nuniforms that could be remotely mistaken for those of the regulars, so\nthat in the event of an invasion the Germans would be able to tell what\nthey had to deal with miles away. Wilkins found his conception of a\nwhole nation, all enrolled, all listed and badged according to capacity,\nhis dream of every one falling into place in one great voluntary\nnational effort, treated as the childish dreaming of that most ignorant\nof all human types, a \"novelist.\" _Punch_ was delicately funny about\nhim; he was represented as wearing a preposterous cocked hat of his own\ndesign, designing cocked hats for every one. Wilkins was told to \"shut\nup\" in a multitude of anonymous letters, and publicly and privately to\n\"leave things to Kitchener.\" To bellow in loud clear tones \"leave things\nto Kitchener,\" and to depart for the theatre or the river or an\nautomobile tour, was felt very generally at that time to be the proper\nconduct for a patriot. There was a very general persuasion that to\nbecome a volunteer when one ought to be just modestly doing nothing at\nall, was in some obscure way a form of disloyalty....\n\nSo Mr. Britling was out of conceit with volunteering, and instead he\nwent and was duly sworn and entrusted with the badge of a special\nconstable. The duties of a special constable were chiefly not to\nunderstand what was going on in the military sphere, and to do what he\nwas told in the way of watching and warding conceivably vulnerable\npoints. He had also to be available in the event of civil disorder. Mr.\nBritling was provided with a truncheon and sent out to guard various\nculverts, bridges, and fords in the hilly country to the north-westward\nof Matching's Easy. It was never very clear to him what he would do if\nhe found a motor-car full of armed enemies engaged in undermining a\nculvert, or treacherously deepening some strategic ford. He supposed he\nwould either engage them in conversation, or hit them with his\ntruncheon, or perhaps do both things simultaneously. But as he really\ndid not believe for a moment that any human being was likely to tamper\nwith the telegraphs, telephones, ways and appliances committed to his\ncare, his uncertainty did not trouble him very much. He prowled the\nlonely lanes and paths in the darkness, and became better acquainted\nwith a multitude of intriguing little cries and noises that came from\nthe hedges and coverts at night. One night he rescued a young leveret\nfrom a stoat, who seemed more than half inclined to give him battle for\nits prey until he cowed and defeated it with the glare of his electric\ntorch....\n\nAs he prowled the countryside under the great hemisphere of Essex sky,\nor leant against fences or sat drowsily upon gates or sheltered from\nwind and rain under ricks or sheds, he had much time for meditation, and\nhis thoughts went down and down below his first surface impressions of\nthe war. He thought no longer of the rights and wrongs of this\nparticular conflict but of the underlying forces in mankind that made\nwar possible; he planned no more ingenious treaties and conventions\nbetween the nations, and instead he faced the deeper riddles of\nessential evil and of conceivable changes in the heart of man. And the\nrain assailed him and thorns tore him, and the soaked soft meadows\nbogged and betrayed his wandering feet, and the little underworld of the\nhedges and ditches hissed and squealed in the darkness and pursued and\nfled, and devoured or were slain.\n\nAnd one night in April he was perplexed by a commotion among the\npheasants and a barking of distant dogs, and then to his great\nastonishment he heard noises like a distant firework display and saw\nsomething like a phantom yellowish fountain-pen in the sky far away to\nthe east lit intermittently by a quivering search-light and going very\nswiftly. And after he had rubbed his eyes and looked again, he realised\nthat he was looking at a Zeppelin--a Zeppelin flying Londonward over\nEssex.\n\nAnd all that night was wonder....\n\n\nSection 8\n\nWhile Mr. Britling was trying to find his duty in the routine of a\nspecial constable, Mrs. Britling set to work with great energy to attend\nvarious classes and qualify herself for Red Cross work. And early in\nOctober came the great drive of the Germans towards Antwerp and the sea,\nthe great drive that was apparently designed to reach Calais, and which\nswept before it multitudes of Flemish refugees. There was an exodus of\nall classes from Antwerp into Holland and England, and then a huge\nprocess of depopulation in Flanders and the Pas de Calais. This flood\ncame to the eastern and southern parts of England and particularly to\nLondon, and there hastily improvised organisations distributed it to a\nnumber of local committees, each of which took a share of the refugees,\nhired and furnished unoccupied houses for the use of the penniless, and\nassisted those who had means into comfortable quarters. The Matching's\nEasy committee found itself with accommodation for sixty people, and\nwith a miscellaneous bag of thirty individuals entrusted to its care,\nwho had been part of the load of a little pirate steam-boat from Ostend.\nThere were two Flemish peasant families, and the rest were more or less\nmiddle-class refugees from Antwerp. They were brought from the station\nto the Tithe barn at Claverings, and there distributed, under the\npersonal supervision of Lady Homartyn and her agent, among those who\nwere prepared for their entertainment. There was something like\ncompetition among the would-be hosts; everybody was glad of the chance\nof \"doing something,\" and anxious to show these Belgians what England\nthought of their plucky little country. Mr. Britling was proud to lead\noff a Mr. Van der Pant, a neat little bearded man in a black tail-coat,\na black bowler hat, and a knitted muffler, with a large rucksack and a\nconspicuously foreign-looking bicycle, to the hospitalities of Dower\nHouse. Mr. Van der Pant had escaped from Antwerp at the eleventh hour,\nhe had caught a severe cold and, it would seem, lost his wife and family\nin the process; he had much to tell Mr. Britling, and in his zeal to\ntell it he did not at once discover that though Mr. Britling knew French\nquite well he did not know it very rapidly.\n\nThe dinner that night at the Dower House marked a distinct fresh step in\nthe approach of the Great War to the old habits and securities of\nMatching's Easy. The war had indeed filled every one's mind to the\nexclusion of all other topics since its very beginning; it had carried\noff Herr Heinrich to Germany, Teddy to London, and Hugh to Colchester,\nit had put a special brassard round Mr. Britling's arm and carried him\nout into the night, given Mrs. Britling several certificates, and\ninterrupted the frequent visits and gossip of Mr. Lawrence Carmine; but\nso far it had not established a direct contact between the life of\nMatching's Easy and the grim business of shot, shell, and bayonet at the\nfront. But now here was the Dower House accomplishing wonderful idioms\nin Anglo-French, and an animated guest telling them--sometimes one\nunderstood clearly and sometimes the meaning was clouded--of men blown\nto pieces under his eyes, of fragments of human beings lying about in\nthe streets; there was trouble over the expression _omoplate d'une\nfemme_, until one of the youngsters got the dictionary and found out it\nwas the shoulder-blade of a woman; of pools of blood--everywhere--and\nof flight in the darkness.\n\nMr. Van der Pant had been in charge of the dynamos at the Antwerp Power\nStation, he had been keeping the electrified wires in the entanglements\n\"alive,\" and he had stuck to his post until the German high explosives\nhad shattered his wires and rendered his dynamos useless. He gave vivid\nlittle pictures of the noises of the bombardment, of the dead lying\ncasually in the open spaces, of the failure of the German guns to hit\nthe bridge of boats across which the bulk of the defenders and refugees\nescaped. He produced a little tourist's map of the city of Antwerp, and\ndotted at it with a pencil-case. \"The--what do you call?--_obus_, ah,\nshells! fell, so and so and so.\" Across here he had fled on his\n_bécane_, and along here and here. He had carried off his rifle, and hid\nit with the rifles of various other Belgians between floor and ceiling\nof a house in Zeebrugge. He had found the pirate steamer in the harbour,\nits captain resolved to extract the uttermost fare out of every refugee\nhe took to London. When they were all aboard and started they found\nthere was no food except the hard ration biscuits of some Belgian\nsoldiers. They had portioned this out like shipwrecked people on a\nraft.... The _mer_ had been _calme_; thank Heaven! All night they had\nbeen pumping. He had helped with the pumps. But Mr. Van der Pant hoped\nstill to get a reckoning with the captain of that ship.\n\nMr. Van der Pant had had shots at various Zeppelins. When the Zeppelins\ncame to Antwerp everybody turned out on the roofs and shot at them. He\nwas contemptuous of Zeppelins. He made derisive gestures to express his\nopinion of them. They could do nothing unless they came low, and if they\ncame low you could hit them. One which ventured down had been riddled;\nit had had to drop all its bombs--luckily they fell in an open field--in\norder to make its lame escape. It was all nonsense to say, as the\nEnglish papers did, that they took part in the final bombardment. Not a\nZeppelin.... So he talked, and the Britling family listened and\nunderstood as much as they could, and replied and questioned in\nAnglo-French. Here was a man who but a few days ago had been steering\nhis bicycle in the streets of Antwerp to avoid shell craters, pools of\nblood, and the torn-off arms and shoulder-blades of women. He had seen\nhouses flaring, set afire by incendiary bombs, and once at a corner he\nhad been knocked off his bicycle by the pouff of a bursting shell....\nNot only were these things in the same world with us, they were sitting\nat our table.\n\nHe told one grim story of an invalid woman unable to move, lying in bed\nin her _appartement_, and of how her husband went out on the balcony to\nlook at the Zeppelin. There was a great noise of shooting. Ever and\nagain he would put his head back into the room and tell her things, and\nthen after a time he was silent and looked in no more. She called to\nhim, and called again. Becoming frightened, she raised herself by a\ngreat effort and peered through the glass. At first she was too puzzled\nto understand what had happened. He was hanging over the front of the\nbalcony, with his head twisted oddly. Twisted and shattered. He had been\nkilled by shrapnel fired from the outer fortifications....\n\nThese are the things that happen in histories and stories. They do not\nhappen at Matching's Easy....\n\nMr. Van der Pant did not seem to be angry with the Germans. But he\nmanifestly regarded them as people to be killed. He denounced nothing\nthat they had done; he related. They were just an evil accident that had\nhappened to Belgium and mankind. They had to be destroyed. He gave Mr.\nBritling an extraordinary persuasion that knives were being sharpened in\nevery cellar in Brussels and Antwerp against the day of inevitable\nretreat, of a resolution to exterminate the invader that was far too\ndeep to be vindictive.... And the man was most amazingly unconquered.\nMr. Britling perceived the label on his habitual dinner wine with a\nslight embarrassment. \"Do you care,\" he asked, \"to drink a German wine?\nThis is Berncasteler from the Moselle.\" Mr. Van der Pant reflected. \"But\nit is a good wine,\" he said. \"After the peace it will be Belgian....\nYes, if we are to be safe in the future from such a war as this, we must\nhave our boundaries right up to the Rhine.\"\n\nSo he sat and talked, flushed and, as it were, elated by the vividness\nof all that he had undergone. He had no trace of tragic quality, no hint\nof subjugation. But for his costume and his trimmed beard and his\nlanguage he might have been a Dubliner or a Cockney.\n\nHe was astonishingly cut off from all his belongings. His house in\nAntwerp was abandoned to the invader; valuables and cherished objects\nvery skilfully buried in the garden; he had no change of clothing except\nwhat the rucksack held. His only footwear were the boots he came in. He\ncould not get on any of the slippers in the house, they were all too\nsmall for him, until suddenly Mrs. Britling bethought herself of Herr\nHeinrich's pair, still left unpacked upstairs. She produced them, and\nthey fitted exactly. It seemed only poetical justice, a foretaste of\nnational compensations, to annex them to Belgium forthwith....\n\nAlso it became manifest that Mr. Van der Pant was cut off from all his\nfamily. And suddenly he became briskly critical of the English way of\ndoing things. His wife and child had preceded him to England, crossing\nby Ostend and Folkestone a fortnight ago; her parents had come in\nAugust; both groups had been seized upon by improvised British\norganisations and very thoroughly and completely lost. He had written to\nthe Belgian Embassy and they had referred him to a committee in London,\nand the committee had begun its services by discovering a Madame Van der\nPant hitherto unknown to him at Camberwell, and displaying a certain\nsuspicion and hostility when he said she would not do. There had been\nsome futile telegrams. \"What,\" asked Mr. Van der Pant, \"ought one to\ndo?\"\n\nMr. Britling temporised by saying he would \"make inquiries,\" and put Mr.\nVan der Pant off for two days. Then he decided to go up to London with\nhim and \"make inquiries on the spot.\" Mr. Van der Pant did not discover\nhis family, but Mr. Britling discovered the profound truth of a comment\nof Herr Heinrich's which he had hitherto considered utterly trivial, but\nwhich had nevertheless stuck in his memory. \"The English,\" Herr Heinrich\nhad said, \"do not understanding indexing. It is the root of all good\norganisation.\"\n\nFinally, Mr. Van der Pant adopted the irregular course of asking every\nBelgian he met if they had seen any one from his district in Antwerp, if\nthey had heard of the name of \"Van der Pant,\" if they had encountered\nSo-and-so or So-and-so. And by obstinacy and good fortune he really got\non to the track of Madame Van der Pant; she had been carried off into\nKent, and a day later the Dower House was the scene of a happy reunion.\nMadame was a slender lady, dressed well and plainly, with a Belgian\ncommon sense and a Catholic reserve, and André was like a child of wax,\ndelicate and charming and unsubstantial. It seemed incredible that he\ncould ever grow into anything so buoyant and incessant as his father.\nThe Britling boys had to be warned not to damage him. A sitting-room was\nhanded over to the Belgians for their private use, and for a time the\ntwo families settled into the Dower House side by side. Anglo-French\nbecame the table language of the household. It hampered Mr. Britling\nvery considerably. And both families set themselves to much unrecorded\nobservation, much unspoken mutual criticism, and the exercise of great\npatience. It was tiresome for the English to be tied to a language that\ncrippled all spontaneous talk; these linguistic gymnastics were fun to\nbegin with, but soon they became very troublesome; and the Belgians\nsuspected sensibilities in their hosts and a vast unwritten code of\netiquette that did not exist; at first they were always waiting, as it\nwere, to be invited or told or included; they seemed always\ndeferentially backing out from intrusions. Moreover, they would not at\nfirst reveal what food they liked or what they didn't like, or whether\nthey wanted more or less.... But these difficulties were soon smoothed\naway, they Anglicised quickly and cleverly. André grew bold and\ncheerful, and lost his first distrust of his rather older English\nplaymates. Every day at lunch he produced a new, carefully prepared\npiece of English, though for some time he retained a marked preference\nfor \"Good morning, Saire,\" and \"Thank you very mush,\" over all other\nlocutions, and fell back upon them on all possible and many impossible\noccasions. And he could do some sleight-of-hand tricks with remarkable\nskill and humour, and fold paper with quite astonishing results.\nMeanwhile Mr. Van der Pant sought temporary employment in England, went\nfor long rides upon his bicycle, exchanged views with Mr. Britling upon\na variety of subjects, and became a wonderful player of hockey.\n\nHe played hockey with an extraordinary zest and nimbleness. Always he\nplayed in the tail coat, and the knitted muffler was never relinquished;\nhe treated the game entirely as an occasion for quick tricks and\npersonal agility; he bounded about the field like a kitten, he\npirouetted suddenly, he leapt into the air and came down in new\ndirections; his fresh-coloured face was alive with delight, the coat\ntails and the muffler trailed and swished about breathlessly behind his\nagility. He never passed to other players; he never realised his\nappointed place in the game; he sought simply to make himself a leaping\nscreen about the ball as he drove it towards the goal. But André he\nwould not permit to play at all, and Madame played like a lady, like a\nMadonna, like a saint carrying the instrument of her martyrdom. The\ngame and its enthusiasms flowed round her and receded from her; she\nremained quite valiant but tolerant, restrained; doing her best to do\nthe extraordinary things required of her, but essentially a being of\npassive dignities, living chiefly for them; Letty careering by her, keen\nand swift, was like a creature of a different species....\n\nMr. Britling cerebrated abundantly about these contrasts.\n\n\"What has been blown in among us by these German shells,\" he said, \"is\nessentially a Catholic family. Blown clean out of its setting.... We who\nare really--Neo-Europeans....\n\n\"At first you imagine there is nothing separating us but language.\nPresently you find that language is the least of our separations. These\npeople are people living upon fundamentally different ideas from ours,\nideas far more definite and complete than ours. You imagine that home in\nAntwerp as something much more rounded off, much more closed in, a cell,\na real social unit, a different thing altogether from this place of\nmeeting. Our boys play cheerfully with all comers; little André hasn't\nlearnt to play with any outside children at all. We must seem incredibly\n_open_ to these Van der Pants. A house without sides.... Last Sunday I\ncould not find out the names of the two girls who came on bicycles and\nplayed so well. They came with Kitty Westropp. And Van der Pant wanted\nto know how they were related to us. Or how was it they came?...\n\n\"Look at Madame. She's built on a fundamentally different plan from any\nof our womenkind here. Tennis, the bicycle, co-education, the two-step,\nthe higher education of women.... Say these things over to yourself, and\nthink of her. It's like talking of a nun in riding breeches. She's a\nspecialised woman, specialising in womanhood, her sphere is the home.\nSoft, trailing, draping skirts, slow movements, a veiled face; for no\nOriental veil could be more effectual than her beautiful Catholic\nquiet. Catholicism invented the invisible purdah. She is far more akin\nto that sweet little Indian lady with the wonderful robes whom Carmine\nbrought over with her tall husband last summer, than she is to Letty or\nCissie. She, too, undertook to play hockey. And played it very much as\nMadame Van der Pant played it....\n\n\"The more I see of our hockey,\" said Mr. Britling, \"the more wonderful\nit seems to me as a touchstone of character and culture and\nbreeding....\"\n\nMr. Manning, to whom he was delivering this discourse, switched him on\nto a new track by asking what he meant by \"Neo-European.\"\n\n\"It's a bad phrase,\" said Mr. Britling. \"I'll withdraw it. Let me try\nand state exactly what I have in mind. I mean something that is coming\nup in America and here and the Scandinavian countries and Russia, a new\nculture, an escape from the Levantine religion and the Catholic culture\nthat came to us from the Mediterranean. Let me drop Neo-European; let me\nsay Northern. We are Northerners. The key, the heart, the nucleus and\nessence of every culture is its conception of the relations of men and\nwomen; and this new culture tends to diminish the specialisation of\nwomen as women, to let them out from the cell of the home into common\ncitizenship with men. It's a new culture, still in process of\ndevelopment, which will make men more social and co-operative and women\nbolder, swifter, more responsible and less cloistered. It minimises\ninstead of exaggerating the importance of sex....\n\n\"And,\" said Mr. Britling, in very much the tones in which a preacher\nmight say \"Sixthly,\" \"it is just all this Northern tendency that this\nworld struggle is going to release. This war is pounding through Europe,\nsmashing up homes, dispersing and mixing homes, setting Madame Van der\nPant playing hockey, and André climbing trees with my young ruffians; it\nis killing young men by the million, altering the proportions of the\nsexes for a generation, bringing women into business and office and\nindustry, destroying the accumulated wealth that kept so many of them in\nrefined idleness, flooding the world with strange doubts and novel\nideas....\"\n\n\nSection 9\n\nBut the conflict of manners and customs that followed the invasion of\nthe English villages by French and Belgian refugees did not always\npresent the immigrants as Catholics and the hosts as \"Neo-European.\" In\nthe case of Mr. Dimple it was the other way round. He met Mr. Britling\nin Claverings park and told him his troubles....\n\n\"Of course,\" he said, \"we have to do our Utmost for Brave Little\nBelgium. I would be the last to complain of any little inconvenience one\nmay experience in doing that. Still, I must confess I think you and dear\nMrs. Britling are fortunate, exceptionally fortunate, in the Belgians\nyou have got. My guests--it's unfortunate--the man is some sort of\njournalist and quite--oh! much too much--an Atheist. An open positive\none. Not simply Honest Doubt. I'm quite prepared for honest doubt\nnowadays. You and I have no quarrel over that. But he is aggressive. He\nmakes remarks about miracles, quite derogatory remarks, and not always\nin French. Sometimes he almost speaks English. And in front of my\nsister. And he goes out, he says, looking for a Café. He never finds a\nCafé, but he certainly finds every public house within a radius of\nmiles. And he comes back smelling dreadfully of beer. When I drop a\nLittle Hint, he blames the beer. He says it is not good beer--our good\nEssex beer! He doesn't understand any of our simple ways. He's\nsophisticated. The girls about here wear Belgian flags--and air their\nlittle bits of French. And he takes it as an encouragement. Only\nyesterday there was a scene. It seems he tried to kiss the Hickson girl\nat the inn--Maudie.... And his wife; a great big slow woman--in every\nway she is--Ample; it's dreadful even to seem to criticise, but I do so\n_wish_ she would not see fit to sit down and nourish her baby in my poor\nold bachelor drawing-room--often at the most _unseasonable_ times.\nAnd--so lavishly....\"\n\nMr. Britling attempted consolations.\n\n\"But anyhow,\" said Mr. Dimple, \"I'm better off than poor dear Mrs.\nBynne. She secured two milliners. She insisted upon them. And their\nclothes were certainly beautifully made--even my poor old unworldly eye\ncould tell that. And she thought two milliners would be so useful with a\nlarge family like hers. They certainly _said_ they were milliners. But\nit seems--I don't know what we shall do about them.... My dear Mr.\nBritling, those young women are anything but milliners--anything but\nmilliners....\"\n\nA faint gleam of amusement was only too perceptible through the good\nman's horror.\n\n\"Sirens, my dear Mr. Britling. Sirens. By profession.\"...\n\n\nSection 10\n\nOctober passed into November, and day by day Mr. Britling was forced to\napprehend new aspects of the war, to think and rethink the war, to have\nhis first conclusions checked and tested, twisted askew, replaced. His\nthoughts went far and wide and deeper--until all his earlier writing\nseemed painfully shallow to him, seemed a mere automatic response of\nobvious comments to the stimulus of the war's surprise. As his ideas\nbecame subtler and profounder, they became more difficult to express; he\ntalked less; he became abstracted and irritable at table. To two people\nin particular Mr. Britling found his real ideas inexpressible, to Mr.\nDireck and to Mr. Van der Pant.\n\nEach of these gentlemen brought with him the implication or the\nintimation of a critical attitude towards England. It was all very well\nfor Mr. Britling himself to be critical of England; that is an\nEnglishman's privilege. To hear Mr. Van der Pant questioning British\nefficiency or to suspect Mr. Direck of high, thin American superiorities\nto war, was almost worse than to hear Mrs. Harrowdean saying hostile\nthings about Edith. It roused an even acuter protective emotion.\n\nIn the case of Mr. Van der Pant matters were complicated by the\ndifficulty of the language, which made anything but the crudest\nstatements subject to incalculable misconception.\n\nMr. Van der Pant had not the extreme tactfulness of his so typically\nCatholic wife; he made it only too plain that he thought the British\npostal and telegraph service slow and slack, and the management of the\nGreat Eastern branch lines wasteful and inefficient. He said the workmen\nin the fields and the workmen he saw upon some cottages near the\njunction worked slowlier and with less interest than he had ever seen\nany workman display in all his life before. He marvelled that Mr.\nBritling lit his house with acetylene and not electric light. He thought\nfresh eggs were insanely dear, and his opinion of Matching's Easy\npig-keeping was uncomplimentary. The roads, he said, were not a means of\ngetting from place to place, they were a _dédale_; he drew derisive maps\nwith his finger on the table-cloth of the lane system about the Dower\nHouse. He was astonished that there was no Café in Matching's Easy; he\ndeclared that the \"public house\" to which he went with considerable\nexpectation was no public house at all; it was just a sly place for\ndrinking beer.... All these were things Mr. Britling might have remarked\nhimself; from a Belgian refugee he found them intolerable.\n\nHe set himself to explain to Mr. Van der Pant firstly that these things\ndid not matter in the slightest degree, the national attention, the\nnational interest ran in other directions; and secondly that they were,\nas a matter of fact and on the whole, merits slightly disguised. He\nproduced a pleasant theory that England is really not the Englishman's\nfield, it is his breeding place, his resting place, a place not for\nefficiency but good humour. If Mr. Van der Pant were to make inquiries\nhe would find there was scarcely a home in Matching's Easy that had not\nsent some energetic representative out of England to become one of the\nEnglish of the world. England was the last place in which English energy\nwas spent. These hedges, these dilatory roads were full of associations.\nThere was a road that turned aside near Market Saffron to avoid Turk's\nwood; it had been called Turk's wood first in the fourteenth century\nafter a man of that name. He quoted Chesterton's happy verses to justify\nthese winding lanes.\n\n \"The road turned first towards the left,\n  Where Perkin's quarry made the cleft;\n  The path turned next towards the right,\n  Because the mastiff used to bite....\"\n\nAnd again:\n\n \"And I should say they wound about\n  To find the town of Roundabout,\n  The merry town of Roundabout\n  That makes the world go round.\"\n\nIf our easy-going ways hampered a hard efficiency, they did at least\ndevelop humour and humanity. Our diplomacy at any rate had not failed\nus....\n\nHe did not believe a word of this stuff. His deep irrational love for\nEngland made him say these things.... For years he had been getting\nhimself into hot water because he had been writing and hinting just such\ncriticisms as Mr. Van der Pant expressed so bluntly.... But he wasn't\ngoing to accept foreign help in dissecting his mother....\n\nAnd another curious effect that Mr. Van der Pant had upon Mr. Britling\nwas to produce an obstinate confidence about the war and the nearness\nof the German collapse. He would promise Mr. Van der Pant that he should\nbe back in Antwerp before May; that the Germans would be over the Rhine\nby July. He knew perfectly well that his ignorance of all the military\nconditions was unqualified, but still he could not restrain himself from\nthis kind of thing so soon as he began to speak Entente\nCordiale--Anglo-French, that is to say. Something in his relationship to\nMr. Van der Pant obliged him to be acutely and absurdly the protecting\nBritish.... At times he felt like a conscious bankrupt talking off the\nhour of disclosure. But indeed all that Mr. Britling was trying to say\nagainst the difficulties of a strange language and an alien temperament,\nwas that the honour of England would never be cleared until Belgium was\nrestored and avenged....\n\nWhile Mr. Britling was patrolling unimportant roads and entertaining Mr.\nVan der Pant with discourses upon the nearness of victory and the subtle\nestimableness of all that was indolent, wasteful and evasive in English\nlife, the war was passing from its first swift phases into a slower,\ngrimmer struggle. The German retreat ended at the Aisne, and the long\noutflanking manoeuvres of both hosts towards the Channel began. The\nEnglish attempts to assist Belgium in October came too late for the\npreservation of Antwerp, and after a long and complicated struggle in\nFlanders the British failed to outflank the German right, lost Ghent,\nMenin and the Belgian coast, but held Ypres and beat back every attempt\nof the enemy to reach Dunkirk and Calais. Meanwhile the smaller German\ncolonies and islands were falling to the navy, the Australian battleship\n_Sydney_ smashed the _Emden_ at Cocos Island, and the British naval\ndisaster of Coronel was wiped out by the battle of the Falklands. The\nRussians were victorious upon their left and took Lemberg, and after\nsome vicissitudes of fortune advanced to Przemysl, occupying the larger\npart of Galicia; but the disaster of Tannenberg had broken their\nprogress in East Prussia, and the Germans were pressing towards Warsaw.\nTurkey had joined the war, and suffered enormous losses in the Caucasus.\nThe Dardanelles had been shelled for the first time, and the British\nwere at Basra on the Euphrates.\n\n\nSection 11\n\nThe Christmas of 1914 found England, whose landscape had hitherto been\nalmost as peaceful and soldierless as Massachusetts, already far gone\nalong the path of transformation into a country full of soldiers and\nmunition makers and military supplies. The soldiers came first, on the\nwell-known and greatly admired British principle of \"first catch your\nhare\" and then build your kitchen. Always before, Christmas had been a\ntime of much gaiety and dressing up and prancing and two-stepping at the\nDower House, but this year everything was too uncertain to allow of any\ngathering of guests. Hugh got leave for the day after Christmas, but\nTeddy was tied; and Cissie and Letty went off with the small boy to take\nlodgings near him. The Van der Pants had hoped to see an English\nChristmas at Matching's Easy, but within three weeks of Christmas Day\nMr. Van der Pant found a job that he could do in Nottingham, and carried\noff his family. The two small boys cheered their hearts with paper\ndecorations, but the Christmas Tree was condemned as too German, and it\nwas discovered that Santa Claus had suddenly become Old Father Christmas\nagain. The small boys discovered that the price of lead soldiers had\nrisen, and were unable to buy electric torches, on which they had set\ntheir hearts. There was to have been a Christmas party at Claverings,\nbut at the last moment Lady Homartyn had to hurry off to an orphan\nnephew who had been seriously wounded near Ypres, and the light of\nClaverings was darkened.\n\nSoon after Christmas there were rumours of an impending descent of the\nHeadquarters staff of the South-Eastern army upon Claverings. Then Mr.\nBritling found Lady Homartyn back from France, and very indignant\nbecause after all the Headquarters were to go to Lady Wensleydale at\nLadyholt. It was, she felt, a reflection upon Claverings. Lady Homartyn\nbecame still more indignant when presently the new armies, which were\ngathering now all over England like floods in a low-lying meadow, came\npouring into the parishes about Claverings to the extent of a battalion\nand a Territorial battery. Mr. Britling heard of their advent only a day\nor two before they arrived; there came a bright young officer with an\norderly, billeting; he was much exercised to get, as he expressed it\nseveral times, a quart into a pint bottle. He was greatly pleased with\nthe barn. He asked the size of it and did calculations. He could \"stick\ntwenty-five men into it--easy.\" It would go far to solve his problems.\nHe could manage without coming into the house at all. It was a ripping\nplace. \"No end.\"\n\n\"But beds,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Lord! they don't want _beds_,\" said the young officer....\n\nThe whole Britling family, who were lamenting the loss of their\nBelgians, welcomed the coming of the twenty-five with great enthusiasm.\nIt made them feel that they were doing something useful once more. For\nthree days Mrs. Britling had to feed her new lodgers--the kitchen motors\nhad as usual gone astray--and she did so in a style that made their\nboastings about their billet almost insufferable to the rest of their\nbattery. The billeting allowance at that time was ninepence a head, and\nMr. Britling, ashamed of making a profit out of his country, supplied\nnot only generous firing and lighting, but unlimited cigarettes, cards\nand games, illustrated newspapers, a cocoa supper with such little\nsurprises as sprats and jam roly-poly, and a number of more incidental\ncomforts. The men arrived fasting under the command of two very sage\nmiddle-aged corporals, and responded to Mrs. Britling's hospitalities by\na number of good resolutions, many of which they kept. They never made\nnoises after half-past ten, or at least only now and then when a\nsingsong broke out with unusual violence; they got up and went out at\nfive or six in the morning without a sound; they were almost\ninconveniently helpful with washing-up and tidying round.\n\nIn quite a little time Mrs. Britling's mind had adapted itself to the\nspectacle of half-a-dozen young men in khaki breeches and shirts\nperforming their toilets in and about her scullery, or improvising an\nunsanctioned game of football between the hockey goals. These men were\nnot the miscellaneous men of the new armies; they were the earlier\nTerritorial type with no heroics about them; they came from the\nmidlands; and their two middle-aged corporals kept them well in hand and\nruled them like a band of brothers. But they had an illegal side, that\ndeveloped in directions that set Mr. Britling theorising. They seemed,\nfor example, to poach by nature, as children play and sing. They\npossessed a promiscuous white dog. They began to add rabbits to their\nsupper menu, unaccountable rabbits. One night there was a mighty smell\nof frying fish from the kitchen, and the cook reported trout. \"Trout!\"\nsaid Mr. Britling to one of the corporals; \"now where did you chaps get\ntrout?\"\n\nThe \"fisherman,\" they said, had got them with a hair noose. They\nproduced the fisherman, of whom they were manifestly proud. It was, he\nexplained, a method of fishing he had learnt when in New York Harbour.\nHe had been a stoker. He displayed a confidence in Mr. Britling that\nmade that gentleman an accessory after his offence, his very serious\noffence against pre-war laws and customs. It was plain that the trout\nwere the trout that Mr. Pumshock, the stock-broker and amateur\ngentleman, had preserved so carefully in the Easy. Hitherto the\ncountryside had been forced to regard Mr. Pumshock's trout with an\nalmost superstitious respect. A year ago young Snooker had done a month\nfor one of those very trout. But now things were different.\n\n\"But I don't really fancy fresh-water fish,\" said the fisherman. \"It's\njust the ketchin' of 'em I like....\"\n\nAnd a few weeks later the trumpeter, an angel-faced freckled child with\ndeep-blue eyes, brought in a dozen partridge eggs which he wanted Mary\nto cook for him....\n\nThe domesticity of the sacred birds, it was clear, was no longer safe in\nEngland....\n\nThen again the big guns would go swinging down the road and into\nClaverings park, and perform various exercises with commendable\nsmartness and a profound disregard for Lady Homartyn's known objection\nto any departure from the public footpath....\n\nAnd one afternoon as Mr. Britling took his constitutional walk, a\nreverie was set going in his mind by the sight of a neglected-looking\npheasant with a white collar. The world of Matching's Easy was getting\nfull now of such elderly birds. Would _that_ go on again after the war?\nHe imagined his son Hugh as a grandfather, telling the little ones about\nparks and preserves and game laws, and footmen and butlers and the\nmarvellous game of golf, and how, suddenly, Mars came tramping through\nthe land in khaki and all these things faded and vanished, so that\npresently it was discovered they were gone....\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE THIRD\n\nMALIGNITY\n\n\nSection 1\n\nAnd while the countryside of England changed steadily from its lax\npacific amenity to the likeness of a rather slovenly armed camp, while\nlong-fixed boundaries shifted and dissolved and a great irreparable\nwasting of the world's resources gathered way, Mr. Britling did his duty\nas a special constable, gave his eldest son to the Territorials,\nentertained Belgians, petted his soldiers in the barn, helped Teddy to\nhis commission, contributed to war charities, sold out securities at a\nloss and subscribed to the War Loan, and thought, thought endlessly\nabout the war.\n\nHe could think continuously day by day of nothing else. His mind was as\ncaught as a galley slave, as unable to escape from tugging at this oar.\nAll his universe was a magnetic field which oriented everything, whether\nhe would have it so or not, to this one polar question.\n\nHis thoughts grew firmer and clearer; they went deeper and wider. His\nfirst superficial judgments were endorsed and deepened or replaced by\nothers. He thought along the lonely lanes at night; he thought at his\ndesk; he thought in bed; he thought in his bath; he tried over his\nthoughts in essays and leading articles and reviewed them and corrected\nthem. Now and then came relaxation and lassitude, but never release. The\nwar towered over him like a vigilant teacher, day after day, week after\nweek, regardless of fatigue and impatience, holding a rod in its hand.\n\n\nSection 2\n\nCertain things had to be forced upon Mr. Britling because they jarred so\ngreatly with his habits of mind that he would never have accepted them\nif he could have avoided doing so.\n\nNotably he would not recognise at first the extreme bitterness of this\nwar. He would not believe that the attack upon Britain and Western\nEurope generally expressed the concentrated emotion of a whole nation.\nHe thought that the Allies were in conflict with a system and not with a\nnational will. He fought against the persuasion that the whole mass of a\ngreat civilised nation could be inspired by a genuine and sustained\nhatred. Hostility was an uncongenial thing to him; he would not\nrecognise that the greater proportion of human beings are more readily\nhostile than friendly. He did his best to believe--in his \"And Now War\nEnds\" he did his best to make other people believe--that this war was\nthe perverse exploit of a small group of people, of limited but powerful\ninfluences, an outrage upon the general geniality of mankind. The\ncruelty, mischief, and futility of war were so obvious to him that he\nwas almost apologetic in asserting them. He believed that war had but to\nbegin and demonstrate its quality among the Western nations in order to\nunify them all against its repetition. They would exclaim: \"But we can't\ndo things like this to one another!\" He saw the aggressive imperialism\nof Germany called to account even by its own people; a struggle, a\ncollapse, a liberal-minded conference of world powers, and a universal\nresumption of amiability upon a more assured basis of security. He\nbelieved--and many people in England believed with him--that a great\nsection of the Germans would welcome triumphant Allies as their\nliberators from intolerable political obsessions.\n\nThe English because of their insularity had been political amateurs for\nendless generations. It was their supreme vice, it was their supreme\nvirtue, to be easy-going. They had lived in an atmosphere of comedy, and\ndenied in the whole tenor of their lives that life is tragic. Not even\nthe Americans had been more isolated. The Americans had had their\nIndians, their negroes, their War of Secession. Until the Great War the\nChannel was as broad as the Atlantic for holding off every vital\nchallenge. Even Ireland was away--a four-hour crossing. And so the\nEnglish had developed to the fullest extent the virtues and vices of\nsafety and comfort; they had a hatred of science and dramatic behaviour;\nthey could see no reason for exactness or intensity; they disliked\nproceeding \"to extremes.\" Ultimately everything would turn out all\nright. But they knew what it is to be carried into conflicts by\nenergetic minorities and the trick of circumstances, and they were ready\nto understand the case of any other country which has suffered that\nfate. All their habits inclined them to fight good-temperedly and\ncomfortably, to quarrel with a government and not with a people. It took\nMr. Britling at least a couple of months of warfare to understand that\nthe Germans were fighting in an altogether different spirit.\n\nThe first intimations of this that struck upon his mind were the news of\nthe behaviour of the Kaiser and the Berlin crowd upon the declaration of\nwar, and the violent treatment of the British subjects seeking to return\nto their homes. Everywhere such people had been insulted and\nill-treated. It was the spontaneous expression of a long-gathered\nbitterness. While the British ambassador was being howled out of Berlin,\nthe German ambassador to England was taking a farewell stroll, quite\nunmolested, in St. James's Park.... One item that struck particularly\nupon Mr. Britling's imagination was the story of the chorus of young\nwomen who assembled on the railway platform of the station through which\nthe British ambassador was passing to sing--to his drawn\nblinds--\"Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles.\" Mr. Britling could\nimagine those young people, probably dressed more or less uniformly in\nwhite, with flushed faces and shining eyes, letting their voices go,\nfull throated, in the modern German way....\n\nAnd then came stories of atrocities, stories of the shooting of old men\nand the butchery of children by the wayside, stories of wounded men\nbayoneted or burnt alive, of massacres of harmless citizens, of looting\nand filthy outrages....\n\nMr. Britling did his utmost not to believe these things. They\ncontradicted his habitual world. They produced horrible strains in his\nmind. They might, he hoped, be misreported so as to seem more violent or\nless justifiable than they were. They might be the acts of stray\ncriminals, and quite disconnected from the normal operations of the war.\nHere and there some weak-minded officer may have sought to make himself\nterrible.... And as for the bombardment of cathedrals and the crime of\nLouvain, well, Mr. Britling was prepared to argue that Gothic\narchitecture is not sacrosanct if military necessity cuts through it....\nIt was only after the war had been going on some months that Mr.\nBritling's fluttering, unwilling mind was pinned down by official\nreports and a cloud of witnesses to a definite belief in the grim\nreality of systematic rape and murder, destruction, dirtiness and\nabominable compulsions that blackened the first rush of the Prussians\ninto Belgium and Champagne....\n\nThey came hating and threatening the lands they outraged. They sought\noccasion to do frightful deeds.... When they could not be frightful in\nthe houses they occupied, then to the best of their ability they were\ndestructive and filthy. The facts took Mr. Britling by the throat....\n\nThe first thing that really pierced Mr. Britling with the conviction\nthat there was something essentially different in the English and the\nGerman attitude towards the war was the sight of a bale of German comic\npapers in the study of a friend in London. They were filled with\ncaricatures of the Allies and more particularly of the English, and they\ndisplayed a force and quality of passion--an incredible force and\nquality of passion. Their amazing hate and their amazing filthiness\nalike overwhelmed Mr. Britling. There was no appearance of national\npride or national dignity, but a bellowing patriotism and a limitless\ndesire to hurt and humiliate. They spat. They were red in the face and\nthey spat. He sat with these violent sheets in his hands--_ashamed_.\n\n\"But I say!\" he said feebly. \"It's the sort of thing that might come out\nof a lunatic asylum....\"\n\nOne incredible craving was manifest in every one of them. The German\ncaricaturist seemed unable to represent his enemies except in extremely\ntight trousers or in none; he was equally unable to represent them\nwithout thrusting a sword or bayonet, spluttering blood, into the more\nindelicate parts of their persons. This was the _leit-motif_ of the war\nas the German humorists presented it. \"But,\" said Mr. Britling, \"these\nthings can't represent anything like the general state of mind in\nGermany.\"\n\n\"They do,\" said his friend.\n\n\"But it's blind fury--at the dirt-throwing stage.\"\n\n\"The whole of Germany is in that blind fury,\" said his friend. \"While we\nare going about astonished and rather incredulous about this war, and\nstill rather inclined to laugh, that's the state of mind of Germany....\nThere's a sort of deliberation in it. They think it gives them strength.\nThey _want_ to foam at the mouth. They do their utmost to foam more.\nThey write themselves up. Have you heard of the 'Hymn of Hate'?\"\n\nMr. Britling had not.\n\n\"There was a translation of it in last week's _Spectator_.... This is\nthe sort of thing we are trying to fight in good temper and without\nextravagance. Listen, Britling!\n\n \"_You_ will we hate with a lasting hate;\n  We will never forgo our hate--\n  Hate by water and hate by land,\n  Hate of the head and hate of the hand,\n  Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown,\n  Hate of seventy millions, choking down;\n  We love as one, we hate as one,\n  We have _one_ foe, and one alone--\n  ENGLAND!\"\n\nHe read on to the end.\n\n\"Well,\" he said when he had finished reading, \"what do you think of it?\"\n\n\"I want to feel his bumps,\" said Mr. Britling after a pause. \"It's\nincomprehensible.\"\n\n\"They're singing that up and down Germany. Lissauer, I hear, has been\ndecorated....\"\n\n\"It's--stark malignity,\" said Mr. Britling. \"What have we done?\"\n\n\"It's colossal. What is to happen to the world if these people prevail?\"\n\n\"I can't believe it--even with this evidence before me.... No! I want to\nfeel their bumps....\"\n\n\nSection 3\n\n\"You see,\" said Mr. Britling, trying to get it into focus, \"I have known\nquite decent Germans. There must be some sort of misunderstanding.... I\nwonder what makes them hate us. There seems to me no reason in it.\"\n\n\"I think it is just thoroughness,\" said his friend. \"They are at war. To\nbe at war is to hate.\"\n\n\"That isn't at all my idea.\"\n\n\"We're not a thorough people. When we think of anything, we also think\nof its opposite. When we adopt an opinion we also take in a provisional\nidea that it is probably nearly as wrong as it is right. We\nare--atmospheric. They are concrete.... All this filthy, vile, unjust\nand cruel stuff is honest genuine war. We pretend war does not hurt.\nThey know better.... The Germans are a simple honest people. It is\ntheir virtue. Possibly it is their only virtue....\"\n\n\nSection 4\n\nMr. Britling was only one of a multitude who wanted to feel the bumps of\nGermany at that time. The effort to understand a people who had suddenly\nbecome incredible was indeed one of the most remarkable facts in English\nintellectual life during the opening phases of the war. The English\nstate of mind was unlimited astonishment. There was an enormous sale of\nany German books that seemed likely to illuminate the mystery of this\namazing concentration of hostility; the works of Bernhardi, Treitschke,\nNietzsche, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, became the material of countless\narticles and interminable discussions. One saw little clerks on the way\nto the office and workmen going home after their work earnestly reading\nthese remarkable writers. They were asking, just as Mr. Britling was\nasking, what it was the British Empire had struck against. They were\ntrying to account for this wild storm of hostility that was coming at\nthem out of Central Europe.\n\nIt was a natural next stage to this, when after all it became manifest\nthat instead of there being a liberal and reluctant Germany at the back\nof imperialism and Junkerdom, there was apparently one solid and\nenthusiastic people, to suppose that the Germans were in some\ndistinctive way evil, that they were racially more envious, arrogant,\nand aggressive than the rest of mankind. Upon that supposition a great\nnumber of English people settled. They concluded that the Germans had a\npeculiar devil of their own--and had to be treated accordingly. That was\nthe second stage in the process of national apprehension, and it was\nmarked by the first beginnings of a spy hunt, by the first denunciation\nof naturalised aliens, and by some anti-German rioting among the mixed\nalien population in the East End. Most of the bakers in the East End of\nLondon were Germans, and for some months after the war began they went\non with their trade unmolested. Now many of these shops were wrecked....\nIt was only in October that the British gave these first signs of a\nsense that they were fighting not merely political Germany but the\nGermans.\n\nBut the idea of a peculiar malignity in the German quality as a key to\nthe broad issue of the war was even less satisfactory and less permanent\nin Mr. Britling's mind than his first crude opposition of militarism and\na peaceful humanity as embodied respectively in the Central Powers and\nthe Russo-Western alliance. It led logically to the conclusion that the\nextermination of the German peoples was the only security for the\ngeneral amiability of the world, a conclusion that appealed but weakly\nto his essential kindliness. After all, the Germans he had met and seen\nwere neither cruel nor hate-inspired. He came back to that obstinately.\nFrom the harshness and vileness of the printed word and the unclean\npicture, he fell back upon the flesh and blood, the humanity and\nsterling worth, of--as a sample--young Heinrich.\n\nWho was moreover a thoroughly German young German--a thoroughly Prussian\nyoung Prussian.\n\nAt times young Heinrich alone stood between Mr. Britling and the belief\nthat Germany and the whole German race was essentially wicked,\nessentially a canting robber nation. Young Heinrich became a sort of\nadvocate for his people before the tribunal of Mr. Britling's mind. (And\non his shoulder sat an absurdly pampered squirrel.) s fresh, pink,\nsedulous face, very earnest, adjusting his glasses, saying \"Please,\"\nintervened and insisted upon an arrest of judgment....\n\nSince the young man's departure he had sent two postcards of greeting\ndirectly to the \"Familie Britling,\" and one letter through the friendly\nintervention of Mr. Britling's American publisher. Once also he sent a\nmessage through a friend in Norway. The postcards simply recorded\nstages in the passage of a distraught pacifist across Holland to his\nenrolment. The letter by way of America came two months later. He had\nbeen converted into a combatant with extreme rapidity. He had been\ntrained for three weeks, had spent a fortnight in hospital with a severe\ncold, and had then gone to Belgium as a transport driver--his father had\nbeen a horse-dealer and he was familiar with horses. \"If anything\nhappens to me,\" he wrote, \"please send my violin at least very carefully\nto my mother.\" It was characteristic that he reported himself as very\ncomfortably quartered in Courtrai with \"very nice people.\" The niceness\ninvolved restraints. \"Only never,\" he added, \"do we talk about the war.\nIt is better not to do so.\" He mentioned the violin also in the later\ncommunication through Norway. Therein he lamented the lost fleshpots of\nCourtrai. He had been in Posen, and now he was in the Carpathians, up to\nhis knees in snow and \"very uncomfortable....\"\n\nAnd then abruptly all news from him ceased.\n\nMonth followed month, and no further letter came.\n\n\"Something has happened to him. Perhaps he is a prisoner....\"\n\n\"I hope our little Heinrich hasn't got seriously damaged.... He may be\nwounded....\"\n\n\"Or perhaps they stop his letters.... Very probably they stop his\nletters.\"\n\n\nSection 5\n\nMr. Britling would sit in his armchair and stare at his fire, and recall\nconflicting memories of Germany--of a pleasant land, of friendly people.\nHe had spent many a jolly holiday there. So recently as 1911 all the\nBritling family had gone up the Rhine from Rotterdam, had visited a\nstring of great cities and stayed for a cheerful month of sunshine at\nNeunkirchen in the Odenwald.\n\nThe little village perches high among the hills and woods, and at its\nvery centre is the inn and the linden tree and--Adam Meyer. Or at least\nAdam Meyer _was_ there. Whether he is there now, only the spirit of\nchange can tell; if he live to be a hundred no friendly English will\never again come tramping along by the track of the Blaue Breiecke or the\nWeisse Streiche to enjoy his hospitality; there are rivers of blood\nbetween, and a thousand memories of hate....\n\nIt was a village distended with hospitalities. Not only the inn but all\nthe houses about the place of the linden tree, the shoe-maker's, the\npost-mistress's, the white house beyond, every house indeed except the\npastor's house, were full of Adam Meyer's summer guests. And about it\nand over it went and soared Adam Meyer, seeing they ate well, seeing\nthey rested well, seeing they had music and did not miss the\nmoonlight--a host who forgot profit in hospitality, an inn-keeper with\nthe passion of an artist for his inn.\n\nMusic, moonlight, the simple German sentiment, the hearty German voices,\nthe great picnic in a Stuhl Wagen, the orderly round games the boys\nplayed with the German children, and the tramps and confidences Hugh had\nwith Kurt and Karl, and at last a crowning jollification, a dance, with\nsome gipsy musicians whom Mr. Britling discovered, when the Germans\ntaught the English various entertaining sports with baskets and potatoes\nand forfeits and the English introduced the Germans to the licence of\nthe two-step. And everybody sang \"Britannia, Rule the Waves,\" and\n\"Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles,\" and Adam Meyer got on a chair and\nmade a tremendous speech more in dialect than ever, and there was much\ndrinking of beer and sirops in the moonlight under the linden....\n\nAfterwards there had been a periodic sending of postcards and greetings,\nwhich indeed only the war had ended.\n\nRight pleasant people those Germans had been, sun and green-leaf lovers,\nfor whom \"Frisch Auf\" seemed the most natural of national cries. Mr.\nBritling thought of the individual Germans who had made up the\nassembly, of the men's amusingly fierce little hats of green and blue\nwith an inevitable feather thrust perkily into the hatband behind, of\nthe kindly plumpnesses behind their turned-up moustaches, of the blonde,\nsedentary women, very wise about the comforts of life and very kind to\nthe children, of their earnest pleasure in landscape and Art and Great\nWriters, of their general frequent desire to sing, of their plasticity\nunder the directing hands of Adam Meyer. He thought of the mellow south\nGerman landscape, rolling away broad and fair, of the little clean\nred-roofed townships, the old castles, the big prosperous farms, the\nneatly marked pedestrian routes, the hospitable inns, and the artless\nabundant Aussichtthurms....\n\nHe saw all those memories now through a veil of indescribable\nsadness--as of a world lost, gone down like the cities of Lyonesse\nbeneath deep seas....\n\nRight pleasant people in a sunny land! Yet here pressing relentlessly\nupon his mind were the murders of Visé, the massacres of Dinant, the\nmassacres of Louvain, murder red-handed and horrible upon an inoffensive\npeople, foully invaded, foully treated; murder done with a sickening\ncant of righteousness and racial pretension....\n\nThe two pictures would not stay steadily in his mind together. When he\nthought of the broken faith that had poured those slaughtering hosts\ninto the decent peace of Belgium, that had smashed her cities, burnt her\nvillages and filled the pretty gorges of the Ardennes with blood and\nsmoke and terror, he was flooded with self-righteous indignation, a\nself-righteous indignation that was indeed entirely Teutonic in its\nquality, that for a time drowned out his former friendship and every\nkindly disposition towards Germany, that inspired him with destructive\nimpulses, and obsessed him with a desire to hear of death and more death\nand yet death in every German town and home....\n\n\nSection 6\n\nIt will be an incredible thing to the happier reader of a coming age--if\never this poor record of experience reaches a reader in the days to\ncome--to learn how much of the mental life of Mr. Britling was occupied\nat this time with the mere horror and atrocity of warfare. It is idle\nand hopeless to speculate now how that future reader will envisage this\nwar; it may take on broad dramatic outlines, it may seem a thing, just,\nlogical, necessary, the burning of many barriers, the destruction of\nmany obstacles. Mr. Britling was too near to the dirt and pain and heat\nfor any such broad landscape consolations. Every day some new detail of\nevil beat into his mind. Now it would be the artless story of some\nBelgian refugee. There was a girl from Alost in the village for example,\nwho had heard the fusillade that meant the shooting of citizens, the\nshooting of people she had known, she had seen the still blood-stained\nwall against which two murdered cousins had died, the streaked sand\nalong which their bodies had been dragged; three German soldiers had\nbeen quartered in her house with her and her invalid mother, and had\ntalked freely of the massacres in which they had been employed. One of\nthem was in civil life a young schoolmaster, and he had had, he said, to\nkill a woman and a baby. The girl had been incredulous. Yes, he had done\nso! Of course he had done so! His officer had made him do it, had stood\nover him. He could do nothing but obey. But since then he had been\nunable to sleep, unable to forget.\n\n\"We had to punish the people,\" he said. \"They had fired on us.\"\n\nAnd besides, his officer had been drunk. It had been impossible to\nargue. His officer had an unrelenting character at all times....\n\nOver and over again Mr. Britling would try to imagine that young\nschoolmaster soldier at Alost. He imagined with a weak staring face and\nwatery blue eyes behind his glasses, and that memory of murder....\n\nThen again it would be some incident of death and mutilation in Antwerp,\nthat Van der Pant described to him. The Germans in Belgium were shooting\nwomen frequently, not simply for grave spying but for trivial\noffences.... Then came the battleship raid on Whitby and Scarborough,\nand the killing among other victims of a number of children on their way\nto school. This shocked Mr. Britling absurdly, much more than the\nBelgian crimes had done. They were _English_ children. At home!... The\ndrowning of a great number of people on a torpedoed ship full of\nrefugees from Flanders filled his mind with pitiful imaginings for days.\nThe Zeppelin raids, with their slow crescendo of blood-stained futility,\nbegan before the end of 1914.... It was small consolation for Mr.\nBritling to reflect that English homes and women and children were,\nafter all, undergoing only the same kind of experience that our ships\nhave inflicted scores of times in the past upon innocent people in the\nvillages of Africa and Polynesia....\n\nEach month the war grew bitterer and more cruel. Early in 1915 the\nGermans began their submarine war, and for a time Mr. Britling's concern\nwas chiefly for the sailors and passengers of the ships destroyed. He\nnoted with horror the increasing indisposition of the German submarines\nto give any notice to their victims; he did not understand the grim\nreasons that were turning every submarine attack into a desperate\nchallenge of death. For the Germans under the seas had pitted themselves\nagainst a sea power far more resourceful, more steadfast and skilful,\nsterner and more silent, than their own. It was not for many months that\nMr. Britling learnt the realities of the submarine blockade. Submarine\nafter submarine went out of the German harbours into the North Sea,\nnever to return. No prisoners were reported, no boasting was published\nby the British fishers of men; U boat after U boat vanished into a\nchilling mystery.... Only later did Mr. Britling begin to hear whispers\nand form ideas of the noiseless, suffocating grip that sought through\nthe waters for its prey.\n\nThe _Falaba_ crime, in which the German sailors were reported to have\njeered at the drowning victims in the water, was followed by the sinking\nof the _Lusitania_. At that a wave of real anger swept through the\nEmpire. Hate was begetting hate at last. There were violent riots in\nGreat Britain and in South Africa. Wretched little German hairdressers\nand bakers and so forth fled for their lives, to pay for the momentary\nsatisfaction of the Kaiser and Herr Ballin. Scores of German homes in\nEngland were wrecked and looted; hundreds of Germans maltreated. War is\nwar. Hard upon the _Lusitania_ storm came the publication of the Bryce\nReport, with its relentless array of witnesses, its particulars of\ncountless acts of cruelty and arrogant unreason and uncleanness in\nBelgium and the occupied territory of France. Came also the gasping\ntorture of \"gas,\" the use of flame jets, and a new exacerbation of the\nsavagery of the actual fighting. For a time it seemed as though the\ntaking of prisoners along the western front would cease. Tales of\ntorture and mutilation, tales of the kind that arise nowhere and out of\nnothing, and poison men's minds to the most pitiless retaliations,\ndrifted along the opposing fronts....\n\nThe realities were evil enough without any rumours. Over various\ndinner-tables Mr. Britling heard this and that first-hand testimony of\nharshness and spite. One story that stuck in his memory was of British\nprisoners on the journey into Germany being put apart at a station from\ntheir French companions in misfortune, and forced to \"run the gauntlet\"\nback to their train between the fists and bayonets of files of German\nsoldiers. And there were convincing stories of the same prisoners robbed\nof overcoats in bitter weather, baited with dogs, separated from their\ncountrymen, and thrust among Russians and Poles with whom they could\nhold no speech. So Lissauer's Hate Song bore its fruit in a thousand\ncruelties to wounded and defenceless men. The English had cheated great\nGermany of another easy victory like that of '71. They had to be\npunished. That was all too plainly the psychological process. At one\nGerman station a woman had got out of a train and crossed a platform to\nspit on the face of a wounded Englishman.... And there was no monopoly\nof such things on either side. At some journalistic gathering Mr.\nBritling met a little white-faced, resolute lady who had recently been\nnursing in the north of France. She told of wounded men lying among the\ncoal of coal-sheds, of a shortage of nurses and every sort of material,\nof an absolute refusal to permit any share in such things to reach the\nGerman \"swine.\" ... \"Why have they come here? Let our own boys have it\nfirst. Why couldn't they stay in their own country? Let the filth die.\"\n\nTwo soldiers impressed to carry a wounded German officer on a stretcher\nhad given him a \"joy ride,\" pitching him up and down as one tosses a man\nin a blanket. \"He was lucky to get off with that.\"...\n\n\"All _our_ men aren't angels,\" said a cheerful young captain back from\nthe front. \"If you had heard a little group of our East London boys\ntalking of what they meant to do when they got into Germany, you'd feel\nanxious....\"\n\n\"But that was just talk,\" said Mr. Britling weakly, after a pause....\n\nThere were times when Mr. Britling's mind was imprisoned beyond any hope\nof escape amidst such monstrous realities....\n\nHe was ashamed of his one secret consolation. For nearly two years yet\nHugh could not go out to it. There would surely be peace before\nthat....\n\n\nSection 7\n\nTormenting the thought of Mr. Britling almost more acutely than this\ngrowing tale of stupidly inflicted suffering and waste and sheer\ndestruction was the collapse of the British mind from its first fine\nphase of braced-up effort into a state of bickering futility.\n\nToo long had British life been corrupted by the fictions of loyalty to\nan uninspiring and alien Court, of national piety in an official Church,\nof freedom in a politician-rigged State, of justice in an economic\nsystem where the advertiser, the sweater and usurer had a hundred\nadvantages over the producer and artisan, to maintain itself now\nsteadily at any high pitch of heroic endeavour. It had bought its\ncomfort with the demoralisation of its servants. It had no completely\nhonest organs; its spirit was clogged by its accumulated insincerities.\nBrought at last face to face with a bitter hostility and a powerful and\nunscrupulous enemy, an enemy socialistic, scientific and efficient to an\nunexampled degree, it seemed indeed to be inspired for a time by an\nunwonted energy and unanimity. Youth and the common people shone. The\nsons of every class went out to fight and die, full of a splendid dream\nof this war. Easy-going vanished from the foreground of the picture. But\nonly to creep back again as the first inspiration passed. Presently the\nolder men, the seasoned politicians, the owners and hucksters, the\ncharming women and the habitual consumers, began to recover from this\nblaze of moral exaltation. Old habits of mind and procedure reasserted\nthemselves. The war which had begun so dramatically missed its climax;\nthere was neither heroic swift defeat nor heroic swift victory. There\nwas indecision; the most trying test of all for an undisciplined people.\nThere were great spaces of uneventful fatigue. Before the Battle of the\nYser had fully developed the dramatic quality had gone out of the war.\nIt had ceased to be either a tragedy or a triumph; for both sides it\nbecame a monstrous strain and wasting. It had become a wearisome\nthrusting against a pressure of evils....\n\nUnder that strain the dignity of England broke, and revealed a malignity\nless focussed and intense than the German, but perhaps even more\ndistressing. No paternal government had organised the British spirit for\npatriotic ends; it became now peevish and impatient, like some\nill-trained man who is sick, it directed itself no longer against the\nenemy alone but fitfully against imagined traitors and shirkers; it\nwasted its energies in a deepening and spreading net of internal\nsquabbles and accusations. Now it was the wily indolence of the Prime\nMinister, now it was the German culture of the Lord Chancellor, now the\nimaginative enterprise of the First Lord of the Admiralty that focussed\na vindictive campaign. There began a hunt for spies and of suspects of\nGerman origin in every quarter except the highest; a denunciation now of\n\"traitors,\" now of people with imaginations, now of scientific men, now\nof the personal friend of the Commander-in-Chief, now of this group and\nthen of that group.... Every day Mr. Britling read his three or four\nnewspapers with a deepening disappointment.\n\nWhen he turned from the newspaper to his post, he would find the\nanonymous letter-writer had been busy....\n\nPerhaps Mr. Britling had remarked that Germans were after all human\nbeings, or that if England had listened to Matthew Arnold in the\n'eighties our officers by this time might have added efficiency to their\ncourage and good temper. Perhaps he had himself put a touch of irritant\nacid into his comment. Back flared the hate. \"Who are _you_, Sir? What\nare _you_, Sir? What right have _you_, Sir? What claim have _you_,\nSir?\"...\n\n\nSection 8\n\n\"Life had a wrangling birth. On the head of every one of us rests the\nancestral curse of fifty million murders.\"\n\nSo Mr. Britling's thoughts shaped themselves in words as he prowled one\nnight in March, chill and melancholy, across a rushy meadow under an\novercast sky. The death squeal of some little beast caught suddenly in a\ndistant copse had set loose this train of thought. \"Life struggling\nunder a birth curse?\" he thought. \"How nearly I come back at times to\nthe Christian theology!... And then, Redemption by the shedding of\nblood.\"\n\n\"Life, like a rebellious child, struggling out of the control of the\nhate which made it what it is.\"\n\nBut that was Mr. Britling's idea of Gnosticism, not of orthodox\nChristianity. He went off for a time into faded reminiscences of\ntheological reading. What had been the Gnostic idea? That the God of the\nOld Testament was the Devil of the New? But that had been the idea of\nthe Manichæans!...\n\nMr. Britling, between the black hedges, came back presently from his\nattempts to recall his youthful inquiries into man's ancient\nspeculations, to the enduring riddles that have outlasted a thousand\nspeculations. Has hate been necessary, and is it still necessary, and\nwill it always be necessary? Is all life a war forever? The rabbit is\nnimble, lives keenly, is prevented from degenerating into a diseased\ncrawling eater of herbs by the incessant ferret. Without the ferret of\nwar, what would life become?... War is murder truly, but is not Peace\ndecay?\n\nIt was during these prowling nights in the first winter of the war that\nMr. Britling planned a new writing that was to go whole abysses beneath\nthe facile superficiality of \"And Now War Ends.\" It was to be called the\n\"Anatomy of Hate.\" It was to deal very faithfully with the function of\nhate as a corrective to inefficiency. So long as men were slack, men\nmust be fierce. This conviction pressed upon him....\n\nIn spite of his detestation of war Mr. Britling found it impossible to\nmaintain that any sort of peace state was better than a state of war. If\nwars produced destructions and cruelties, peace could produce indolence,\nperversity, greedy accumulation and selfish indulgences. War is\ndiscipline for evil, but peace may be relaxation from good. The poor man\nmay be as wretched in peace time as in war time. The gathering forces of\nan evil peace, the malignity and waste of war, are but obverse and\nreverse of the medal of ill-adjusted human relationships. Was there no\nGreater Peace possible; not a mere recuperative pause in killing and\ndestruction, but a phase of noble and creative living, a phase of\nbuilding, of discovery, of beauty and research? He remembered, as one\nremembers the dead, dreams he had once dreamt of the great cities, the\nsplendid freedoms, of a coming age, of marvellous enlargements of human\nfaculty, of a coming science that would be light and of art that could\nbe power....\n\nBut would that former peace have ever risen to that?...\n\nAfter all, had such visions ever been more than idle dreams? Had the war\ndone more than unmask reality?...\n\nHe came to a gate and leant over it.\n\nThe darkness drizzled about him; he turned up his collar and watched the\ndim shapes of trees and hedges gather out of the night to meet the\ndismal dawn. He was cold and hungry and weary.\n\nHe may have drowsed; at least he had a vision, very real and plain, a\nvision very different from any dream of Utopia.\n\nIt seemed to him that suddenly a mine burst under a great ship at sea,\nthat men shouted and women sobbed and cowered, and flares played upon\nthe rain-pitted black waves; and then the picture changed and showed a\nbattle upon land, and searchlights were flickering through the rain and\nshells flashed luridly, and men darkly seen in silhouette against red\nflames ran with fixed bayonets and slipped and floundered over the mud,\nand at last, shouting thinly through the wind, leapt down into the enemy\ntrenches....\n\nAnd then he was alone again staring over a wet black field towards a dim\ncrest of shapeless trees.\n\n\nSection 9\n\nAbruptly and shockingly, this malignity of warfare, which had been so\nfar only a festering cluster of reports and stories and rumours and\nsuspicions, stretched out its arm into Essex and struck a barb of\ngrotesque cruelty into the very heart of Mr. Britling. Late one\nafternoon came a telegram from Filmington-on-Sea, where Aunt Wilshire\nhad been recovering her temper in a boarding-house after a round of\nvisits in Yorkshire and the moorlands. And she had been \"very seriously\ninjured\" by an overnight German air raid. It was a raid that had not\nbeen even mentioned in the morning's papers. She had asked to see him.\n\nIt was, ran the compressed telegraphic phrase, \"advisable to come at\nonce.\"\n\nMrs. Britling helped him pack a bag, and came with him to the station in\norder to drive the car back to the Dower House; for the gardener's boy\nwho had hitherto attended to these small duties had now gone off as an\nunskilled labourer to some munition works at Chelmsford. Mr. Britling\nsat in the slow train that carried him across country to the junction\nfor Filmington, and failed altogether to realise what had happened to\nthe old lady. He had an absurd feeling that it was characteristic of her\nto intervene in affairs in this manner. She had always been so tough and\nunbent an old lady that until he saw her he could not imagine her as\nbeing really seriously and pitifully hurt....\n\nBut he found her in the hospital very much hurt indeed. She had been\nsmashed in some complicated manner that left the upper part of her body\nintact, and lying slantingly upon pillows. Over the horror of bandaged\nbroken limbs and tormented flesh below sheets and a counterpane were\ndrawn. Morphia had been injected, he understood, to save her from pain,\nbut presently it might be necessary for her to suffer. She lay up in her\nbed with an effect of being enthroned, very white and still, her strong\nprofile with its big nose and her straggling hair and a certain dignity\ngave her the appearance of some very important, very old man, of an aged\npope for instance, rather than of an old woman. She had made no remark\nafter they had set her and dressed her and put her to bed except \"send\nfor Hughie Britling, The Dower House, Matching's Easy. He is the best of\nthe bunch.\" She had repeated the address and this commendation firmly\nover and over again, in large print as it were, even after they had\nassured her that a telegram had been despatched.\n\nIn the night, they said, she had talked of him.\n\nHe was not sure at first that she knew of his presence.\n\n\"Here I am, Aunt Wilshire,\" he said.\n\nShe gave no sign.\n\n\"Your nephew Hugh.\"\n\n\"Mean and preposterous,\" she said very distinctly.\n\nBut she was not thinking of Mr. Britling. She was talking of something\nelse.\n\nShe was saying: \"It should not have been known I was here. There are\nspies everywhere. Everywhere. There is a spy now--or a lump very like a\nspy. They pretend it is a hot-water bottle. Pretext.... Oh, yes! I\nadmit--absurd. But I have been pursued by spies. Endless spies. Endless,\nendless spies. Their devices are almost incredible.... He has never\nforgiven me....\n\n\"All this on account of a carpet. A palace carpet. Over which I had no\ncontrol. I spoke my mind. He knew I knew of it. I never concealed it.\nSo I was hunted. For years he had meditated revenge. Now he has it. But\nat what a cost! And they call him Emperor. Emperor!\n\n\"His arm is withered; his son--imbecile. He will die--without\ndignity....\"\n\nHer voice weakened, but it was evident she wanted to say something more.\n\n\"I'm here,\" said Mr. Britling. \"Your nephew Hughie.\"\n\nShe listened.\n\n\"Can you understand me?\" he asked.\n\nShe became suddenly an earnest, tender human being. \"My dear!\" she said,\nand seemed to search for something in her mind and failed to find it.\n\n\"You have always understood me,\" she tried.\n\n\"You have always been a good boy to me, Hughie,\" she said, rather\nvacantly, and added after some moments of still reflection, \"_au fond_.\"\n\nAfter that she was silent for some minutes, and took no notice of his\nwhispers.\n\nThen she recollected what had been in her mind. She put out a hand that\nsought for Mr. Britling's sleeve.\n\n\"Hughie!\"\n\n\"I'm here, Auntie,\" said Mr. Britling. \"I'm here.\"\n\n\"Don't let him get at _your_ Hughie.... Too good for it, dear. Oh!\nmuch--much too good.... People let these wars and excitements run away\nwith them.... They put too much into them.... They aren't--they aren't\nworth it. Don't let him get at your Hughie.\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"You understand me, Hughie?\"\n\n\"Perfectly, Auntie.\"\n\n\"Then don't forget it. Ever.\"\n\nShe had said what she wanted to say. She had made her testament. She\nclosed her eyes. He was amazed to find this grotesque old creature had\nsuddenly become beautiful, in that silvery vein of beauty one sometimes\nfinds in very old men. She was exalted as great artists will sometimes\nexalt the portraits of the aged. He was moved to kiss her forehead.\n\nThere came a little tug at his sleeve.\n\n\"I think that is enough,\" said the nurse, who had stood forgotten at his\nelbow.\n\n\"But I can come again?\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\nShe indicated departure by a movement of her hand.\n\n\nSection 10\n\nThe next day Aunt Wilshire was unconscious of her visitor.\n\nThey had altered her position so that she lay now horizontally, staring\ninflexibly at the ceiling and muttering queer old disconnected things.\n\nThe Windsor Castle carpet story was still running through her mind, but\nmixed up with it now were scraps of the current newspaper controversies\nabout the conduct of the war. And she was still thinking of the dynastic\naspects of the war. And of spies. She had something upon her mind about\nthe King's more German aunts.\n\n\"As a precaution,\" she said, \"as a precaution. Watch them all.... The\nPrincess Christian.... Laying foundation stones.... Cement.... Guns. Or\nelse why should they always be laying foundation stones?... Always....\nWhy?... Hushed up....\n\n\"None of these things,\" she said, \"in the newspapers. They ought to be.\"\n\nAnd then after an interval, very distinctly, \"The Duke of Wellington. My\nancestor--in reality.... Publish and be damned.\"\n\nAfter that she lay still....\n\nThe doctors and nurses could hold out only very faint hopes to Mr.\nBritling's inquiries; they said indeed it was astonishing that she was\nstill alive.\n\nAnd about seven o'clock that evening she died....\n\n\nSection 11\n\nMr. Britling, after he had looked at his dead cousin for the last time,\nwandered for an hour or so about the silent little watering-place before\nhe returned to his hotel. There was no one to talk to and nothing else\nto do but to think of her death.\n\nThe night was cold and bleak, but full of stars. He had already mastered\nthe local topography, and he knew now exactly where all the bombs that\nhad been showered upon the place had fallen. Here was the corner of\nblackened walls and roasted beams where three wounded horses had been\nburnt alive in a barn, here the row of houses, some smashed, some almost\nintact, where a mutilated child had screamed for two hours before she\ncould be rescued from the debris that had pinned her down, and taken to\nthe hospital. Everywhere by the dim light of the shaded street lamps he\ncould see the black holes and gaps of broken windows; sometimes\nabundant, sometimes rare and exceptional, among otherwise uninjured\ndwellings. Many of the victims he had visited in the little cottage\nhospital where Aunt Wilshire had just died. She was the eleventh dead.\nAltogether fifty-seven people had been killed or injured in this\nbrilliant German action. They were all civilians, and only twelve were\nmen.\n\nTwo Zeppelins had come in from over the sea, and had been fired at by an\nanti-aircraft gun coming on an automobile from Ipswich. The first\nintimation the people of the town had had of the raid was the report of\nthis gun. Many had run out to see what was happening. It was doubtful if\nany one had really seen the Zeppelins, though every one testified to the\nsound of their engines. Then suddenly the bombs had come streaming\ndown. Only six had made hits upon houses or people; the rest had fallen\nruinously and very close together on the local golf links, and at least\nhalf had not exploded at all and did not seem to have been released to\nexplode.\n\nA third at least of the injured people had been in bed when destruction\ncame upon them.\n\nThe story was like a page from some fantastic romance of Jules Verne's;\nthe peace of the little old town, the people going to bed, the quiet\nstreets, the quiet starry sky, and then for ten minutes an uproar of\nguns and shells, a clatter of breaking glass, and then a fire here, a\nfire there, a child's voice pitched high by pain and terror, scared\npeople going to and fro with lanterns, and the sky empty again, the\nraiders gone....\n\nFive minutes before, Aunt Wilshire had been sitting in the\nboarding-house drawing-room playing a great stern \"Patience,\" the\nEmperor Patience (\"Napoleon, my dear!--not that Potsdam creature\") that\ntook hours to do. Five minutes later she was a thing of elemental terror\nand agony, bleeding wounds and shattered bones, plunging about in the\ndarkness amidst a heap of wreckage. And already the German airmen were\nbuzzing away to sea again, proud of themselves, pleased no doubt--like\nboys who have thrown a stone through a window, beating their way back to\nthanks and rewards, to iron crosses and the proud embraces of delighted\nFraus and Fräuleins....\n\nFor the first time it seemed to Mr. Britling he really saw the immediate\nhorror of war, the dense cruel stupidity of the business, plain and\nclose. It was as if he had never perceived anything of the sort before,\nas if he had been dealing with stories, pictures, shows and\nrepresentations that he knew to be shams. But that this dear, absurd old\ncreature, this thing of home, this being of familiar humours and\nfamiliar irritations, should be torn to pieces, left in torment like a\nsmashed mouse over which an automobile has passed, brought the whole\nbusiness to a raw and quivering focus. Not a soul among all those who\nhad been rent and torn and tortured in this agony of millions, but was\nto any one who understood and had been near to it, in some way lovable,\nin some way laughable, in some way worthy of respect and care. Poor Aunt\nWilshire was but the sample thrust in his face of all this mangled\nmultitude, whose green-white lips had sweated in anguish, whose broken\nbones had thrust raggedly through red dripping flesh.... The detested\nfeatures of the German Crown Prince jerked into the centre of Mr.\nBritling's picture. The young man stood in his dapper uniform and\ngrinned under his long nose, carrying himself jauntily, proud of his\nextreme importance to so many lives....\n\nAnd for a while Mr. Britling could do nothing but rage.\n\n\"Devils they are!\" he cried to the stars.\n\n\"Devils! Devilish fools rather. Cruel blockheads. Apes with all science\nin their hands! My God! but _we will teach them a lesson yet!_...\"\n\nThat was the key of his mood for an hour of aimless wandering, wandering\nthat was only checked at last by a sentinel who turned him back towards\nthe town....\n\nHe wandered, muttering. He found great comfort in scheming vindictive\ndestruction for countless Germans. He dreamt of swift armoured\naeroplanes swooping down upon the flying airship, and sending it reeling\nearthward, the men screaming. He imagined a shattered Zeppelin\nstaggering earthward in the fields behind the Dower House, and how he\nwould himself run out with a spade and smite the Germans down. \"Quarter\nindeed! Kamerad! Take _that_, you foul murderer!\"\n\nIn the dim light the sentinel saw the retreating figure of Mr. Britling\nmake an extravagant gesture, and wondered what it might mean.\nSignalling? What ought an intelligent sentry to do? Let fly at him?\nArrest him?... Take no notice?...\n\nMr. Britling was at that moment killing Count Zeppelin and beating out\nhis brains. Count Zeppelin was killed that night and the German Emperor\nwas assassinated; a score of lesser victims were offered up to the\n_manes_ of Aunt Wilshire; there were memorable cruelties before the\nwrath and bitterness of Mr. Britling was appeased. And then suddenly he\nhad had enough of these thoughts; they were thrust aside, they vanished\nout of his mind.\n\n\nSection 12\n\nAll the while that Mr. Britling had been indulging in these imaginative\nslaughterings and spending the tears and hate that had gathered in his\nheart, his reason had been sitting apart and above the storm, like the\nsun waiting above thunder, like a wise nurse watching and patient above\nthe wild passions of a child. And all the time his reason had been\nmaintaining silently and firmly, without shouting, without speech, that\nthe men who had made this hour were indeed not devils, were no more\ndevils than Mr. Britling was a devil, but sinful men of like nature with\nhimself, hard, stupid, caught in the same web of circumstance. \"Kill\nthem in your passion if you will,\" said reason, \"but understand. This\nthing was done neither by devils nor fools, but by a conspiracy of\nfoolish motives, by the weak acquiescences of the clever, by a crime\nthat was no man's crime but the natural necessary outcome of the\nineffectiveness, the blind motives and muddleheadedness of all mankind.\"\n\nSo reason maintained her thesis, like a light above the head of Mr.\nBritling at which he would not look, while he hewed airmen to quivering\nrags with a spade that he had sharpened, and stifled German princes with\ntheir own poison gas, given slowly and as painfully as possible. \"And\nwhat of the towns _our_ ships have bombarded?\" asked reason unheeded.\n\"What of those Tasmanians _our_ people utterly swept away?\"\n\n\"What of French machine-guns in the Atlas?\" reason pressed the case. \"Of\nHimalayan villages burning? Of the things we did in China? Especially\nof the things we did in China....\"\n\nMr. Britling gave no heed to that.\n\n\"The Germans in China were worse than we were,\" he threw out....\n\nHe was maddened by the thought of the Zeppelin making off, high and far\nin the sky, a thing dwindling to nothing among the stars, and the\nthought of those murderers escaping him. Time after time he stood still\nand shook his fist at Boötes, slowly sweeping up the sky....\n\nAnd at last, sick and wretched, he sat down on a seat upon the deserted\nparade under the stars, close to the soughing of the invisible sea\nbelow....\n\nHis mind drifted back once more to those ancient heresies of the\nGnostics and the Manichæans which saw the God of the World as altogether\nevil, which sought only to escape by the utmost abstinences and evasions\nand perversions from the black wickedness of being. For a while his soul\nsank down into the uncongenial darknesses of these creeds of despair. \"I\nwho have loved life,\" he murmured, and could have believed for a time\nthat he wished he had never had a son....\n\nIs the whole scheme of nature evil? Is life in its essence cruel? Is man\nstretched quivering upon the table of the eternal vivisector for no\nend--and without pity?\n\nThese were thoughts that Mr. Britling had never faced before the war.\nThey came to him now, and they came only to be rejected by the inherent\nquality of his mind. For weeks, consciously and subconsciously, his mind\nhad been grappling with this riddle. He had thought of it during his\nlonely prowlings as a special constable; it had flung itself in\nmonstrous symbols across the dark canvas of his dreams. \"Is there indeed\na devil of pure cruelty? Does any creature, even the very cruellest of\ncreatures, really apprehend the pain it causes, or inflict it for the\nsake of the infliction?\" He summoned a score of memories, a score of\nimaginations, to bear their witness before the tribunal of his mind. He\nforgot cold and loneliness in this speculation. He sat, trying all\nBeing, on this score, under the cold indifferent stars.\n\nHe thought of certain instances of boyish cruelty that had horrified him\nin his own boyhood, and it was clear to him that indeed it was not\ncruelty, it was curiosity, dense textured, thick skinned, so that it\ncould not feel even the anguish of a blinded cat. Those boys who had\nwrung his childish soul to nigh intolerable misery, had not indeed been\ntormenting so much as observing torment, testing life as wantonly as one\nbreaks thin ice in the early days of winter. In very much cruelty the\nreal motive is surely no worse than that obtuse curiosity; a mere step\nof understanding, a mere quickening of the nerves and mind, makes it\nimpossible. But that is not true of all or most cruelty. Most cruelty\nhas something else in it, something more than the clumsy plunging into\nexperience of the hobbledehoy; it is vindictive or indignant; it is\nnever tranquil and sensuous; it draws its incentive, however crippled\nand monstrous the justification may be, from something punitive in man's\ninstinct, something therefore that implies a sense, however misguided,\nof righteousness and vindication. That factor is present even in spite;\nwhen some vile or atrocious thing is done out of envy or malice, that\nenvy and malice has in it always--_always?_ Yes, always--a genuine\ncondemnation of the hated thing as an unrighteous thing, as an unjust\nusurpation, as an inexcusable privilege, as a sinful overconfidence.\nThose men in the airship?--he was coming to that. He found himself\nasking himself whether it was possible for a human being to do any cruel\nact without an excuse--or, at least, without the feeling of\nexcusability. And in the case of these Germans and the outrages they had\ncommitted and the retaliations they had provoked, he perceived that\nalways there was the element of a perceptible if inadequate\njustification. Just as there would be if presently he were to maltreat a\nfallen German airman. There was anger in their vileness. These Germans\nwere an unsubtle people, a people in the worst and best sense of the\nwords, plain and honest; they were prone to moral indignation; and moral\nindignation is the mother of most of the cruelty in the world. They\nperceived the indolence of the English and Russians, they perceived\ntheir disregard of science and system, they could not perceive the\nlonger reach of these greater races, and it seemed to them that the\nmission of Germany was to chastise and correct this laxity. Surely, they\nhad argued, God was not on the side of those who kept an untilled field.\nSo they had butchered these old ladies and slaughtered these children\njust to show us the consequences:\n\n \"All along of dirtiness, all along of mess,\n  All along of doing things rather more or less.\"\n\nThe very justification our English poet has found for a thousand\noverbearing actions in the East! \"Forget not order and the real,\" that\nwas the underlying message of bomb and gas and submarine. After all,\nwhat right had we English _not_ to have a gun or an aeroplane fit to\nbring down that Zeppelin ignominiously and conclusively? Had we not\nundertaken Empire? Were we not the leaders of great nations? Had we\nindeed much right to complain if our imperial pose was flouted? \"There,\nat least,\" said Mr. Britling's reason, \"is one of the lines of thought\nthat brought that unseen cruelty out of the night high over the houses\nof Filmington-on-Sea. That, in a sense, is the cause of this killing.\nCruel it is and abominable, yes, but is it altogether cruel? Hasn't it,\nafter all, a sort of stupid rightness?--isn't it a stupid reaction to an\nindolence at least equally stupid?\"\n\nWhat was this rightness that lurked below cruelty? What was the\ninspiration of this pressure of spite, this anger that was aroused by\nineffective gentleness and kindliness? Was it indeed an altogether evil\nthing; was it not rather an impulse, blind as yet, but in its ultimate\nquality _as good as mercy_, greater perhaps in its ultimate values than\nmercy?\n\nThis idea had been gathering in Mr. Britling's mind for many weeks; it\nhad been growing and taking shape as he wrote, making experimental\nbeginnings for his essay, \"The Anatomy of Hate.\" Is there not, he now\nasked himself plainly, a creative and corrective impulse behind all\nhate? Is not this malignity indeed only the ape-like precursor of the\ngreat disciplines of a creative state?\n\nThe invincible hopefulness of his sanguine temperament had now got Mr.\nBritling well out of the pessimistic pit again. Already he had been on\nthe verge of his phrase while wandering across the rushy fields towards\nMarket Saffron; now it came to him again like a legitimate monarch\nreturning from exile.\n\n\"When hate shall have become creative energy....\n\n\"Hate which passes into creative power; gentleness which is indolence\nand the herald of euthanasia....\n\n\"Pity is but a passing grace; for mankind will not always be pitiful.\"\n\nBut meanwhile, meanwhile.... How long were men so to mingle wrong with\nright, to be energetic without mercy and kindly without energy?...\n\nFor a time Mr. Britling sat on the lonely parade under the stars and in\nthe sound of the sea, brooding upon these ideas.\n\nHis mind could make no further steps. It had worked for its spell. His\nrage had ebbed away now altogether. His despair was no longer infinite.\nBut the world was dark and dreadful still. It seemed none the less dark\nbecause at the end there was a gleam of light. It was a gleam of light\nfar beyond the limits of his own life, far beyond the life of his son.\nIt had no balm for these sufferings. Between it and himself stretched\nthe weary generations still to come, generations of bickering and\naccusation, greed and faintheartedness, and half truth and the hasty\nblow. And all those years would be full of pitiful things, such pitiful\nthings as the blackened ruins in the town behind, the little grey-faced\ncorpses, the lives torn and wasted, the hopes extinguished and the\ngladness gone....\n\nHe was no longer thinking of the Germans as diabolical. They were human;\nthey had a case. It was a stupid case, but our case, too, was a stupid\ncase. How stupid were all our cases! What was it we missed? Something,\nhe felt, very close to us, and very elusive. Something that would\nresolve a hundred tangled oppositions....\n\nHis mind hung at that. Back upon his consciousness came crowding the\nhorrors and desolations that had been his daily food now for three\nquarters of a year. He groaned aloud. He struggled against that renewed\nenvelopment of his spirit. \"Oh, blood-stained fools!\" he cried, \"oh,\npitiful, tormented fools!\n\n\"Even that vile airship was a ship of fools!\n\n\"We are all fools still. Striving apes, irritated beyond measure by our\nown striving, easily moved to anger.\"\n\nSome train of subconscious suggestion brought a long-forgotten speech\nback into Mr. Britling's mind, a speech that is full of that light which\nstill seeks so mysteriously and indefatigably to break through the\ndarkness and thickness of the human mind.\n\nHe whispered the words. No unfamiliar words could have had the same\neffect of comfort and conviction.\n\nHe whispered it of those men whom he still imagined flying far away\nthere eastward, through the clear freezing air beneath the stars, those\nmuffled sailors and engineers who had caused so much pain and agony in\nthis little town.\n\n\"_Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do._\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FOURTH\n\nIN THE WEB OF THE INEFFECTIVE\n\n\nSection 1\n\nHugh's letters were becoming a very important influence upon Mr.\nBritling's thought. Hugh had always been something of a letter-writer,\nand now what was perhaps an inherited desire to set things down was\nmanifest. He had been accustomed to decorate his letters from school\nwith absurd little sketches--sometimes his letters had been all\nsketches--and now he broke from drawing to writing and back to drawing\nin a way that pleased his father mightily. The father loved this queer\ntrick of caricature; he did not possess it himself, and so it seemed to\nhim the most wonderful of all Hugh's little equipment of gifts. Mr.\nBritling used to carry these letters about until their edges got grimy;\nhe would show them to any one he felt capable of appreciating their\nyouthful freshness; he would quote them as final and conclusive evidence\nto establish this or that. He did not dream how many thousands of\nmothers and fathers were treasuring such documents. He thought other\nsons were dull young men by comparison with Hugh.\n\nThe earlier letters told much of the charms of discipline and the open\nair. \"All the bother about what one has to do with oneself is over,\"\nwrote Hugh. \"One has disposed of oneself. That has the effect of a great\nrelief. Instead of telling oneself that one ought to get up in the\nmorning, a bugle tells you that.... And there's no nonsense about it, no\nchance of lying and arguing about it with oneself.... I begin to see the\nsense of men going into monasteries and putting themselves under rules.\nOne is carried along in a sort of moral automobile instead of trudging\nthe road....\"\n\nAnd he was also sounding new physical experiences.\n\n\"Never before,\" he declared, \"have I known what fatigue is. It's a\nmiraculous thing. One drops down in one's clothes on any hard old thing\nand sleeps....\"\n\nAnd in his early letters he was greatly exercised by the elementary\nscience of drill and discipline, and the discussion of whether these\nthings were necessary. He began by assuming that their importance was\noverrated. He went on to discover that they constituted the very\nessentials of all good soldiering. \"In a crisis,\" he concluded, \"there\nis no telling what will get hold of a man, his higher instincts or his\nlower. He may show courage of a very splendid sort--or a hasty\ndiscretion. A habit is much more trustworthy than an instinct. So\ndiscipline sets up a habit of steady and courageous bearing. If you keep\nyour head you are at liberty to be splendid. If you lose it, the habit\nwill carry you through.\"\n\nThe young man was also very profound upon the effects of the suggestion\nof various exercises upon the mind.\n\n\"It is surprising how bloodthirsty one feels in a bayonet charge. We\nhave to shout; we are encouraged to shout. The effect is to paralyse\none's higher centres. One ceases to question--anything. One becomes a\n'bayoneteer.' As I go bounding forward I imagine fat men, succulent men\nahead, and I am filled with the desire to do them in neatly. This sort\nof thing--\"\n\nA sketch of slaughter followed, with a large and valiant Hugh leaving a\ntrain of fallen behind him.\n\n\"Not like this. This is how I used to draw it in my innocent childhood,\nbut it is incorrect. More than one German on the bayonet at a time is an\nincumbrance. And it would be swank--a thing we detest in the army.\"\n\nThe second sketch showed the same brave hero with half a dozen of the\nenemy skewered like cat's-meat.\n\n\"As for the widows and children, I disregard 'em.\"\n\n\nSection 2\n\nBut presently Hugh began to be bored.\n\n\"Route marching again,\" he wrote. \"For no earthly reason than that they\ncan do nothing else with us. We are getting no decent musketry training\nbecause there are no rifles. We are wasting half our time. If you\nmultiply half a week by the number of men in the army you will see we\nwaste centuries weekly.... If most of these men here had just been\nenrolled and left to go about their business while we trained officers\nand instructors and got equipment for them, and if they had then been\nput through their paces as rapidly as possible, it would have been\ninfinitely better for the country.... In a sort of way we are keeping\nraw; in a sort of way we are getting stale.... I get irritated by this.\nI feel we are not being properly done by.\n\n\"Half our men are educated men, reasonably educated, but we are always\nbeing treated as though we were too stupid for words....\n\n\"No good grousing, I suppose, but after Statesminster and a glimpse of\nold Cardinal's way of doing things, one gets a kind of toothache in the\nmind at the sight of everything being done twice as slowly and half as\nwell as it need be.\"\n\nHe went off at a tangent to describe the men in his platoon. \"The best\nman in our lot is an ex-grocer's assistant, but in order to save us from\nvain generalisations it happens that the worst man--a moon-faced\ncreature, almost incapable of lacing up his boots without help and\nobjurgation--is also an ex-grocer's assistant. Our most offensive member\nis a little cad with a snub nose, who has read Kipling and imagines he\nis the nearest thing that ever has been to Private Ortheris. He goes\nabout looking for the other two of the Soldiers Three; it is rather like\nan unpopular politician trying to form a ministry. And he is\nconscientiously foul-mouthed. He feels losing a chance of saying\n'bloody' as acutely as a snob feels dropping an H. He goes back\nsometimes and says the sentence over again and puts the 'bloody' in. I\nused to swear a little out of the range of your parental ear, but\nOrtheris has cured me. When he is about I am mincing in my speech. I\nperceive now that cursing is a way of chewing one's own dirt. In a\nplatoon there is no elbow-room for indifference; you must either love or\nhate. I have a feeling that my first taste of battle will not be with\nGermans, but with Private Ortheris....\"\n\nAnd one letter was just a picture, a parody of the well-known picture of\nthe bivouac below and the soldier's dream of return to his beloved\nabove. But Master Hugh in the dream was embracing an enormous retort,\nwhile a convenient galvanometer registered his emotion and little\ntripods danced around him.\n\n\nSection 3\n\nThen came a letter which plunged abruptly into criticism.\n\n\"My dear Parent, this is a swearing letter. I must let go to somebody.\nAnd somehow none of the other chaps are convenient. I don't know if I\nought to be put against a wall and shot for it, but I hereby declare\nthat all the officers of this battalion over and above the rank of\ncaptain are a constellation of incapables--and several of the captains\nare herewith included. Some of them are men of a pleasant disposition\nand carefully aborted mental powers, and some are men of an unpleasant\ndisposition and no mental powers at all. And I believe--a little\nenlightened by your recent letter to _The Times_--that they are a fair\nsample of the entire 'army' class which has got to win this war. Usually\nthey are indolent, but when they are thoroughly roused they are fussy.\nThe time they should spend in enlarging their minds and increasing their\nmilitary efficiency they devote to keeping fit. They are, roughly\nspeaking, fit--for nothing. They cannot move us thirty miles without\ngetting half of us left about, without losing touch with food and\nshelter, and starving us for thirty-six hours or so in the process, and\nthey cannot count beyond the fingers of one hand, not having learnt to\nuse the nose for arithmetical operations.... I conclude this war is\ngoing to be a sort of Battle of Inkerman on a large scale. We chaps in\nthe ranks will have to do the job. Leading is 'off.'...\n\n\"All of this, my dear Parent, is just a blow off. I have been needlessly\nstarved, and fagged to death and exasperated. We have moved\nfive-and-twenty miles across country--in fifty-seven hours. And without\nfood for about eighteen hours. I have been with my Captain, who has been\nbilleting us here in Cheasingholt. Oh, he is a MUFF! Oh God! oh God of\nHeaven! what a MUFF! He is afraid of printed matter, but he controls\nhimself heroically. He prides himself upon having no 'sense of locality,\nconfound it!' Prides himself! He went about this village, which is a\nlittle dispersed, at a slight trot, and wouldn't avail himself of the\none-inch map I happened to have. He judged the capacity of each room\nwith his eye and wouldn't let me measure, even with God's own paces. Not\nwith the legs I inherit. 'We'll put five fellahs hea!' he said. 'What\nd'you want to measure the room for? We haven't come to lay down\ncarpets.' Then, having assigned men by _coup d'oeil_, so as to congest\nhalf the village miserably, he found the other half unoccupied and had\nto begin all over again. 'If you measured the floor space first, sir,' I\nsaid, 'and made a list of the houses--' 'That isn't the way I'm going to\ndo it,' he said, fixing me with a pitiless eye....\n\n\"That isn't the way they are going to do it, Daddy! The sort of thing\nthat is done over here in the green army will be done over there in the\ndry. They won't be in time; they'll lose their guns where now they lose\nour kitchens. I'm a mute soldier; I've got to do what I'm told; still,\nI begin to understand the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.\n\n\"They say the relations of men and officers in the new army are\nbeautiful. Some day I may learn to love my officer--but not just yet.\nNot till I've forgotten the operations leading up to the occupation of\nCheasingholt.... He muffs his real job without a blush, and yet he would\nrather be shot than do his bootlaces up criss-cross. What I say about\nofficers applies only and solely to him really.... How well I understand\nnow the shooting of officers by their men.... But indeed, fatigue and\nexasperation apart, this shift has been done atrociously....\"\n\nThe young man returned to these criticisms in a later letter.\n\n\"You will think I am always carping, but it does seem to me that nearly\neverything is being done here in the most wasteful way possible. We\nwaste time, we waste labour, we waste material, oh Lord! how we waste\nour country's money. These aren't, I can assure you, the opinions of a\nconceited young man. It's nothing to be conceited about.... We're bored\nto death by standing about this infernal little village. There is\nnothing to do--except trail after a small number of slatternly young\nwomen we despise and hate. I _don't_, Daddy. And I don't drink. Why have\nI inherited no vices? We had a fight here yesterday--sheer boredom.\nOrtheris has a swollen lip, and another private has a bad black eye.\nThere is to be a return match. I perceive the chief horror of warfare is\nboredom....\n\n\"Our feeding here is typical of the whole system. It is a system\ninvented not with any idea of getting the best results--that does not\nenter into the War Office philosophy--but to have a rule for everything,\nand avoid arguments. There is rather too generous an allowance of bread\nand stuff per man, and there is a very fierce but not very efficient\nsystem of weighing and checking. A rather too generous allowance is, of\ncourse, a direct incentive to waste or stealing--as any one but our\nsilly old duffer of a War Office would know. The checking is for\nquantity, which any fool can understand, rather than for quality. The\ntest for the quality of army meat is the smell. If it doesn't smell bad,\nit is good....\n\n\"Then the raw material is handed over to a cook. He is a common soldier\nwho has been made into a cook by a simple ceremony. He is told, 'You are\na cook.' He does his best to be. Usually he roasts or bakes to begin\nwith, guessing when the joint is done, afterwards he hacks up what is\nleft of his joints and makes a stew for next day. A stew is hacked meat\nboiled up in a big pot. It has much fat floating on the top. After you\nhave eaten your fill you want to sit about quiet. The men are fed\nusually in a large tent or barn. We have a barn. It is not a clean barn,\nand just to make it more like a picnic there are insufficient plates,\nknives and forks. (I tell you, no army people can count beyond eight or\nten.) The corporals after their morning's work have to carve. When they\nhave done carving they tell me they feel they have had enough dinner.\nThey sit about looking pale, and wander off afterwards to the village\npub. (I shall probably become a corporal soon.) In these islands before\nthe war began there was a surplus of women over men of about a million.\n(See the publications of the Fabian Society, now so popular among the\nyoung.) None of these women have been trusted by the government with the\ndifficult task of cooking and giving out food to our soldiers. No man of\nthe ordinary soldier class ever cooks anything until he is a soldier....\nAll food left over after the stew or otherwise rendered uneatable by the\ncook is thrown away. We throw away pail-loads. _We bury meat_....\n\n\"Also we get three pairs of socks. We work pretty hard. We don't know\nhow to darn socks. When the heels wear through, come blisters. Bad\nblisters disable a man. Of the million of surplus women (see above) the\ngovernment has not had the intelligence to get any to darn our socks.\nSo a certain percentage of us go lame. And so on. And so on.\n\n\"You will think all this is awful grousing, but the point I want to\nmake--I hereby to ease my feelings make it now in a fair round hand--is\nthat all this business could be done far better and far cheaper if it\nwasn't left to these absolutely inexperienced and extremely exclusive\nmilitary gentlemen. They think they are leading England and showing us\nall how; instead of which they are just keeping us back. Why in thunder\nare they doing everything? Not one of them, when he is at home, is\nallowed to order the dinner or poke his nose into his own kitchen or\ncheck the household books.... The ordinary British colonel is a helpless\nold gentleman; he ought to have a nurse.... This is not merely the\ntrivial grievance of my insulted stomach, it is a serious matter for the\ncountry. Sooner or later the country may want the food that is being\nwasted in all these capers. In the aggregate it must amount to a daily\ndestruction of tons of stuff of all sorts. Tons.... Suppose the war\nlasts longer than we reckon!\"\n\nFrom this point Hugh's letter jumped to a general discussion of the\nmilitary mind.\n\n\"Our officers are beastly good chaps, nearly all of them. That's where\nthe perplexity of the whole thing comes in. If only they weren't such\ngood chaps! If only they were like the Prussian officers to their men,\nthen we'd just take on a revolution as well as the war, and make\neverything tidy at once. But they are decent, they are charming.... Only\nthey do not think hard, and they do not understand that doing a job\nproperly means doing it as directly and thought-outly as you possibly\ncan. They won't worry about things. If their tempers were worse perhaps\ntheir work might be better. They won't use maps or timetables or books\nof reference. When we move to a new place they pick up what they can\nabout it by hearsay; not one of our lot has the gumption to possess a\ncontoured map or a Michelin guide. They have hearsay minds. They are\nfussy and petty and wasteful--and, in the way of getting things done,\npretentious. By their code they're paragons of honour. Courage--they're\nall right about that; no end of it; honesty, truthfulness, and so\non--high. They have a kind of horsey standard of smartness and pluck,\ntoo, that isn't bad, and they have a fine horror of whiskers and being\nunbuttoned. But the mistake they make is to class thinking with\nwhiskers, as a sort of fussy sidegrowth. Instead of classing it with\nunbuttonedupness. They hate economy. And preparation....\n\n\"They won't see that inefficiency is a sort of dishonesty. If a man\ndoesn't steal sixpence, they think it a light matter if he wastes half a\ncrown. Here follows wisdom! _From the point of view of a nation at war,\nsixpence is just a fifth part of half a crown_....\n\n\"When I began this letter I was boiling with indignation, complicated, I\nsuspect, by this morning's 'stew'; now I have written thus far I feel\nI'm an ungenerous grumbler.... It is remarkable, my dear Parent, that I\nlet off these things to you. I like writing to you. I couldn't possibly\nsay the things I can write. Heinrich had a confidential friend at\nBreslau to whom he used to write about his Soul. I never had one of\nthose Teutonic friendships. And I haven't got a Soul. But I have to\nwrite. One must write to some one--and in this place there is nothing\nelse to do. And now the old lady downstairs is turning down the gas; she\nalways does at half-past ten. She didn't ought. She gets--ninepence\neach. Excuse the pencil....\"\n\nThat letter ended abruptly. The next two were brief and cheerful. Then\nsuddenly came a new note.\n\n\"We've got rifles! We're real armed soldiers at last. Every blessed man\nhas got a rifle. And they come from Japan! They are of a sort of light\nwood that is like new oak and art furniture, and makes one feel that\none belongs to the First Garden Suburb Regiment; but I believe much can\nbe done with linseed oil. And they are real rifles, they go bang. We are\na little light-headed about them. Only our training and discipline\nprevent our letting fly at incautious spectators on the skyline. I saw a\nman yesterday about half a mile off. I was possessed by the idea that I\ncould get him--right in the middle.... Ortheris, the little beast, has\ngot a motor-bicycle, which he calls his 'b----y oto'--no one knows\nwhy--and only death or dishonourable conduct will save me, I gather,\nfrom becoming a corporal in the course of the next month....\"\n\n\nSection 4\n\nA subsequent letter threw fresh light on the career of the young man\nwith the \"oto.\" Before the rifle and the \"oto,\" and in spite of his\nfights with some person or persons unknown, Ortheris found trouble. Hugh\ntold the story with the unblushing _savoir-faire_ of the very young.\n\n\"By the by, Ortheris, following the indications of his creator and\nsuccumbing to the universal boredom before the rifles came, forgot Lord\nKitchener's advice and attempted 'seduktion.' With painful results which\nhe insists upon confiding to the entire platoon. He has been severely\nsmacked and scratched by the proposed victim, and warned off the\npremises (licensed premises) by her father and mother--both formidable\npersons. They did more than warn him off the premises. They had\ndisplayed neither a proper horror of Don Juan nor a proper respect for\nthe King's uniform. Mother, we realise, got hold of him and cuffed him\nseverely. 'What the 'ell's a chap to do?' cried Ortheris. 'You can't go\n'itting a woman back.' Father had set a dog on him. A less ingenuous\ncharacter would be silent about such passages--I should be too\negotistical and humiliated altogether--but that is not his quality. He\ntells us in tones of naïve wonder. He talks about it and talks about\nit. 'I don't care what the old woman did,' he says, 'not--reely. What\n'urts me about it is that I jest made a sort of mistake 'ow _she'd_ tike\nit. You see, I sort of feel I've 'urt and insulted _'er_. And reely I\ndidn't mean to. Swap me, I didn't mean to. Gawd 'elp me. I wouldn't 'ave\n'ad it 'appened as it 'as 'appened, not for worlds. And now I can't get\nround to 'er, or anyfing, not to explain.... You chaps may laugh, but\nyou don't know what there is _in_ it.... I tell you it worries me\nsomething frightful. You think I'm just a little cad who took liberties\nhe didn't ought to. (Note of anger drowning uncharitable grunts of\nassent.) 'Ow the 'ell is 'e to know _when_ 'e didn't ought to? ... I\n_swear_ she liked me....'\n\n\"This kind of thing goes on for hours--in the darkness.\n\n\"'I'd got regular sort of fond of 'er.'\n\n\"And the extraordinary thing is it makes me begin to get regular fond of\nOrtheris.\n\n\"I think it is because the affair has surprised him right out of acting\nOrtheris and Tommy Atkins for a bit, into his proper self. He's\nfrightfully like some sort of mongrel with a lot of wiry-haired terrier\nand a touch of Airedale in it. A mongrel you like in spite of the\nflavour of all the horrid things he's been nosing into. And he's as hard\nas nails and, my dear daddy! he can't box for nuts.\"\n\n\nSection 5\n\nMr. Britling, with an understanding much quickened by Hugh's letters,\nwent about Essex in his automobile, and on one or two journeys into\nBerkshire and Buckinghamshire, and marked the steady conversion of the\nold pacific countryside into an armed camp. He was disposed to minimise\nHugh's criticisms. He found in them something of the harshness of youth,\nwhich is far too keen-edged to be tolerant with half performance and\nour poor human evasion of perfection's overstrain. \"Our poor human\nevasion of perfection's overstrain\"; this phrase was Mr. Britling's. To\nMr. Britling, looking less closely and more broadly, the new army was a\npride and a marvel.\n\nHe liked to come into some quiet village and note the clusters of sturdy\nkhaki-clad youngsters going about their business, the tethered horses,\nthe air of subdued bustle, the occasional glimpses of guns and\nammunition trains. Wherever one went now there were soldiers and still\nmore soldiers. There was a steady flow of men into Flanders, and\npresently to Gallipoli, but it seemed to have no effect upon the\nmultitude in training at home. He was pleasantly excited by the evident\nincrease in the proportion of military material upon the railways; he\nliked the promise and mystery of the long lines of trucks bearing\ntarpaulin-covered wagons and carts and guns that he would pass on his\nway to Liverpool Street station. He could apprehend defeat in the\nsilence of the night, but when he saw the men, when he went about the\nland, then it was impossible to believe in any end but victory....\n\nBut through the spring and summer there was no victory. The \"great\noffensive\" of May was checked and abandoned after a series of\nineffective and very costly attacks between Ypres and Soissons. The\nGermans had developed a highly scientific defensive in which\nmachine-guns replaced rifles and a maximum of punishment was inflicted\nupon an assaulting force with a minimum of human loss. The War Office\nhad never thought much of machine-guns before, but now it thought a good\ndeal. Moreover, the energies of Britain were being turned more and more\ntowards the Dardanelles.\n\nThe idea of an attack upon the Dardanelles had a traditional\nattractiveness for the British mind. Old men had been brought up from\nchildhood with \"forcing the Dardanelles\" as a familiar phrase; it had\nnone of the flighty novelty and vulgarity about it that made an \"aerial\noffensive\" seem so unwarrantable a proceeding. Forcing the Dardanelles\nwas historically British. It made no break with tradition. Soon after\nTurkey entered the war British submarines appeared in the Sea of\nMarmora, and in February a systematic bombardment of the Dardanelles\nbegan; this was continued intermittently for a month, the defenders\nprofiting by their experiences and by spells of bad weather to\nstrengthen their works. This first phase of the attack culminated in the\nloss of the _Irresistible_, _Ocean_, and _Bouvet_, when on the 17th of\nMarch the attacking fleet closed in upon the Narrows. After an interlude\nof six weeks to allow of further preparations on the part of the\ndefenders, who were now thoroughly alive to what was coming, the Allied\narmies gathered upon the scene, and a difficult and costly landing was\nachieved at two points upon the peninsula of Gallipoli. With that began\na slow and bloody siege of the defences of the Dardanelles, clambering\nup to the surprise landing of a fresh British army in Suvla Bay in\nAugust, and its failure in the battle of Anafarta, through incompetent\ncommanders and a general sloppiness of leading, to cut off and capture\nMaidos and the Narrows defences.... Meanwhile the Russian hosts, which\nhad reached their high-water mark in the capture of Przemysl, were being\nforced back first in the south and then in the north. The Germans\nrecaptured Lemberg, entered Warsaw, and pressed on to take Brest\nLitowsk. The Russian lines rolled back with an impressive effect of\ndefeat, and the Germans thrust towards Riga and Petrograd, reaching\nVilna about the middle of September....\n\nDay after day Mr. Britling traced the swaying fortunes of the conflict,\nwith impatience, with perplexity, but with no loss of confidence in the\nultimate success of Britain. The country was still swarming with troops,\nand still under summer sunshine. A second hay harvest redeemed the\nscantiness of the first, the wheat crops were wonderful, and the great\nfig tree at the corner of the Dower House had never borne so bountifully\nnor such excellent juicy figs....\n\nAnd one day in early June while those figs were still only a hope, Teddy\nappeared at the Dower House with Letty, to say good-bye before going to\nthe front. He was going out in a draft to fill up various gaps and\nlosses; he did not know where. Essex was doing well but bloodily over\nthere. Mrs. Britling had tea set out upon the lawn under the blue cedar,\nand Mr. Britling found himself at a loss for appropriate sayings, and\ntalked in his confusion almost as though Teddy's departure was of no\nsignificance at all. He was still haunted by that odd sense of\nresponsibility for Teddy. Teddy was not nearly so animated as he had\nbeen in his pre-khaki days; there was a quiet exaltation in his manner\nrather than a lively excitement. He knew now what he was in for. He knew\nnow that war was not a lark, that for him it was to be the gravest\nexperience he had ever had or was likely to have. There were no more\njokes about Letty's pension, and a general avoidance of the topics of\nhigh explosives and asphyxiating gas....\n\nMr. and Mrs. Britling took the young people to the gate.\n\n\"Good luck!\" cried Mr. Britling as they receded.\n\nTeddy replied with a wave of the hand.\n\nMr. Britling stood watching them for some moments as they walked towards\nthe little cottage which was to be the scene of their private parting.\n\n\"I don't like his going,\" he said. \"I hope it will be all right with\nhim.... Teddy's so grave nowadays. It's a mean thing, I know, it has\nnone of the Roman touch, but I am glad that this can't happen with\nHugh--\" He computed. \"Not for a year and three months, even if they\nmarch him into it upon his very birthday....\n\n\"It may all he over by then....\"\n\n\nSection 6\n\nIn that computation he reckoned without Hugh.\n\nWithin a month Hugh was also saying \"Good-bye.\"\n\n\"But how's this?\" protested Mr. Britling, who had already guessed the\nanswer. \"You're not nineteen.\"\n\n\"I'm nineteen enough for this job,\" said Hugh. \"In fact, I enlisted as\nnineteen.\"\n\nMr. Britling said nothing for a little while. Then he spoke with a catch\nin his breath. \"I don't blame you,\" he said. \"It was--the right spirit.\"\n\nDrill and responsibilities of non-commissioned rank had imposed a novel\nmanliness upon the bearing of Corporal Britling. \"I always classified a\nlittle above my age at Statesminster,\" he said as though that cleared up\neverything.\n\nHe looked at a rosebud as though it interested him. Then he remarked\nrather casually:\n\n\"I thought,\" he said, \"that if I was to go to war I'd better do the\nthing properly. It seemed--sort of half and half--not to be eligible for\nthe trenches.... I ought to have told you....\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Mr. Britling decided.\n\n\"I was shy about it at first.... I thought perhaps the war would be over\nbefore it was necessary to discuss anything.... Didn't want to go into\nit.\"\n\n\"Exactly,\" said Mr. Britling as though that was a complete explanation.\n\n\"It's been a good year for your roses,\" said Hugh.\n\n\nSection 7\n\nHugh was to stop the night. He spent what seemed to him and every one a\nlong, shy, inexpressive evening. Only the small boys were really natural\nand animated. They were much impressed and excited by his departure, and\nwanted to ask a hundred questions about the life in the trenches. Many\nof them Hugh had to promise to answer when he got there. Then he would\nsee just exactly how things were. Mrs. Britling was motherly and\nintelligent about his outfit. \"Will you want winter things?\" she\nasked....\n\nBut when he was alone with his father after every one had gone to bed\nthey found themselves able to talk.\n\n\"This sort of thing seems more to us than it would be to a French\nfamily,\" Hugh remarked, standing on the hearthrug.\n\n\"Yes,\" agreed Mr. Britling. \"Their minds would be better prepared....\nThey'd have their appropriate things to say. They have been educated by\nthe tradition of service--and '71.\"\n\nThen he spoke--almost resentfully.\n\n\"The older men ought to go before you boys. Who is to carry on if a lot\nof you get killed?\"\n\nHugh reflected. \"In the stiffest battle that ever can be the odds are\nagainst getting killed,\" he said.\n\n\"I suppose they are.\"\n\n\"One in three or four in the very hottest corners.\"\n\nMr. Britling expressed no satisfaction.\n\n\"Every one is going through something of this sort.\"\n\n\"All the decent people, at any rate,\" said Mr. Britling....\n\n\"It will be an extraordinary experience. Somehow it seems out of\nproportion--\"\n\n\"With what?\"\n\n\"With life generally. As one has known it.\"\n\n\"It isn't in proportion,\" Mr. Britling admitted.\n\n\"Incommensurables,\" said Hugh.\n\nHe considered his phrasing. \"It's not,\" he said, \"as though one was\ngoing into another part of the same world, or turning up another side of\nthe world one was used to. It is just as if one had been living in a\nroom and one had been asked to step outside.... It makes me think of a\nqueer little thing that happened when I was in London last winter. I\ngot into Queer Company. I don't think I told you. I went to have supper\nwith some students in Chelsea. I hadn't been to the place before, but\nthey seemed all right--just people like me--and everybody. And after\nsupper they took me on to some people _they_ didn't know very well;\npeople who had to do with some School of Dramatic Art. There were two or\nthree young actresses there and a singer and people of that sort,\nsitting about smoking cigarettes, and we began talking plays and books\nand picture shows and all that stuff; and suddenly there was a knocking\nat the door and some one went out and found a policeman with a warrant\non the landing. They took off our host's son.... It had to do with a\nmurder....\"\n\nHugh paused. \"It was the Bedford Mansions mystery. I don't suppose you\nremember about it or read about it at the time. He'd killed a man.... It\ndoesn't matter about the particulars anyhow, but what I mean is the\neffect. The effect of a comfortable well-lit orderly room and the sense\nof harmless people--and then the door opening and the policeman and the\ncold draught flowing in. _Murder!_ A girl who seemed to know the people\nwell explained to me in whispers what was happening. It was like the\nopening of a trap-door going down into some pit you have always known\nwas there, but never really believed in.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Mr. Britling. \"I know.\"\n\n\"That's just how I feel about this war business. There's no real death\nover here. It's laid out and boxed up. And accidents are all padded\nabout. If one got a toss from a horse here, you'd be in bed and\ncomfortable in no time.... And there; it's like another planet. It's\noutside.... I'm going outside.... Instead of there being no death\nanywhere, it is death everywhere, outside there. We shall be using our\nutmost wits to kill each other. A kind of reverse to this world.\"\n\nMr. Britling nodded.\n\n\"I've never seen a dead body yet. In Dower-House land there aren't dead\nbodies.\"\n\n\"We've kept things from you--horrid things of that sort.\"\n\n\"I'm not complaining,\" said Hugh.... \"But--Master Hugh--the Master Hugh\nyou kept things from--will never come back.\"\n\nHe went on quickly as his father raised distressed eyes to him. \"I mean\nthat anyhow _this_ Hugh will never come back. Another one may. But I\nshall have been outside, and it will all be different....\"\n\nHe paused. Never had Mr. Britling been so little disposed to take up the\ndiscourse.\n\n\"Like a man,\" he said, seeking an image and doing no more than imitate\nhis son's; \"who goes out of a busy lighted room through a trap-door into\na blizzard, to mend the roof....\"\n\nFor some moments neither father nor son said anything more. They had a\nqueer sense of insurmountable insufficiency. Neither was saying what he\nhad wanted to say to the other, but it was not clear to them now what\nthey had to say to one another....\n\n\"It's wonderful,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\nHugh could only manage: \"The world has turned right over....\"\n\n\"The job has to be done,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"The job has to be done,\" said Hugh.\n\nThe pause lengthened.\n\n\"You'll be getting up early to-morrow,\" said Mr. Britling....\n\n\nSection 8\n\nWhen Mr. Britling was alone in his own room all the thoughts and\nfeelings that had been held up downstairs began to run more and more\nrapidly and abundantly through his mind.\n\nHe had a feeling--every now and again in the last few years he had had\nthe same feeling--as though he was only just beginning to discover Hugh.\nThis perpetual rediscovery of one's children is the experience of every\nobservant parent. He had always considered Hugh as a youth, and now a\nman stood over him and talked, as one man to another. And this man, this\nvery new man, mint new and clean and clear, filled Mr. Britling with\nsurprise and admiration.\n\nIt was as if he perceived the beauty of youth for the first time in\nHugh's slender, well balanced, khaki-clad body. There was infinite\ndelicacy in his clear complexion, his clear eyes; the delicately\npencilled eyebrow that was so exactly like his mother's. And this thing\nof brightness and bravery talked as gravely and as wisely as any\nweather-worn, shop-soiled, old fellow....\n\nThe boy was wise.\n\nHugh thought for himself; he thought round and through his position, not\negotistically but with a quality of responsibility. He wasn't just\nhero-worshipping and imitating, just spinning some self-centred romance.\nIf he was a fair sample of his generation then it was a better\ngeneration than Mr. Britling's had been....\n\nAt that Mr. Britling's mind went off at a tangent to the grievance of\nthe rejected volunteer. It was acutely shameful to him that all these\nfine lads should be going off to death and wounds while the men of forty\nand over lay snug at home. How stupid it was to fix things like that!\nHere were the fathers, who had done their work, shot their bolts,\nreturned some value for the costs of their education, unable to get\ntraining, unable to be of any service, shamefully safe, doing April fool\nwork as special constables; while their young innocents, untried, all\ntheir gathering possibilities of service unbroached, went down into the\ndeadly trenches.... The war would leave the world a world of cripples\nand old men and children....\n\nHe felt himself as a cowardly brute, fat, wheezy, out of training,\nsheltering behind this dear one branch of Mary's life.\n\nHe writhed with impotent humiliation....\n\nHow stupidly the world is managed.\n\nHe began to fret and rage. He could not lie in peace in his bed; he got\nup and prowled about his room, blundering against chairs and tables in\nthe darkness.... We were too stupid to do the most obvious things; we\nwere sending all these boys into hardship and pitiless danger; we were\nsending them ill-equipped, insufficiently supported, we were sending our\nchildren through the fires to Moloch, because essentially we English\nwere a world of indolent, pampered, sham good-humoured, old and\nmiddle-aged men. (So he distributed the intolerable load of\nself-accusation.) Why was he doing nothing to change things, to get them\nbetter? What was the good of an assumed modesty, an effort at tolerance\nfor and confidence in these boozy old lawyers, these ranting platform\nmen, these stiff-witted officers and hide-bound officials? They were\nbutchering the youth of England. Old men sat out of danger contriving\ndeath for the lads in the trenches. That was the reality of the thing.\n\"My son!\" he cried sharply in the darkness. His sense of our national\ndeficiencies became tormentingly, fantastically acute. It was as if all\nhis cherished delusions had fallen from the scheme of things.... What\nwas the good of making believe that up there they were planning some\ngreat counter-stroke that would end in victory? It was as plain as\ndaylight that they had neither the power of imagination nor the\ncollective intelligence even to conceive of a counter-stroke. Any dull\nmass may resist, but only imagination can strike. Imagination! To the\nend we should not strike. We might strike through the air. We might\nstrike across the sea. We might strike hard at Gallipoli instead of\ndribbling inadequate armies thither as our fathers dribbled men at the\nRedan.... But the old men would sit at their tables, replete and sleepy,\nand shake their cunning old heads. The press would chatter and make odd\nambiguous sounds like a shipload of monkeys in a storm. The political\nharridans would get the wrong men appointed, would attack every possible\nleader with scandal and abuse and falsehood....\n\nThe spirit and honour and drama had gone out of this war.\n\nOur only hope now was exhaustion. Our only strategy was to barter blood\nfor blood--trusting that our tank would prove the deeper....\n\nWhile into this tank stepped Hugh, young and smiling....\n\nThe war became a nightmare vision....\n\n\nSection 9\n\nIn the morning Mr. Britling's face was white from his overnight brain\nstorm, and Hugh's was fresh from wholesome sleep. They walked about the\nlawn, and Mr. Britling talked hopefully of the general outlook until it\nwas time for them to start to the station....\n\nThe little old station-master grasped the situation at once, and\npresided over their last hand-clasp.\n\n\"Good luck, Hugh!\" cried Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Good luck!\" cried the little old station-master.\n\n\"It's not easy a-parting,\" he said to Mr. Britling as the train slipped\ndown the line. \"There's been many a parting hea' since this here old war\nbegan. Many. And some as won't come back again neether.\"\n\n\nSection 10\n\nFor some days Mr. Britling could think of nothing but Hugh, and always\nwith a dull pain at his heart. He felt as he had felt long ago while he\nhad waited downstairs and Hugh upstairs had been under the knife of a\nsurgeon. But this time the operation went on and still went on. At the\nworst his boy had but one chance in five of death or serious injury, but\nfor a time he could think of nothing but that one chance. He felt it\npressing upon his mind, pressing him down....\n\nThen instead of breaking under that pressure, he was released by the\ntrick of the sanguine temperament. His mind turned over, abruptly, to\nthe four chances out of five. It was like a dislocated joint slipping\nback into place. It was as sudden as that. He found he had adapted\nhimself to the prospect of Hugh in mortal danger. It had become a fact\nestablished, a usual thing. He could bear with it and go about his\naffairs.\n\nHe went up to London, and met other men at the club in the same\nemotional predicament. He realised that it was neither very wonderful\nnor exceptionally tragic now to have a son at the front.\n\n\"My boy is in Gallipoli,\" said one. \"It's tough work there.\"\n\n\"My lad's in Flanders,\" said Mr. Britling. \"Nothing would satisfy him\nbut the front. He's three months short of eighteen. He misstated his\nage.\"\n\nAnd they went on to talk newspaper just as if the world was where it had\nalways been.\n\nBut until a post card came from Hugh Mr. Britling watched the postman\nlike a lovesick girl.\n\nHugh wrote more frequently than his father had dared to hope, pencilled\nletters for the most part. It was as if he was beginning to feel an\ninherited need for talk, and was a little at a loss for a sympathetic\near. Park, his schoolmate, who had enlisted with him, wasn't, it seemed,\na theoriser. \"Park becomes a martinet,\" Hugh wrote. \"Also he is a\nsergeant now, and this makes rather a gulf between us.\" Mr. Britling had\nthe greatest difficulty in writing back. There were many grave deep\nthings he wanted to say, and never did. Instead he gave elaborate\ndetails of the small affairs of the Dower House. Once or twice, with a\nhalf-unconscious imitation of his boy's style, he took a shot at the\ntheological and philosophical hares that Hugh had started. But the\nexemplary letters that he composed of nights from a Father to a Son at\nWar were never written down. It was just as well, for there are many\nthings of that sort that are good to think and bad to say....\n\nHugh was not very explicit about his position or daily duties. What he\nwrote now had to pass through the hands of a Censor, and any sort of\ndefinite information might cause the suppression of his letter. Mr.\nBritling conceived him for the most part as quartered some way behind\nthe front, but in a flat, desolated country and within hearing of great\nguns. He assisted his imagination with the illustrated papers. Sometimes\nhe put him farther back into pleasant old towns after the fashion of\nBeauvais, and imagined loitering groups in the front of cafés; sometimes\nhe filled in the obvious suggestions of the phrase that all the Pas de\nCalais was now one vast British camp. Then he crowded the picture with\ntethered horses and tents and grey-painted wagons, and Hugh in the\nforeground--bare-armed, with a bucket....\n\nHugh's letters divided themselves pretty fairly between two main topics;\nthe first was the interest of the art of war, the second the reaction\nagainst warfare. \"After one has got over the emotion of it,\" he wrote,\n\"and when one's mind has just accepted and forgotten (as it does) the\nhorrors and waste of it all, then I begin to perceive that war is\nabsolutely the best game in the world. That is the real strength of war,\nI submit. Not as you put it in that early pamphlet of yours; ambition,\ncruelty, and all those things. Those things give an excuse for war, they\nrush timid and base people into war, but the essential matter is the\nhold of the thing itself upon an active imagination. It's such a big\ngame. Instead of being fenced into a field and tied down to one set of\ntools as you are in almost every other game, you have all the world to\nplay and you may use whatever you can use. You can use every scrap of\nimagination and invention that is in you. And it's wonderful.... But\nreal soldiers aren't cruel. And war isn't cruel in its essence. Only in\nits consequences. Over here one gets hold of scraps of talk that light\nup things. Most of the barbarities were done--it is quite clear--by an\nexcited civilian sort of men, men in a kind of inflamed state. The great\npart of the German army in the early stage of the war was really an army\nof demented civilians. Trained civilians no doubt, but civilians in\nsoul. They were nice orderly clean law-abiding men suddenly torn up by\nthe roots and flung into quite shocking conditions. They felt they were\nrushing at death, and that decency was at an end. They thought every\nBelgian had a gun behind the hedge and a knife in his trouser leg. They\nsaw villages burning and dead people, and men smashed to bits. They\nlived in a kind of nightmare. They didn't know what they were doing.\nThey did horrible things just as one does them sometimes in dreams....\"\n\nHe flung out his conclusion with just his mother's leaping\nconsecutiveness. \"Conscript soldiers are the ruin of war.... Half the\nGermans and a lot of the French ought never to have been brought within\nten miles of a battlefield.\n\n\"What makes all this so plain are the diaries the French and English\nhave been finding on the dead. You know at the early state of the war\nevery German soldier was expected to keep a diary. He was ordered to do\nit. The idea was to keep him interested in the war. Consequently, from\nthe dead and wounded our people have got thousands.... It helps one to\nrealise that the Germans aren't really soldiers at all. Not as our men\nare. They are obedient, law-abiding, intelligent people, who have been\nshoved into this. They have to see the war as something romantic and\nmelodramatic, or as something moral, or as tragic fate. They have to\nbellow songs about 'Deutschland,' or drag in 'Gott.' They don't take to\nthe game as our men take to the game....\n\n\"I confess I'm taking to the game. I wish at times I had gone into the\nO.T.C. with Teddy, and got a better hold of it. I was too high-browed\nabout this war business. I dream now of getting a commission....\n\n\"That diary-hunting strategy is just the sort of thing that makes this\nwar intellectually fascinating. Everything is being thought out and then\ntried over that can possibly make victory. The Germans go in for\npsychology much more than we do, just as they go in for war more than we\ndo, but they don't seem to be really clever about it. So they set out to\nmake all their men understand the war, while our chaps are singing\n'Tipperary.' But what the men put down aren't the beautiful things they\nought to put down; most of them shove down lists of their meals, some of\nthe diaries are all just lists of things eaten, and a lot of them have\nwritten the most damning stuff about outrages and looting. Which the\nFrench are translating and publishing. The Germans would give anything\nnow to get back these silly diaries. And now they have made an order\nthat no one shall go into battle with any written papers at all.... Our\npeople got so keen on documenting and the value of chance writings that\none of the principal things to do after a German attack had failed had\nbeen to hook in the documentary dead, and find out what they had on\nthem.... It's a curious sport, this body fishing. You have a sort of\ntriple hook on a rope, and you throw it and drag. They do the same. The\nother day one body near Hooghe was hooked by both sides, and they had a\ntug-of-war. With a sharpshooter or so cutting in whenever our men got\ntoo excited. Several men were hit. The Irish--it was an Irish\nregiment--got him--or at least they got the better part of him....\n\n\"Now that I am a sergeant, Park talks to me again about all these\nthings, and we have a first lieutenant too keen to resist such technical\ndetails. They are purely technical details. You must take them as that.\nOne does not think of the dead body as a man recently deceased, who had\nperhaps a wife and business connections and a weakness for oysters or\npale brandy. Or as something that laughed and cried and didn't like\ngetting hurt. That would spoil everything. One thinks of him merely as a\nuniform with marks upon it that will tell us what kind of stuff we have\nagainst us, and possibly with papers that will give us a hint of how far\nhe and his lot are getting sick of the whole affair....\n\n\"There's a kind of hardening not only of the body but of the mind\nthrough all this life out here. One is living on a different level. You\nknow--just before I came away--you talked of Dower-House-land--and\noutside. This is outside. It's different. Our men here are kind enough\nstill to little things--kittens or birds or flowers. Behind the front,\nfor example, everywhere there are Tommy gardens. Some are quite bright\nlittle patches. But it's just nonsense to suppose we are tender to the\nwounded up here--and, putting it plainly, there isn't a scrap of pity\nleft for the enemy. Not a scrap. Not a trace of such feeling. They were\ntender about the wounded in the early days--men tell me--and reverent\nabout the dead. It's all gone now. There have been atrocities, gas,\nunforgettable things. Everything is harder. Our people are inclined now\nto laugh at a man who gets hit, and to be annoyed at a man with a\ntroublesome wound. The other day, they say, there was a big dead German\noutside the Essex trenches. He became a nuisance, and he was dragged in\nand taken behind the line and buried. After he was buried, a kindly soul\nwas putting a board over him with 'Somebody's Fritz' on it, when a shell\nburst close by. It blew the man with the board a dozen yards and wounded\nhim, and it restored Fritz to the open air. He was lifted clean out. He\nflew head over heels like a windmill. This was regarded as a tremendous\njoke against the men who had been at the pains of burying him. For a\ntime nobody else would touch Fritz, who was now some yards behind his\noriginal grave. Then as he got worse and worse he was buried again by\nsome devoted sanitarians, and this time the inscription was 'Somebody's\nFritz. R.I.P.' And as luck would have it, he was spun up again. In\npieces. The trench howled with laughter and cries of 'Good old Fritz!'\n'This isn't the Resurrection, Fritz.'...\n\n\"Another thing that appeals to the sunny humour of the trenches as a\nreally delicious practical joke is the trick of the fuses. We have two\nkinds of fuse, a slow-burning fuse such as is used for hand-grenades and\nsuch-like things, a sort of yard-a-minute fuse, and a rapid fuse that\ngoes a hundred yards a second--for firing mines and so on. The latter is\ncarefully distinguished from the former by a conspicuous red thread.\nAlso, as you know, it is the habit of the enemy and ourselves when the\ntrenches are near enough, to enliven each other by the casting of homely\nbut effective hand-grenades made out of tins. When a grenade drops in a\nBritish trench somebody seizes it instantly and throws it back. To hoist\nthe German with his own petard is particularly sweet to the British\nmind. When a grenade drops into a German trench everybody runs. (At\nleast that is what I am told happens by the men from our trenches;\nthough possibly each side has its exceptions.) If the bomb explodes, it\nexplodes. If it doesn't, Hans and Fritz presently come creeping back to\nsee what has happened. Sometimes the fuse hasn't caught properly, it has\nbeen thrown by a nervous man; or it hasn't burnt properly. Then Hans or\nFritz puts in a new fuse and sends it back with loving care. To hoist\nthe Briton with his own petard is particularly sweet to the German\nmind.... But here it is that military genius comes in. Some gifted\nspirit on our side procured (probably by larceny) a length of mine fuse,\nthe rapid sort, and spent a laborious day removing the red thread and\nmaking it into the likeness of its slow brother. Then bits of it were\nattached to tin-bombs and shied--unlit of course--into the German\ntrenches. A long but happy pause followed. I can see the chaps holding\nthemselves in. Hans and Fritz were understood to be creeping back, to be\nexamining the unlit fuse, to be applying a light thereunto, in order to\nrestore it to its maker after their custom....\n\n\"A loud bang in the German trenches indicated the moment of lighting,\nand the exit of Hans and Fritz to worlds less humorous.\n\n\"The genius in the British trenches went on with the preparation of the\nnext surprise bomb--against the arrival of Kurt and Karl....\n\n\"Hans, Fritz, Kurt, Karl, Michael and Wilhelm; it went for quite a long\ntime before they grew suspicious....\n\n\"You once wrote that all fighting ought to be done nowadays by metal\nsoldiers. I perceive, my dear Daddy, that all real fighting is....\"\n\n\nSection 11\n\nNot all Hugh's letters were concerned with these grim technicalities. It\nwas not always that news and gossip came along; it was rare that a young\nman with a commission would condescend to talk shop to two young men\nwithout one; there were few newspapers and fewer maps, and even in\nFrance and within sound of guns, Hugh could presently find warfare\nalmost as much a bore as it had been at times in England. But his\ncriticism of military methods died away. \"Things are done better out\nhere,\" he remarked, and \"We're nearer reality here. I begin to respect\nmy Captain. Who is developing a sense of locality. Happily for our\nprospects.\" And in another place he speculated in an oddly\ncharacteristic manner whether he was getting used to the army way,\nwhether he was beginning to see the sense of the army way, or whether\nit really was that the army way braced up nearer and nearer to\nefficiency as it got nearer to the enemy. \"And here one hasn't the\nhaunting feeling that war is after all an hallucination. It's already\ncommon sense and the business of life....\n\n\"In England I always had a sneaking idea that I had 'dressed up' in my\nuniform....\n\n\"I never dreamt before I came here how much war is a business of waiting\nabout and going through duties and exercises that were only too\nobviously a means of preventing our discovering just how much waiting\nabout we were doing. I suppose there is no great harm in describing the\nplace I am in here; it's a kind of scenery that is somehow all of a\npiece with the life we lead day by day. It is a village that has been\nonly partly smashed up; it has never been fought through, indeed the\nGermans were never within two miles of it, but it was shelled\nintermittently for months before we made our advance. Almost all the\nhouses are still standing, but there is not a window left with a square\nfoot of glass in the place. One or two houses have been burnt out, and\none or two are just as though they had been kicked to pieces by a\nlunatic giant. We sleep in batches of four or five on the floors of the\nrooms; there are very few inhabitants about, but the village inn still\ngoes on. It has one poor weary billiard-table, very small with very big\nballs, and the cues are without tops; it is The Amusement of the place.\nOrtheris does miracles at it. When he leaves the army he says he's going\nto be a marker, 'a b----y marker.' The country about us is\nflat--featureless--desolate. How I long for hills, even for Essex mud\nhills. Then the road runs on towards the front, a brick road frightfully\nworn, lined with poplars. Just at the end of the village mechanical\ntransport ends and there is a kind of depot from which all the stuff\ngoes up by mules or men or bicycles to the trenches. It is the only\nmovement in the place, and I have spent hours watching men shift grub or\nammunition or lending them a hand. All day one hears guns, a kind of\nthud at the stomach, and now and then one sees an aeroplane, very high\nand small. Just beyond this point there is a group of poplars which have\nbeen punished by a German shell. They are broken off and splintered in\nthe most astonishing way; all split and ravelled out like the end of a\ncane that has been broken and twisted to get the ends apart. The choice\nof one's leisure is to watch the A.S.C. or play football, twenty a side,\nor sit about indoors, or stand in the doorway, or walk down to the\nEstaminet and wait five or six deep for the billiard-table. Ultimately\none sits. And so you get these unconscionable letters.\"\n\n\"Unconscionable,\" said Mr. Britling. \"Of course--he will grow out of\nthat sort of thing.\n\n\"And he'll write some day, sure enough. He'll write.\"\n\nHe went on reading the letter.\n\n\"We read, of course. But there never could be a library here big enough\nto keep us going. We can do with all sorts of books, but I don't think\nthe ordinary sensational novel is quite the catch it was for a lot of\nthem in peace time. Some break towards serious reading in the oddest\nfashion. Old Park, for example, says he wants books you can chew; he is\nreading a cheap edition of 'The Origin of Species.' He used to regard\nFlorence Warden and William le Queux as the supreme delights of print. I\nwish you could send him Metchnikoff's 'Nature of Man' or Pearson's\n'Ethics of Freethought.' I feel I am building up his tender mind. Not\nfor me though, Daddy. Nothing of that sort for me. These things take\npeople differently. What I want here is literary opium. I want something\nabout fauns and nymphs in broad low glades. I would like to read\nSpenser's 'Faerie Queen.' I don't think I have read it, and yet I have a\nvery distinct impression of knights and dragons and sorcerers and wicked\nmagic ladies moving through a sort of Pre-Raphaelite tapestry\nscenery--only with a light on them. I could do with some Hewlett of the\n'Forest Lovers' kind. Or with Joseph Conrad in his Kew Palm-house mood.\nAnd there is a book, I once looked into it at a man's room in London; I\ndon't know the title, but it was by Richard Garnett, and it was all\nabout gods who were in reduced circumstances but amidst sunny\npicturesque scenery. Scenery without steel or poles or wire. A thing\nafter the manner of Heine's 'Florentine Nights.' Any book about Greek\ngods would be welcome, anything about temples of ivory-coloured stone\nand purple seas, red caps, chests of jewels, and lizards in the sun. I\nwish there was another 'Thais.' The men here are getting a kind of\nnewspaper sheet of literature scraps called _The Times_ Broadsheets.\nSnippets, but mostly from good stuff. They're small enough to stir the\nappetite, but not to satisfy it. Rather an irritant--and one wants no\nirritant.... I used to imagine reading was meant to be a stimulant. Out\nhere it has to be an anodyne....\n\n\"Have you heard of a book called 'Tom Cringle's Log'?\n\n\"War is an exciting game--that I never wanted to play. It excites once\nin a couple of months. And the rest of it is dirt and muddle and\nboredom, and smashed houses and spoilt roads and muddy scenery and\nboredom, and the lumbering along of supplies and the lumbering back of\nthe wounded and weary--and boredom, and continual vague guessing of how\nit will end and boredom and boredom and boredom, and thinking of the\nwork you were going to do and the travel you were going to have, and the\nwaste of life and the waste of days and boredom, and splintered poplars\nand stink, everywhere stink and dirt and boredom.... And all because\nthese accursed Prussians were too stupid to understand what a boredom\nthey were getting ready when they pranced and stuck their chests out and\nearnt the praises of Mr. Thomas Carlyle.... _Gott strafe\nDeutschland_.... So send me some books, books of dreams, books about\nChina and the willow-pattern plate and the golden age and fairyland. And\nsend them soon and address them very carefully....\"\n\n\nSection 12\n\nTeddy's misadventure happened while figs were still ripening on Mr.\nBritling's big tree. It was Cissie brought the news to Mr. Britling. She\ncame up to the Dower House with a white, scared face.\n\n\"I've come up for the letters,\" she said. \"There's bad news of Teddy,\nand Letty's rather in a state.\"\n\n\"He's not--?\" Mr. Britling left the word unsaid.\n\n\"He's wounded and missing,\" said Cissie.\n\n\"A prisoner!\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"And wounded. _How_, we don't know.\"\n\nShe added: \"Letty has gone to telegraph.\"\n\n\"Telegraph to whom?\"\n\n\"To the War Office, to know what sort of wound he has. They tell\nnothing. It's disgraceful.\"\n\n\"It doesn't say _severely_?\"\n\n\"It says just nothing. Wounded and missing! Surely they ought to give us\nparticulars.\"\n\nMr. Britling thought. His first thought was that now news might come at\nany time that Hugh was wounded and missing. Then he set himself to\npersuade Cissie that the absence of \"seriously\" meant that Teddy was\nonly quite bearably wounded, and that if he was also \"missing\" it might\nbe difficult for the War Office to ascertain at once just exactly what\nshe wanted to know. But Cissie said merely that \"Letty was in an awful\nstate,\" and after Mr. Britling had given her a few instructions for his\ntyping, he went down to the cottage to repeat these mitigatory\nconsiderations to Letty. He found her much whiter than her sister, and\nin a state of cold indignation with the War Office. It was clear she\nthought that organisation ought to have taken better care of Teddy. She\nhad a curious effect of feeling that something was being kept back from\nher. It was manifest too that she was disposed to regard Mr. Britling as\nbiased in favour of the authorities.\n\n\"At any rate,\" she said, \"they could have answered my telegram\npromptly. I sent it at eight. Two hours of scornful silence.\"\n\nThis fierce, strained, unjust Letty was a new aspect to Mr. Britling.\nHer treatment of his proffered consolations made him feel slightly\nhenpecked.\n\n\"And just fancy!\" she said. \"They have no means of knowing if he has\narrived safely on the German side. How can they know he is a prisoner\nwithout knowing that?\"\n\n\"But the word is 'missing.'\"\n\n\"That _means_ a prisoner,\" said Letty uncivilly....\n\n\nSection 13\n\nMr. Britling returned to the Dower House perplexed and profoundly\ndisturbed. He had a distressful sense that things were far more serious\nwith Teddy than he had tried to persuade Letty they were; that \"wounded\nand missing\" meant indeed a man abandoned to very sinister\nprobabilities. He was distressed for Teddy, and still more acutely\ndistressed for Mrs. Teddy, whose every note and gesture betrayed\nsuppositions even more sinister than his own. And that preposterous\nsense of liability, because he had helped Teddy to get his commission,\nwas more distressful than it had ever been. He was surprised that Letty\nhad not assailed him with railing accusations.\n\nAnd this event had wiped off at one sweep all the protective scab of\nhabituation that had gathered over the wound of Hugh's departure. He was\nback face to face with the one evil chance in five....\n\nIn the hall there was lying a letter from Hugh that had come by the\nsecond post. It was a relief even to see it....\n\nHugh had had his first spell in the trenches.\n\nBefore his departure he had promised his half brothers a long and\ncircumstantial account of what the trenches were really like. Here he\nredeemed his promise. He had evidently written with the idea that the\nletter would be handed over to them.\n\n\"Tell the bruddykinses I'm glad they're going to Brinsmead school. Later\non, I suppose, they will go on to Statesminster. I suppose that you\ndon't care to send them so far in these troubled times....\n\n\"And now about those trenches--as I promised. The great thing to grasp\nis that they are narrow. They are a sort of negative wall. They are more\nlike giant cracks in the ground than anything else.... But perhaps I had\nbetter begin by telling how we got there. We started about one in the\nmorning ladened up with everything you can possibly imagine on a\nsoldier, and in addition I had a kettle--filled with water--most of the\nchaps had bundles of firewood, and some had extra bread. We marched out\nof our quarters along the road for a mile or more, and then we took the\nfields, and presently came to a crest and dropped into a sort of maze of\nzigzag trenches going up to the front trench. These trenches, you know,\nare much deeper than one's height; you don't see anything. It's like\nwalking along a mud-walled passage. You just trudge along them in single\nfile. Every now and then some one stumbles into a soakaway for rainwater\nor swears at a soft place, or somebody blunders into the man in front of\nhim. This seems to go on for hours and hours. It certainly went on for\nan hour; so I suppose we did two or three miles of it. At one place we\ncrossed a dip in the ground and a ditch, and the trench was built up\nwith sandbags up to the ditch and there was a plank. Overhead there were\nstars, and now and then a sort of blaze thing they send up lit up the\nedges of the trench and gave one a glimpse of a treetop or a factory\nroof far away. Then for a time it was more difficult to go on because\nyou were blinded. Suddenly just when you were believing that this sort\nof trudge was going on forever, we were in the support trenches behind\nthe firing line, and found the men we were relieving ready to come\nback.\n\n\"And the firing line itself? Just the same sort of ditch with a parapet\nof sandbags, but with dug-outs, queer big holes helped out with sleepers\nfrom a nearby railway track, opening into it from behind. Dug-outs vary\na good deal. Many are rather like the cubby-house we made at the end of\nthe orchard last summer; only the walls are thick enough to stand a high\nexplosive shell. The best dug-out in our company's bit of front was\nquite a dressy affair with some woodwork and a door got from the ruins\nof a house twenty or thirty yards behind us. It had a stove in it too,\nand a chimbley, and pans to keep water in. It was the best dug-out for\nmiles. This house had a well, and there was a special trench ran back to\nthat, and all day long there was a coming and going for water. There had\nonce been a pump over the well, but a shell had smashed that....\n\n\"And now you expect me to tell of Germans and the fight and shelling and\nall sorts of things. _I haven't seen a live German_; I haven't been\nwithin two hundred yards of a shell burst, there has been no attack and\nI haven't got the V.C. I have made myself muddy beyond describing; I've\nbeen working all the time, but I've not fired a shot or fought a\nha'porth. We were busy all the time--just at work, repairing the\nparapet, which had to be done gingerly because of snipers, bringing our\nfood in from the rear in big carriers, getting water, pushing our trench\nout from an angle slantingways forward. Getting meals, clearing up and\nso on takes a lot of time. We make tea in big kettles in the big\ndug-out, which two whole companies use for their cooking, and carry them\nwith a pole through the handles to our platoons. We wash up and wash and\nshave. Dinner preparation (and consumption) takes two or three hours.\nTea too uses up time. It's like camping out and picnicking in the park.\nThis first time (and next too) we have been mixed with some Sussex men\nwho have been here longer and know the business.... It works out that we\ndo most of the fatigue. Afterwards we shall go up alone to a pitch of\nour own....\n\n\"But all the time you want to know about the Germans. They are a quarter\nof a mile away at this part, or nearly a quarter of a mile. When you\nsnatch a peep at them it is like a low parti-coloured stone wall--only\nthe stones are sandbags. The Germans have them black and white, so that\nyou cannot tell which are loopholes and which are black bags. Our people\nhaven't been so clever--and the War Office love of uniformity has given\nus only white bags. No doubt it looks neater. But it makes our loopholes\nplain. For a time black sandbags were refused. The Germans sniped at us,\nbut not very much. Only one of our lot was hit, by a chance shot that\ncame through the sandbag at the top of the parapet. He just had a cut in\nthe neck which didn't prevent his walking back. They shelled the\ntrenches half a mile to the left of us though, and it looked pretty hot.\nThe sandbags flew about. But the men lie low, and it looks worse than it\nis. The weather was fine and pleasant, as General French always says.\nAnd after three days and nights of cramped existence and petty chores,\none in the foremost trench and two a little way back, and then two days\nin support, we came back--and here we are again waiting for our second\nGo.\n\n\"The night time is perhaps a little more nervy than the day. You get\nyour head up and look about, and see the flat dim country with its\nruined houses and its lumps of stuff that are dead bodies and its long\nvague lines of sandbags, and the searchlights going like white windmill\narms and an occasional flare or star shell. And you have a nasty feeling\nof people creeping and creeping all night between the trenches....\n\n\"Some of us went out to strengthen a place in the parapet that was only\none sandbag thick, where a man had been hit during the day. We made it\nfour bags thick right up to the top. All the while you were doing it,\nyou dreaded to find yourself in the white glare of a searchlight, and\nyou had a feeling that something would hit you suddenly from behind. I\nhad to make up my mind not to look round, or I should have kept on\nlooking round.... Also our chaps kept shooting over us, within a foot of\none's head. Just to persuade the Germans that we were not out of the\ntrench....\n\n\"Nothing happened to us. We got back all right. It was silly to have\nleft that parapet only one bag thick. There's the truth, and all of my\nfirst time in the trenches.\n\n\"And the Germans?\n\n\"I tell you there was no actual fighting at all. I never saw the head of\none.\n\n\"But now see what a good bruddykins I am. I have seen a fight, a real\nexciting fight, and I have kept it to the last to tell you about.... It\nwas a fight in the air. And the British won. It began with a German\nmachine appearing, very minute and high, sailing towards our lines a\nlong way to the left. We could tell it was a German because of the black\ncross; they decorate every aeroplane with a black Iron Cross on its\nwings and tail; that our officer could see with his glasses. (He let me\nlook.) Suddenly whack, whack, whack, came a line of little puffs of\nsmoke behind it, and then one in front of it, which meant that our\nanti-aircraft guns were having a go at it. Then, as suddenly, Archibald\nstopped, and we could see the British machine buzzing across the path of\nthe German. It was just like two birds circling in the air. Or wasps.\nThey buzzed like wasps. There was a little crackling--like brushing your\nhair in frosty weather. They were shooting at each other. Then our\nlieutenant called out, 'Hit, by Jove!' and handed the glasses to Park\nand instantly wanted them back. He says he saw bits of the machine\nflying off.\n\n\"When he said that you could fancy you saw it too, up there in the blue.\n\n\"Anyhow the little machine cocked itself up on end. Rather slowly....\nThen down it came like dropping a knife....\n\n\"It made you say 'Ooooo!' to see that dive. It came down, seemed to get\na little bit under control, and then dive down again. You could hear the\nengine roar louder and louder as it came down. I never saw anything fall\nso fast. We saw it hit the ground among a lot of smashed-up buildings on\nthe crest behind us. It went right over and flew to pieces, all to\nsmithereens....\n\n\"It hurt your nose to see it hit the ground....\n\n\"Somehow--I was sort of overcome by the thought of the men in that dive.\nI was trying to imagine how they felt it. From the moment when they\nrealised they were going.\n\n\"What on earth must it have seemed like at last?\n\n\"They fell seven thousand feet, the men say; some say nine thousand\nfeet. A mile and a half!\n\n\"But all the chaps were cheering.... And there was our machine hanging\nin the sky. You wanted to reach up and pat it on the back. It went up\nhigher and away towards the German lines, as though it was looking for\nanother German. It seemed to go now quite slowly. It was an English\nmachine, though for a time we weren't sure; our machines are done in\ntri-colour just as though they were French. But everybody says it was\nEnglish. It was one of our crack fighting machines, and from first to\nlast it has put down seven Germans.... And that's really all the\nfighting there was. There has been fighting here; a month ago. There are\nperhaps a dozen dead Germans lying out still in front of the lines.\nLittle twisted figures, like overthrown scarecrows, about a hundred\nyards away. But that is all.\n\n\"No, the trenches have disappointed me. They are a scene of tiresome\ndomesticity. They aren't a patch on our quarters in the rear. There\nisn't the traffic. I've not found a single excuse for firing my rifle. I\ndon't believe I shall ever fire my rifle at an enemy--ever....\n\n\"You've seen Rendezvous' fresh promotion, I suppose? He's one of the men\nthe young officers talk about. Everybody believes in him. Do you\nremember how Manning used to hide from him?...\"\n\n\nSection 14\n\nMr. Britling read this through, and then his thoughts went back to\nTeddy's disappearance and then returned to Hugh. The youngster was right\nin the front now, and one had to steel oneself to the possibilities of\nthe case. Somehow Mr. Britling had not expected to find Hugh so speedily\nin the firing line, though he would have been puzzled to find a reason\nwhy this should not have happened. But he found he had to begin the\nlesson of stoicism all over again.\n\nHe read the letter twice, and then he searched for some indication of\nits date. He suspected that letters were sometimes held back....\n\nFour days later this suspicion was confirmed by the arrival of another\nletter from Hugh in which he told of his second spell in the trenches.\nThis time things had been much more lively. They had been heavily\nshelled and there had been a German attack. And this time he was writing\nto his father, and wrote more freely. He had scribbled in pencil.\n\n\"Things are much livelier here than they were. Our guns are getting to\nwork. They are firing in spells of an hour or so, three or four times a\nday, and just when they seem to be leaving off they begin again. The\nGermans suddenly got the range of our trenches the day before yesterday,\nand begun to pound us with high explosive.... Well, it's trying. You\nnever seem quite to know when the next bang is coming, and that keeps\nyour nerves hung up; it seems to tighten your muscles and tire you.\nWe've done nothing but lie low all day, and I feel as weary as if I had\nmarched twenty miles. Then 'whop,' one's near you, and there is a flash\nand everything flies. It's a mad sort of smash-about. One came much too\nclose to be pleasant; as near as the old oil jars are from the barn\ncourt door. It bowled me clean over and sent a lot of gravel over me.\nWhen I got up there was twenty yards of trench smashed into a mere hole,\nand men lying about, and some of them groaning and one three-quarters\nburied. We had to turn to and get them out as well as we could....\n\n\"I felt stunned and insensitive; it was well to have something to do....\n\n\"Our guns behind felt for the German guns. It was the damnest racket.\nLike giant lunatics smashing about amidst colossal pots and pans. They\nfired different sorts of shells; stink shells as well as Jack Johnsons,\nand though we didn't get much of that at our corner there was a sting of\nchlorine in the air all through the afternoon. Most of the stink shells\nfell short. We hadn't masks, but we rigged up a sort of protection with\nour handkerchiefs. And it didn't amount to very much. It was rather like\nthe chemistry room after Heinrich and the kids had been mixing things.\nMost of the time I was busy helping with the men who had got hurt.\nSuddenly there came a lull. Then some one said the Germans were coming,\nand I had a glimpse of them.\n\n\"You don't look at anything steadily while the guns are going. When a\nbig gun goes off or a shell bursts anywhere near you, you seem neither\nto see nor hear for a moment. You keep on being intermittently stunned.\nOne sees in a kind of flicker in between the impacts....\n\n\"Well, there they were. This time I saw them. They were coming out and\nrunning a little way and dropping, and our shell was bursting among them\nand behind them. A lot of it was going too far. I watched what our men\nwere doing, and poured out a lot of cartridges ready to my hand and\nbegan to blaze away. Half the German attack never came out of their\ntrench. If they really intended business against us, which I doubt, they\nwere half-hearted in carrying it out. They didn't show for five\nminutes, and they left two or three score men on the ground. Whenever we\nsaw a man wriggle we were told to fire at him; it might be an unwounded\nman trying to crawl back. For a time our guns gave them beans. Then it\nwas practically over, but about sunset their guns got back at us again,\nand the artillery fight went on until it was moonlight. The chaps in our\nthird company caught it rather badly, and then our guns seemed to find\nsomething and get the upper hand....\n\n\"In the night some of our men went out to repair the wire entanglements,\nand one man crawled halfway to the enemy trenches to listen. But I had\ndone my bit for the day, and I was supposed to sleep in the dug-out. I\nwas far too excited to sleep. All my nerves were jumping about, and my\nmind was like a lot of flying fragments flying about very fast....\n\n\"They shelled us again next day and our tea dixy was hit; so that we\ndidn't get any tea....\n\n\"I slept thirty hours after I got back here. And now I am slowly\ndigesting these experiences. Most of our fellows are. My mind and nerves\nhave been rather bumped and bruised by the shelling, but not so much as\nyou might think. I feel as though I'd presently not think very much of\nit. Some of our men have got the stun of it a lot more than I have. It\ngets at the older men more. Everybody says that. The men of over\nthirty-five don't recover from a shelling for weeks. They go about--sort\nof hesitatingly....\n\n\"Life is very primitive here--which doesn't mean that one is getting\ndown to anything fundamental, but only going back to something immediate\nand simple. It's fetching and carrying and getting water and getting\nfood and going up to the firing line and coming back. One goes on for\nweeks, and then one day one finds oneself crying out, 'What is all this\nfor? When is it to end?' I seemed to have something ahead of me before\nthis war began, education, science, work, discoveries; all sorts of\nthings; but it is hard to feel that there is anything ahead of us\nhere....\n\n\"Somehow the last spell in the fire trench has shaken up my mind a lot.\nI was getting used to the war before, but now I've got back to my\noriginal amazement at the whole business. I find myself wondering what\nwe are really up to, why the war began, why we were caught into this\namazing routine. It looks, it feels orderly, methodical, purposeful. Our\nofficers give us orders and get their orders, and the men back there get\ntheir orders. Everybody is getting orders. Back, I suppose, to Lord\nKitchener. It goes on for weeks with the effect of being quite sane and\nintended and the right thing, and then, then suddenly it comes whacking\ninto one's head, 'But this--this is utterly _mad_!' This going to and\nfro and to and fro and to and fro; this monotony which breaks ever and\nagain into violence--violence that never gets anywhere--is exactly the\nlife that a lunatic leads. Melancholia and mania.... It's just a\ncollective obsession--by war. The world is really quite mad. I happen to\nbe having just one gleam of sanity, that won't last after I have\nfinished this letter. I suppose when an individual man goes mad and gets\nout of the window because he imagines the door is magically impossible,\nand dances about in the street without his trousers jabbing at\npassers-by with a toasting-fork, he has just the same sombre sense of\nunavoidable necessity that we have, all of us, when we go off with our\npacks into the trenches....\n\n\"It's only by an effort that I can recall how life felt in the spring of\n1914. Do you remember Heinrich and his attempt to make a table chart of\nthe roses, so that we could sit outside the barn and read the names of\nall the roses in the barn court? Like the mountain charts they have on\ntables in Switzerland. What an inconceivable thing that is now! For all\nI know I shot Heinrich the other night. For all I know he is one of the\nlumps that we counted after the attack went back.\n\n\"It's a queer thing, Daddy, but I have a sort of _seditious_ feeling in\nwriting things like this. One gets to feel that it is wrong to think.\nIt's the effect of discipline. Of being part of a machine. Still, I\ndoubt if I ought to think. If one really looks into things in this\nspirit, where is it going to take us? Ortheris--his real name by the by\nis Arthur Jewell--hasn't any of these troubles. 'The b----y Germans\nbutted into Belgium,' he says. 'We've got to 'oof 'em out again. That's\nall abart it. Leastways it's all _I_ know.... I don't know nothing about\nSerbia, I don't know nothing about anything, except that the Germans got\nto stop this sort of gime for Everlasting, Amen.'...\n\n\"Sometimes I think he's righter than I am. Sometimes I think he is only\nmadder.\"\n\n\nSection 15\n\nThese letters weighed heavily upon Mr. Britling's mind. He perceived\nthat this precociously wise, subtle youngster of his was now close up to\nthe line of injury and death, going to and fro from it, in a perpetual,\nfluctuating danger. At any time now in the day or night the evil thing\nmight wing its way to him. If Mr. Britling could have prayed, he would\nhave prayed for Hugh. He began and never finished some ineffectual\nprayers.\n\nHe tried to persuade himself of a Roman stoicism; that he would be\nsternly proud, sternly satisfied, if this last sacrifice for his country\nwas demanded from him. He perceived he was merely humbugging himself....\n\nThis war had no longer the simple greatness that would make any such\nstern happiness possible....\n\nThe disaster to Teddy and Mrs. Teddy hit him hard. He winced at the\nthought of Mrs. Teddy's white face; the unspoken accusation in her eyes.\nHe felt he could never bring himself to say his one excuse to her: \"I\ndid not keep Hugh back. If I had done that, then you might have the\nright to blame.\"\n\nIf he had overcome every other difficulty in the way to an heroic pose\nthere was still Hugh's unconquerable lucidity of outlook. War _was_ a\nmadness....\n\nBut what else was to be done? What else could be done? We could not give\nin to Germany. If a lunatic struggles, sane men must struggle too....\n\nMr. Britling had ceased to write about the war at all. All his later\nwritings about it had been abandoned unfinished. He could not imagine\nthem counting, affecting any one, producing any effect. Indeed he was\nwriting now very intermittently. His contributions to _The Times_ had\nfallen away. He was perpetually thinking now about the war, about life\nand death, about the religious problems that had seemed so remote in the\ndays of the peace; but none of his thinking would become clear and\ndefinite enough for writing. All the clear stars of his mind were hidden\nby the stormy clouds of excitement that the daily newspaper perpetually\nrenewed and by the daily developments of life. And just as his\nprofessional income shrank before his mental confusion and impotence,\nthe private income that came from his and his wife's investments became\nuncertain. She had had two thousand pounds in the Constantinople loan,\nseven hundred in debentures of the Ottoman railway; he had held similar\nsums in two Hungarian and one Bulgarian loan, in a linoleum factory at\nRouen and in a Swiss Hotel company. All these stopped payments, and the\ndividends from their other investments shrank. There seemed no limit set\nto the possibilities of shrinkage of capital and income. Income tax had\nleapt to colossal dimensions, the cost of most things had risen, and the\ntangle of life was now increased by the need for retrenchments and\neconomies. He decided that Gladys, the facetiously named automobile, was\na luxury, and sold her for a couple of hundred pounds. He lost his\ngardener, who had gone to higher priced work with a miller, and he had\ngreat trouble to replace him, so that the garden became disagreeably\nunkempt and unsatisfactory. He had to give up his frequent trips to\nLondon. He was obliged to defer Statesminster for the boys. For a time\nat any rate they must go as day boys to Brinsmead. At every point he met\nthis uncongenial consideration of ways and means. For years now he had\ngone easy, lived with a certain self-indulgence. It was extraordinarily\nvexatious to have one's greater troubles for one's country and one's son\nand one's faith crossed and complicated by these little troubles of the\nextra sixpence and the untimely bill.\n\nWhat worried his mind perhaps more than anything else was his gradual\nloss of touch with the essential issues of the war. At first the\nmilitarism, the aggression of Germany, had seemed so bad that he could\nnot see the action of Britain and her allies as anything but entirely\nrighteous. He had seen the war plainly and simply in the phrase, \"Now\nthis militarism must end.\" He had seen Germany as a system, as\nimperialism and junkerism, as a callous materialist aggression, as the\nspirit that makes war, and the Allies as the protest of humanity against\nall these evil things.\n\nInsensibly, in spite of himself, this first version of the war was\ngiving place to another. The tawdry, rhetorical German Emperor, who had\nbeen the great antagonist at the outset, the last upholder of Cæsarism,\nGod's anointed with the withered arm and the mailed fist, had receded\nfrom the foreground of the picture; that truer Germany which is thought\nand system, which is the will to do things thoroughly, the Germany of\nOstwald and the once rejected Hindenburg, was coming to the fore. It\nmade no apology for the errors and crimes that had been imposed upon it\nby its Hohenzollern leadership, but it fought now to save itself from\nthe destruction and division that would be its inevitable lot if it\naccepted defeat too easily; fought to hold out, fought for a second\nchance, with discipline, with skill and patience, with a steadfast\nwill. It fought with science, it fought with economy, with machines and\nthought against all too human antagonists. It necessitated an implacable\nresistance, but also it commanded respect. Against it fought three great\npeoples with as fine a will; but they had neither the unity, the\nhabitual discipline, nor the science of Germany, and it was the latter\ndefect that became more and more the distressful matter of Mr.\nBritling's thoughts. France after her initial experiences, after her\nfirst reeling month, had risen from the very verge of defeat to a steely\nsplendour of resolution, but England and Russia, those twin slack\ngiants, still wasted force, were careless, negligent, uncertain.\nEverywhere up and down the scale, from the stupidity of the uniform\nsandbags and Hugh's young officer who would not use a map, to the\ngeneral conception and direction of the war, Mr. Britling's inflamed and\noversensitised intelligence perceived the same bad qualities for which\nhe had so often railed upon his countrymen in the days of the peace,\nthat impatience, that indolence, that wastefulness and inconclusiveness,\nthat failure to grip issues and do obviously necessary things. The same\nlax qualities that had brought England so close to the supreme\nimbecility of a civil war in Ireland in July, 1914, were now muddling\nand prolonging the war, and postponing, it might be for ever, the\nvictory that had seemed so certain only a year ago. The politician still\nintrigued, the ineffectives still directed. Against brains used to the\nutmost their fight was a stupid thrusting forth of men and men and yet\nmore men, men badly trained, under-equipped, stupidly led. A press\nclamour for invention and scientific initiative was stifled under a\ncommittee of elderly celebrities and eminent dufferdom; from the outset,\nthe Ministry of Munitions seemed under the influence of the \"business\nman.\"...\n\nIt is true that righteousness should triumph over the tyrant and the\nrobber, but have carelessness and incapacity any right to triumph over\ncapacity and foresight? Men were coming now to dark questionings\nbetween this intricate choice. And, indeed, was our cause all\nrighteousness?\n\nThere surely is the worst doubt of all for a man whose son is facing\ndeath.\n\nWere we indeed standing against tyranny for freedom?\n\nThere came drifting to Mr. Britling's ears a confusion of voices, voices\nthat told of reaction, of the schemes of employers to best the trade\nunions, of greedy shippers and greedy house landlords reaping their\nharvest, of waste and treason in the very households of the Ministry, of\nreligious cant and intolerance at large, of self-advertisement written\nin letters of blood, of forestalling and jobbery, of irrational and\nexasperating oppressions in India and Egypt.... It came with a shock to\nhim, too, that Hugh should see so little else than madness in the war,\nand have so pitiless a realisation of its essential futility. The boy\nforced his father to see--what indeed all along he had been seeing more\nand more clearly. The war, even by the standards of adventure and\nconquest, had long since become a monstrous absurdity. Some way there\nmust be out of this bloody entanglement that was yielding victory to\nneither side, that was yielding nothing but waste and death beyond all\nprecedent. The vast majority of people everywhere must be desiring\npeace, willing to buy peace at any reasonable price, and in all the\nworld it seemed there was insufficient capacity to end the daily\nbutchery and achieve the peace that was so universally desired, the\npeace that would be anything better than a breathing space for further\nwarfare.... Every day came the papers with the balanced story of\nbattles, losses, destructions, ships sunk, towns smashed. And never a\ndecision, never a sign of decision.\n\nOne Saturday afternoon Mr. Britling found himself with Mrs. Britling at\nClaverings. Lady Homartyn was in mourning for her two nephews, the\nGlassington boys, who had both been killed, one in Flanders, the other\nin Gallipoli. Raeburn was there too, despondent and tired-looking.\nThere were three young men in khaki, one with the red of a staff\nofficer; there were two or three women whom Mr. Britling had not met\nbefore, and Miss Sharsper the novelist, fresh from nursing experience\namong the convalescents in the south of France. But he was disgusted to\nfind that the gathering was dominated by his old antagonist, Lady\nFrensham, unsubdued, unaltered, rampant over them all, arrogant,\nimpudent, insulting. She was in mourning, she had the most splendid\nblack furs Mr. Britling had ever seen; her large triumphant profile came\nout of them like the head of a vulture out of its ruff; her elder\nbrother was a wounded prisoner in Germany, her second was dead; it would\nseem that hers were the only sacrifices the war had yet extorted from\nany one. She spoke as though it gave her the sole right to criticise the\nwar or claim compensation for the war.\n\nHer incurable propensity to split the country, to make mischievous\naccusations against classes and districts and public servants, was\nhaving full play. She did her best to provoke Mr. Britling into a\ndispute, and throw some sort of imputation upon his patriotism as\ndistinguished from her own noisy and intolerant conceptions of\n\"loyalty.\"\n\nShe tried him first with conscription. She threw out insults at the\nshirkers and the \"funk classes.\" All the middle-class people clung on to\ntheir wretched little businesses, made any sort of excuse....\n\nMr. Britling was stung to defend them. \"A business,\" he said acidly,\n\"isn't like land, which waits and grows rich for its owner. And these\npeople can't leave ferrety little agents behind them when they go off to\nserve. Tens of thousands of middle-class men have ruined themselves and\nflung away every prospect they had in the world to go to this war.\"\n\n\"And scores of thousands haven't!\" said Lady Frensham. \"They are the men\nI'm thinking of.\"...\n\nMr. Britling ran through a little list of aristocratic stay-at-homes\nthat began with a duke.\n\n\"And not a soul speaks to them in consequence,\" she said.\n\nShe shifted her attack to the Labour people. They would rather see the\ncountry defeated than submit to a little discipline.\n\n\"Because they have no faith in the house of lawyers or the house of\nlandlords,\" said Mr. Britling. \"Who can blame them?\"\n\nShe proceeded to tell everybody what she would do with strikers. She\nwould give them \"short shrift.\" She would give them a taste of the\nPrussian way--homoeopathic treatment. \"But of course old vote-catching\nAsquith daren't--he daren't!\" Mr. Britling opened his mouth and said\nnothing; he was silenced. The men in khaki listened respectfully but\nambiguously; one of the younger ladies it seemed was entirely of Lady\nFrensham's way of thinking, and anxious to show it. The good lady having\nnow got her hands upon the Cabinet proceeded to deal faithfully with its\ntwo-and-twenty members. Winston Churchill had overridden Lord Fisher\nupon the question of Gallipoli, and incurred terrible responsibilities.\nLord Haldane--she called him \"Tubby Haldane\"--was a convicted traitor.\n\"The man's a German out and out. Oh! what if he hasn't a drop of German\nblood in his veins? He's a German by choice--which is worse.\"\n\n\"I thought he had a certain capacity for organisation,\" said Mr.\nBritling.\n\n\"We don't want his organisation, and we don't want _him_,\" said Lady\nFrensham.\n\nMr. Britling pleaded for particulars of the late Lord Chancellor's\ntreasons. There were no particulars. It was just an idea the good lady\nhad got into her head, that had got into a number of accessible heads.\nThere was only one strong man in all the country now, Lady Frensham\ninsisted. That was Sir Edward Carson.\n\nMr. Britling jumped in his chair.\n\n\"But has he ever done anything?\" he cried, \"except embitter Ireland?\"\n\nLady Frensham did not hear that question. She pursued her glorious\ntheme. Lloyd George, who had once been worthy only of the gallows, was\nnow the sole minister fit to put beside her hero. He had won her heart\nby his condemnation of the working man. He was the one man who was not\nafraid to speak out, to tell them they drank, to tell them they shirked\nand loafed, to tell them plainly that if defeat came to this country the\nblame would fall upon _them_!\n\n\"_No!_\" cried Mr. Britling.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Lady Frensham. \"Upon them and those who have flattered and\nmisled them....\"\n\nAnd so on....\n\nIt presently became necessary for Lady Homartyn to rescue Mr. Britling\nfrom the great lady's patriotic tramplings. He found himself drifting\ninto the autumnal garden--the show of dahlias had never been so\nwonderful--in the company of Raeburn and the staff officer and a small\nwoman who was presently discovered to be remarkably well-informed. They\nwere all despondent. \"I think all this promiscuous blaming of people is\nquite the worst--and most ominous--thing about us just now,\" said Mr.\nBritling after the restful pause that followed the departure from the\npresence of Lady Frensham.\n\n\"It goes on everywhere,\" said the staff officer.\n\n\"Is it really--honest?\" said Mr. Britling.\n\nRaeburn, after reflection, decided to answer. \"As far as it is stupid,\nyes. There's a lot of blame coming; there's bound to be a day of\nreckoning, and I suppose we've all got an instinctive disposition to\nfind a scapegoat for our common sins. The Tory press is pretty rotten,\nand there's a strong element of mere personal spite--in the Churchill\nattacks for example. Personal jealousy probably. Our 'old families'\nseem to have got vulgar-spirited imperceptibly--in a generation or so.\nThey quarrel and shirk and lay blame exactly as bad servants do--and\nthings are still far too much in their hands. Things are getting muffed,\nthere can be no doubt about that--not fatally, but still rather\nseriously. And the government--it was human before the war, and we've\nadded no archangels. There's muddle. There's mutual suspicion. You never\nknow what newspaper office Lloyd George won't be in touch with next.\nHe's honest and patriotic and energetic, but he's mortally afraid of old\nwomen and class intrigues. He doesn't know where to get his backing.\nHe's got all a labour member's terror of the dagger at his back. There's\na lack of nerve, too, in getting rid of prominent officers--who have\nfriends.\"\n\nThe staff officer nodded.\n\n\"Northcliffe seems to me to have a case,\" said Mr. Britling. \"Every one\nabuses him.\"\n\n\"I'd stop his _Daily Mail_,\" said Raeburn. \"I'd leave _The Times_, but\nI'd stop the _Daily Mail_ on the score of its placards alone. It\noverdoes Northcliffe. It translates him into the shrieks and yells of\nunderlings. The plain fact is that Northcliffe is scared out of his wits\nby German efficiency--and in war time when a man is scared out of his\nwits, whether he is honest or not, you put his head in a bag or hold a\npistol to it to calm him.... What is the good of all this clamouring for\na change of government? We haven't a change of government. It's like\ntelling a tramp to get a change of linen. Our men, all our public men,\nare second-rate men, with the habits of advocates. There is nothing\nmasterful in their minds. How can you expect the system to produce\nanything else? But they are doing as well as they can, and there is no\nway of putting in any one else now, and there you are.\"\n\n\"Meanwhile,\" said Mr. Britling, \"our boys--get killed.\"\n\n\"They'd get killed all the more if you had--let us say--Carson and\nLloyd George and Northcliffe and Lady Frensham, with, I suppose, Austin\nHarrison and Horatio Bottomley thrown in--as a Strong Silent\nGovernment.... I'd rather have Northcliffe as dictator than that.... We\ncan't suddenly go back on the past and alter our type. We didn't listen\nto Matthew Arnold. We've never thoroughly turned out and cleaned up our\nhigher schools. We've resisted instruction. We've preferred to maintain\nour national luxuries of a bench of bishops and party politics. And\ncompulsory Greek and the university sneer. And Lady Frensham. And all\nthat sort of thing. And here we are!... Well, damn it, we're in for it\nnow; we've got to plough through with it--with what we have--as what we\nare.\"\n\nThe young staff officer nodded. He thought that was \"about it.\"\n\n\"You've got no sons,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"I'm not even married,\" said Raeburn, as though he thanked God.\n\nThe little well-informed lady remarked abruptly that she had two sons;\none was just home wounded from Suvla Bay. What her son told her made her\nfeel very grave. She said that the public was still quite in the dark\nabout the battle of Anafarta. It had been a hideous muddle, and we had\nbeen badly beaten. The staff work had been awful. Nothing joined up,\nnothing was on the spot and in time. The water supply, for example, had\ngone wrong; the men had been mad with thirst. One regiment which she\nnamed had not been supported by another; when at last the first came\nback the two battalions fought in the trenches regardless of the enemy.\nThere had been no leading, no correlation, no plan. Some of the guns,\nshe declared, had been left behind in Egypt. Some of the train was\nuntraceable to this day. It was mislaid somewhere in the Levant. At the\nbeginning Sir Ian Hamilton had not even been present. He had failed to\nget there in time. It had been the reckless throwing away of an army.\nAnd so hopeful an army! Her son declared it meant the complete failure\nof the Dardanelles project....\n\n\"And when one hears how near we came to victory!\" she cried, and left it\nat that.\n\n\"Three times this year,\" said Raeburn, \"we have missed victories because\nof the badness of our staff work. It's no good picking out scapegoats.\nIt's a question of national habit. It's because the sort of man we turn\nout from our public schools has never learnt how to catch trains, get to\nan office on the minute, pack a knapsack properly, or do anything\nsmartly and quickly--anything whatever that he can possibly get done for\nhim. You can't expect men who are habitually easy-going to keep bucked\nup to a high pitch of efficiency for any length of time. All their\ntraining is against it. All their tradition. They hate being prigs. An\nEnglishman will be any sort of stupid failure rather than appear a prig.\nThat's why we've lost three good fights that we ought to have won--and\nthousands and thousands of men--and material and time, precious beyond\nreckoning. We've lost a year. We've dashed the spirit of our people.\"\n\n\"My boy in Flanders,\" said Mr. Britling, \"says about the same thing. He\nsays our officers have never learnt to count beyond ten, and that they\nare scared at the sight of a map....\"\n\n\"And the war goes on,\" said the little woman.\n\n\"How long, oh Lord! how long?\" cried Mr. Britling.\n\n\"I'd give them another year,\" said the staff officer. \"Just going as we\nare going. Then something _must_ give way. There will be no money\nanywhere. There'll be no more men.... I suppose they'll feel that\nshortage first anyhow. Russia alone has over twenty millions.\"\n\n\"That's about the size of it,\" said Raeburn....\n\n\"Do you think, sir, there'll be civil war?\" asked the young staff\nofficer abruptly after a pause.\n\nThere was a little interval before any one answered this surprising\nquestion.\n\n\"After the peace, I mean,\" said the young officer.\n\n\"There'll be just the devil to pay,\" said Raeburn.\n\n\"One thing after another in the country is being pulled up by its\nroots,\" reflected Mr. Britling.\n\n\"We've never produced a plan for the war, and it isn't likely we shall\nhave one for the peace,\" said Raeburn, and added: \"and Lady Frensham's\nlittle lot will be doing their level best to sit on the safety-valve....\nThey'll rake up Ireland and Ulster from the very start. But I doubt if\nUlster will save 'em.\"\n\n\"We shall squabble. What else do we ever do?\"\n\nNo one seemed able to see more than that. A silence fell on the little\nparty.\n\n\"Well, thank heaven for these dahlias,\" said Raeburn, affecting the\nphilosopher.\n\nThe young staff officer regarded the dahlias without enthusiasm....\n\n\nSection 16\n\nMr. Britling sat one September afternoon with Captain Lawrence Carmine\nin the sunshine of the barn court, and smoked with him and sometimes\ntalked and sometimes sat still.\n\n\"When it began I did not believe that this war could be like other\nwars,\" he said. \"I did not dream it. I thought that we had grown wiser\nat last. It seemed to me like the dawn of a great clearing up. I thought\nthe common sense of mankind would break out like a flame, an indignant\nflame, and consume all this obsolete foolery of empires and banners and\nmilitarism directly it made its attack upon human happiness. A score of\nthings that I see now were preposterous, I thought must\nhappen--naturally. I thought America would declare herself against the\nBelgian outrage; that she would not tolerate the smashing of the great\nsister republic--if only for the memory of Lafayette. Well--I gather\nAmerica is chiefly concerned about our making cotton contraband. I\nthought the Balkan States were capable of a reasonable give and take; of\na common care for their common freedom. I see now three German royalties\ntrading in peasants, and no men in their lands to gainsay them. I saw\nthis war, as so many Frenchmen have seen it, as something that might\nlegitimately command a splendid enthusiasm of indignation.... It was all\na dream, the dream of a prosperous comfortable man who had never come to\nthe cutting edge of life. Everywhere cunning, everywhere small feuds and\nhatreds, distrusts, dishonesties, timidities, feebleness of purpose,\ndwarfish imaginations, swarm over the great and simple issues.... It is\na war now like any other of the mobbing, many-aimed cataclysms that have\nshattered empires and devastated the world; it is a war without point, a\nwar that has lost its soul, it has become mere incoherent fighting and\ndestruction, a demonstration in vast and tragic forms of the stupidity\nand ineffectiveness of our species....\"\n\nHe stopped, and there was a little interval of silence.\n\nCaptain Carmine tossed the fag end of his cigar very neatly into a tub\nof hydrangeas. \"Three thousand years ago in China,\" he said, \"there were\nmen as sad as we are, for the same cause.\"\n\n\"Three thousand years ahead perhaps,\" said Mr. Britling, \"there will\nstill be men with the same sadness.... And yet--and yet.... No. Just now\nI have no elasticity. It is not in my nature to despair, but things are\npressing me down. I don't recover as I used to recover. I tell myself\nstill that though the way is long and hard the spirit of hope, the\nspirit of creation, the generosities and gallantries in the heart of\nman, must end in victory. But I say that over as one repeats a worn-out\nprayer. The light is out of the sky for me. Sometimes I doubt if it will\never come back. Let younger men take heart and go on with the world. If\nI could die for the right thing now--instead of just having to live on\nin this world of ineffective struggle--I would be glad to die now,\nCarmine....\"\n\n\nSection 17\n\nIn these days also Mr. Direck was very unhappy.\n\nFor Cissie, at any rate, had not lost touch with the essential issues of\nthe war. She was as clear as ever that German militarism and the German\nattack on Belgium and France was the primary subject of the war. And she\ndismissed all secondary issues. She continued to demand why America did\nnot fight. \"We fight for Belgium. Won't you fight for the Dutch and\nNorwegian ships? Won't you even fight for your own ships that the\nGermans are sinking?\"\n\nMr. Direck attempted explanations that were ill received.\n\n\"You were ready enough to fight the Spaniards when they blew up the\n_Maine_. But the Germans can sink the _Lusitania_! That's--as you say--a\ndifferent proposition.\"\n\nHis mind was shot by an extraordinary suspicion that she thought the\n_Lusitania_ an American vessel. But Mr. Direck was learning his Cissie,\nand he did not dare to challenge her on this score.\n\n\"You haven't got hold of the American proposition,\" he said. \"We're\nthinking beyond wars.\"\n\n\"That's what we have been trying to do,\" said Cissie. \"Do you think we\ncame into it for the fun of the thing?\"\n\n\"Haven't I shown in a hundred ways that I sympathise?\"\n\n\"Oh--sympathy!...\"\n\nHe fared little better at Mr. Britling's hands. Mr. Britling talked\ndarkly, but pointed all the time only too plainly at America. \"There's\ntwo sorts of liberalism,\" said Mr. Britling, \"that pretend to be the\nsame thing; there's the liberalism of great aims and the liberalism of\ndefective moral energy....\"\n\n\nSection 18\n\nIt was not until Teddy had been missing for three weeks that Hugh wrote\nabout him. The two Essex battalions on the Flanders front were\napparently wide apart, and it was only from home that Hugh learnt what\nhad happened.\n\n\"You can't imagine how things narrow down when one is close up against\nthem. One does not know what is happening even within a few miles of us,\nuntil we get the newspapers. Then, with a little reading between the\nlines and some bold guessing, we fit our little bit of experience with a\ngeneral shape. Of course I've wondered at times about Teddy. But oddly\nenough I've never thought of him very much as being out here. It's\nqueer, I know, but I haven't. I can't imagine why....\n\n\"I don't know about 'missing.' We've had nothing going on here that has\nled to any missing. All our men have been accounted for. But every few\nmiles along the front conditions alter. His lot may have been closer up\nto the enemy, and there may have been a rush and a fight for a bit of\ntrench either way. In some parts the German trenches are not thirty\nyards away, and there is mining, bomb throwing, and perpetual creeping\nup and give and take. Here we've been getting a bit forward. But I'll\ntell you about that presently. And, anyhow, I don't understand about\n'missing.' There's very few prisoners taken now. But don't tell Letty\nthat. I try to imagine old Teddy in it....\n\n\"Missing's a queer thing. It isn't tragic--or pitiful. Or partly\nreassuring like 'prisoner.' It just sends one speculating and\nspeculating. I can't find any one who knows where the 14th Essex are.\nThings move about here so mysteriously that for all I know we may find\nthem in the next trench next time we go up. But there _is_ a chance for\nTeddy. It's worth while bucking Letty all you can. And at the same time\nthere's odds against him. There plainly and unfeelingly is how things\nstand in my mind. I think chiefly of Letty. I'm glad Cissie is with her,\nand I'm glad she's got the boy. Keep her busy. She was frightfully fond\nof him. I've seen all sorts of things between them, and I know that....\nI'll try and write to her soon, and I'll find something hopeful to tell\nher.\n\n\"Meanwhile I've got something to tell you. I've been through a fight, a\nbig fight, and I haven't got a scratch. I've taken two prisoners with my\nlily hand. Men were shot close to me. I didn't mind that a bit. It was\nas exciting as one of those bitter fights we used to have round the\nhockey goal. I didn't mind anything till afterwards. Then when I was in\nthe trench in the evening I trod on something slippery--pah! And after\nit was all over one of my chums got it--sort of unfairly. And I keep on\nthinking of those two things so much that all the early part is just\ndreamlike. It's more like something I've read in a book, or seen in the\n_Illustrated London News_ than actually been through. One had been\nthinking so often, how will it feel? how shall I behave? that when it\ncame it had an effect of being flat and ordinary.\n\n\"They say we hadn't got enough guns in the spring or enough ammunition.\nThat's all right now--anyhow. They started in plastering the Germans\novernight, and right on until it was just daylight. I never heard such a\nrow, and their trenches--we could stand up and look at them without\ngetting a single shot at us--were flying about like the crater of a\nvolcano. We were not in our firing trench. We had gone back into some\nnew trenches, at the rear--I think to get out of the way of the counter\nfire. But this morning they weren't doing very much. For once our guns\nwere on top. There was a feeling of anticipation--very like waiting for\nan examination paper to be given out; then we were at it. Getting out of\na trench to attack gives you an odd feeling of being just hatched.\nSuddenly the world is big. I don't remember our gun fire stopping. And\nthen you rush. 'Come on! Come on!' say the officers. Everybody gives a\nsort of howl and rushes. When you see men dropping, you rush the faster.\nThe only thing that checks you at all is the wire twisted about\neverywhere. You don't want to trip over that. The frightening thing is\nthe exposure. After being in the trenches so long you feel naked. You\nrun like a scared child for the German trench ahead. I can't understand\nthe iron nerve of a man who can expose his back by turning to run away.\nAnd there's a thirsty feeling with one's bayonet. But they didn't wait.\nThey dropped rifles and ran. But we ran so fast after them that we\ncaught one or two in the second trench. I got down into that, heard a\nvoice behind me, and found my two prisoners lying artful in a dug-out.\nThey held up their hands as I turned. If they hadn't I doubt if I should\nhave done anything to them. I didn't feel like it. I felt _friendly_.\n\n\"Not all the Germans ran. Three or four stuck to their machine-guns\nuntil they got bayoneted. Both the trenches were frightfully smashed\nabout, and in the first one there were little knots and groups of dead.\nWe got to work at once shying the sandbags over from the old front of\nthe trench to the parados. Our guns had never stopped all the time; they\nwere now plastering the third line trenches. And almost at once the\nGerman shells began dropping into us. Of course they had the range to an\ninch. One didn't have any time to feel and think; one just set oneself\nwith all one's energy to turn the trench over....\n\n\"I don't remember that I helped or cared for a wounded man all the time,\nor felt anything about the dead except to step over them and not on\nthem. I was just possessed by the idea that we had to get the trench\ninto a sheltering state before they tried to come back. And then stick\nthere. I just wanted to win, and there was nothing else in my mind....\n\n\"They did try to come back, but not very much....\n\n\"Then when I began to feel sure of having got hold of the trench for\ngood, I began to realise just how tired I was and how high the sun had\ngot. I began to look about me, and found most of the other men working\njust as hard as I had been doing. 'We've done it!' I said, and that was\nthe first word I'd spoken since I told my two Germans to come out of it,\nand stuck a man with a wounded leg to watch them. 'It's a bit of All\nRight,' said Ortheris, knocking off also, and lighting a half-consumed\ncigarette. He had been wearing it behind his ear, I believe, ever since\nthe charge. Against this occasion. He'd kept close up to me all the\ntime, I realised. And then old Park turned up very cheerful with a weak\nbayonet jab in his forearm that he wanted me to rebandage. It was good\nto see him practically all right too.\n\n\"'I took two prisoners,' I said, and everybody I spoke to I told that. I\nwas fearfully proud of it.\n\n\"I thought that if I could take two prisoners in my first charge I was\ngoing to be some soldier.\n\n\"I had stood it all admirably. I didn't feel a bit shaken. I was as\ntough as anything. I'd seen death and killing, and it was all just\nhockey.\n\n\"And then that confounded Ortheris must needs go and get killed.\n\n\"The shell knocked me over, and didn't hurt me a bit. I was a little\nstunned, and some dirt was thrown over me, and when I got up on my knees\nI saw Jewell lying about six yards off--and his legs were all smashed\nabout. Ugh! Pulped!\n\n\"He looked amazed. 'Bloody,' he said, 'bloody.' He fixed his eyes on me,\nand suddenly grinned. You know we'd once had two fights about his saying\n'bloody,' I think I told you at the time, a fight and a return match,\nhe couldn't box for nuts, but he stood up like a Briton, and it appealed\nnow to his sense of humour that I should be standing there too dazed to\nprotest at the old offence. 'I thought _you_ was done in,' he said. 'I'm\nin a mess--a bloody mess, ain't I? Like a stuck pig. Bloody--right\nenough. Bloody! I didn't know I 'ad it _in_ me.'\n\n\"He looked at me and grinned with a sort of pale satisfaction in keeping\nup to the last--dying good Ortheris to the finish. I just stood up\nhelpless in front of him, still rather dazed.\n\n\"He said something about having a thundering thirst on him.\n\n\"I really don't believe he felt any pain. He would have done if he had\nlived.\n\n\"And then while I was fumbling with my water-bottle, he collapsed. He\nforgot all about Ortheris. Suddenly he said something that cut me all to\nribbons. His face puckered up just like the face of a fretful child\nwhich refuses to go to bed. 'I didn't want to be aut of it,' he said\npetulantly. 'And I'm done!' And then--then he just looked discontented\nand miserable and died--right off. Turned his head a little way over. As\nif he was impatient at everything. Fainted--and fluttered out.\n\n\"For a time I kept trying to get him to drink....\n\n\"I couldn't believe he was dead....\n\n\"And suddenly it was all different. I began to cry. Like a baby. I kept\non with the water-bottle at his teeth long after I was convinced he was\ndead. I didn't want him to be aut of it! God knows how I didn't. I\nwanted my dear little Cockney cad back. Oh! most frightfully I wanted\nhim back.\n\n\"I shook him. I was like a scared child. I blubbered and howled\nthings.... It's all different since he died.\n\n\"My dear, dear Father, I am grieving and grieving--and it's altogether\nnonsense. And it's all mixed up in my mind with the mess I trod on. And\nit gets worse and worse. So that I don't seem to feel anything really,\neven for Teddy.\n\n\"It's been just the last straw of all this hellish foolery....\n\n\"If ever there was a bigger lie, my dear Daddy, than any other, it is\nthat man is a reasonable creature....\n\n\"War is just foolery--lunatic foolery--hell's foolery....\n\n\"But, anyhow, your son is sound and well--if sorrowful and angry. We\nwere relieved that night. And there are rumours that very soon we are to\nhave a holiday and a refit. We lost rather heavily. We have been\npraised. But all along, Essex has done well. I can't reckon to get back\nyet, but there are such things as leave for eight-and-forty hours or so\nin England....\n\n\"I shall be glad of that sort of turning round....\n\n\"I'm tired. Oh! I'm tired....\n\n\"I wanted to write all about Jewell to his mother or his sweetheart or\nsome one; I wanted to wallow in his praises, to say all the things I\nreally find now that I thought about him, but I haven't even had that\nsatisfaction. He was a Poor Law child; he was raised in one of those\nawful places between Sutton and Banstead in Surrey. I've told you of all\nthe sweethearting he had. 'Soldiers Three' was his Bible; he was always\nsinging 'Tipperary,' and he never got the tune right nor learnt more\nthan three lines of it. He laced all his talk with 'b----y'; it was his\njewel, his ruby. But he had the pluck of a robin or a squirrel; I never\nknew him scared or anything but cheerful. Misfortunes, humiliations,\nonly made him chatty. And he'd starve to have something to give away.\n\n\"Well, well, this is the way of war, Daddy. This is what war is. Damn\nthe Kaiser! Damn all fools.... Give my love to the Mother and the\nbruddykins and every one....\"\n\n\nSection 19\n\nIt was just a day or so over three weeks after this last letter from\nHugh that Mr. Direck reappeared at Matching's Easy. He had had a trip to\nHolland--a trip that was as much a flight from Cissie's reproaches as a\nmission of inquiry. He had intended to go on into Belgium, where he had\nalready been doing useful relief work under Mr. Hoover, but the\nconfusion of his own feelings had checked him and brought him back.\n\nMr. Direck's mind was in a perplexity only too common during the\nstresses of that tragic year. He was entangled in a paradox; like a\nlarge majority of Americans at that time his feelings were quite\ndefinitely pro-Ally, and like so many in that majority he had a very\nclear conviction that it would be wrong and impossible for the United\nStates to take part in the war. His sympathies were intensely with the\nDower House and its dependent cottage; he would have wept with generous\nemotion to see the Stars and Stripes interwoven with the three other\ngreat banners of red, white and blue that led the world against German\nimperialism and militarism, but for all that his mind would not march to\nthat tune. Against all these impulses fought something very fundamental\nin Mr. Direck's composition, a preconception of America that had grown\nalmost insensibly in his mind, the idea of America as a polity aloof\nfrom the Old World system, as a fresh start for humanity, as something\naltogether too fine and precious to be dragged into even the noblest of\nEuropean conflicts. America was to be the beginning of the fusion of\nmankind, neither German nor British nor French nor in any way national.\nShe was to be the great experiment in peace and reasonableness. She had\nto hold civilisation and social order out of this fray, to be a refuge\nfor all those finer things that die under stress and turmoil; it was her\ntask to maintain the standards of life and the claims of humanitarianism\nin the conquered province and the prisoners' compound, she had to be\nthe healer and arbitrator, the remonstrance and not the smiting hand.\nSurely there were enough smiting hands.\n\nBut this idea of an America judicial, remonstrating, and aloof, led him\nto a conclusion that scandalised him. If America will not, and should\nnot use force in the ends of justice, he argued, then America has no\nright to make and export munitions of war. She must not trade in what\nshe disavows. He had a quite exaggerated idea of the amount of munitions\nthat America was sending to the Allies, he was inclined to believe that\nthey were entirely dependent upon their transatlantic supplies, and so\nhe found himself persuaded that the victory of the Allies and the honour\nof America were incompatible things. And--in spite of his ethical\naloofness--he loved the Allies. He wanted them to win, and he wanted\nAmerica to abandon a course that he believed was vitally necessary to\ntheir victory. It was an intellectual dilemma. He hid this\nself-contradiction from Matching's Easy with much the same feelings that\na curate might hide a poisoned dagger at a tea-party....\n\nIt was entirely against his habits of mind to hide anything--more\nparticularly an entanglement with a difficult proposition--but he\nperceived quite clearly that neither Cecily nor Mr. Britling were really\nto be trusted to listen calmly to what, under happier circumstances,\nmight be a profoundly interesting moral complication. Yet it was not in\nhis nature to conceal; it was in his nature to state.\n\nAnd Cecily made things much more difficult. She was pitiless with him.\nShe kept him aloof. \"How can I let you make love to me,\" she said, \"when\nour English men are all going to the war, when Teddy is a prisoner and\nHugh is in the trenches. If I were a man--!\"\n\nShe couldn't be induced to see any case for America. England was\nfighting for freedom, and America ought to be beside her. \"All the\nworld ought to unite against this German wickedness,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm doing all I can to help in Belgium,\" he protested. \"Aren't I\nworking? We've fed four million people.\"\n\nHe had backbone, and he would not let her, he was resolved, bully him\ninto a falsehood about his country. America was aloof. She was right to\nbe aloof.... At the same time, Cecily's reproaches were unendurable. And\nhe could feel he was drifting apart from her....\n\n_He_ couldn't make America go to war.\n\nIn the quiet of his London hotel he thought it all out. He sat at a\nwriting-table making notes of a perfectly lucid statement of the\nreasonable, balanced liberal American opinion. An instinct of caution\ndetermined him to test it first on Mr. Britling.\n\nBut Mr. Britling realised his worst expectations. He was beyond\nlistening.\n\n\"I've not heard from my boy for more than three weeks,\" said Mr.\nBritling in the place of any salutation. \"This morning makes\nthree-and-twenty days without a letter.\"\n\nIt seemed to Mr. Direck that Mr. Britling had suddenly grown ten years\nolder. His face was more deeply lined; the colour and texture of his\ncomplexion had gone grey. He moved restlessly and badly; his nerves were\nmanifestly unstrung.\n\n\"It's intolerable that one should be subjected to this ghastly suspense.\nThe boy isn't three hundred miles away.\"\n\nMr. Direck made obvious inquiries.\n\n\"Always before he's written--generally once a fortnight.\"\n\nThey talked of Hugh for a time, but Mr. Britling was fitful and\nirritable and quite prepared to hold Mr. Direck accountable for the\nlaxity of the War Office, the treachery of Bulgaria, the ambiguity of\nRoumania or any other barb that chanced to be sticking into his\nsensibilities. They lunched precariously. Then they went into the study\nto smoke.\n\nThere Mr. Direck was unfortunate enough to notice a copy of that\ninnocent American publication _The New Republic_, lying close to two or\nthree numbers of _The Fatherland_, a pro-German periodical which at that\ntime inflicted itself upon English writers with the utmost\ndetermination. Mr. Direck remarked that _The New Republic_ was an\ninteresting effort on the part of \"_la Jeunesse Américaine_.\" Mr.\nBritling regarded the interesting effort with a jaded, unloving eye.\n\n\"You Americans,\" he said, \"are the most extraordinary people in the\nworld.\"\n\n\"Our conditions are exceptional,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"You think they are,\" said Mr. Britling, and paused, and then began to\ndeliver his soul about America in a discourse of accumulating\nbitterness. At first he reasoned and explained, but as he went on he\nlost self-control; he became dogmatic, he became denunciatory, he became\nabusive. He identified Mr. Direck more and more with his subject; he\nthrust the uncivil \"You\" more and more directly at him. He let his cigar\ngo out, and flung it impatiently into the fire. As though America was\nresponsible for its going out....\n\nLike many Britons Mr. Britling had that touch of patriotic feeling\ntowards America which takes the form of impatient criticism. No one in\nBritain ever calls an American a foreigner. To see faults in Germany or\nSpain is to tap boundless fountains of charity; but the faults of\nAmerica rankle in an English mind almost as much as the faults of\nEngland. Mr. Britling could explain away the faults of England readily\nenough; our Hanoverian monarchy, our Established Church and its\ndeadening effect on education, our imperial obligations and the strain\nthey made upon our supplies of administrative talent were all very\nserviceable for that purpose. But there in America was the old race,\nwithout Crown or Church or international embarrassment, and it was\nstill falling short of splendid. His speech to Mr. Direck had the\nrancour of a family quarrel. Let me only give a few sentences that were\nto stick in Mr. Direck's memory.\n\n\"You think you are out of it for good and all. So did we think. We were\nas smug as you are when France went down in '71.... Yours is only one\nfurther degree of insularity. You think this vacuous aloofness of yours\nis some sort of moral superiority. So did we, so did we....\n\n\"It won't last you ten years if we go down....\n\n\"Do you think that our disaster will leave the Atlantic for you? Do you\nfancy there is any Freedom of the Seas possible beyond such freedom as\nwe maintain, except the freedom to attack you? For forty years the\nBritish fleet has guarded all America from European attack. Your Monroe\ndoctrine skulks behind it now....\n\n\"I'm sick of this high thin talk of yours about the war.... You are a\nnation of ungenerous onlookers--watching us throttle or be throttled.\nYou gamble on our winning. And we shall win; we shall win. And you will\nprofit. And when we have won a victory only one shade less terrible than\ndefeat, then you think you will come in and tinker with our peace. Bleed\nus a little more to please your hyphenated patriots....\"\n\nHe came to his last shaft. \"You talk of your New Ideals of Peace. You\nsay that you are too proud to fight. But your business men in New York\ngive the show away. There's a little printed card now in half the\noffices in New York that tells of the real pacificism of America.\nThey're busy, you know. Trade's real good. And so as not to interrupt it\nthey stick up this card: 'Nix on the war!' Think of it!--'Nix on the\nwar!' Here is the whole fate of mankind at stake, and America's\ncontribution is a little grumbling when the Germans sank the\n_Lusitania_, and no end of grumbling when we hold up a ship or two and\nsome fool of a harbour-master makes an overcharge. Otherwise--'Nix on\nthe war!'...\n\n\"Well, let it be Nix on the war! Don't come here and talk to me! You who\nwere searching registers a year ago to find your Essex kin. Let it be\nNix! Explanations! What do I want with explanations? And\"--he mocked his\nguest's accent and his guest's mode of thought--\"dif'cult prap'sitions.\"\n\nHe got up and stood irresolute. He knew he was being preposterously\nunfair to America, and outrageously uncivil to a trusting guest; he knew\nhe had no business now to end the talk in this violent fashion. But it\nwas an enormous relief. And to mend matters--_No!_ He was glad he'd said\nthese things....\n\nHe swung a shoulder to Mr. Direck, and walked out of the room....\n\nMr. Direck heard him cross the hall and slam the door of the little\nparlour....\n\nMr. Direck had been stirred deeply by the tragic indignation of this\nexplosion, and the ring of torment in Mr. Britling's voice. He had stood\nup also, but he did not follow his host.\n\n\"It's his boy,\" said Mr. Direck at last, confidentially to the\nwriting-desk. \"How can one argue with him? It's just hell for him....\"\n\n\nSection 20\n\nMr. Direck took his leave of Mrs. Britling, and went very slowly towards\nthe little cottage. But he did not go to the cottage. He felt he would\nonly find another soul in torment there.\n\n\"What's the good of hanging round talking?\" said Mr. Direck.\n\nHe stopped at the stile in the lane, and sat thinking deeply. \"Only one\nthing will convince her,\" he said.\n\nHe held out his fingers. \"First this,\" he whispered, \"and then that.\nYes.\"\n\nHe went on as far as the bend from which one sees the cottage, and stood\nfor a little time regarding it.\n\nHe returned still more sorrowfully to the junction, and with every step\nhe took it seemed to him that he would rather see Cecily angry and\ninsulting than not see her at all.\n\nAt the post office he stopped and wrote a letter-card.\n\n\"Dear Cissie,\" he wrote. \"I came down to-day to see you--and thought\nbetter of it. I'm going right off to find out about Teddy. Somehow I'll\nget that settled. I'll fly around and do that somehow if I have to go up\nto the German front to do it. And when I've got that settled I've got\nsomething else in my mind--well, it will wipe out all this little\ntrouble that's got so big between us about neutrality. And I love you\ndearly, Cissie.\"\n\nThat was all the card would hold.\n\n\nSection 21\n\nAnd then as if it were something that every one in the Dower House had\nbeen waiting for, came the message that Hugh had been killed.\n\nThe telegram was brought up by a girl in a pinafore instead of the boy\nof the old dispensation, for boys now were doing the work of youths and\nyouths the work of the men who had gone to the war.\n\nMr. Britling was standing at the front door; he had been surveying the\nlate October foliage, touched by the warm light of the afternoon, when\nthe messenger appeared. He opened the telegram, hoping as he had hoped\nwhen he opened any telegram since Hugh had gone to the front that it\nwould not contain the exact words he read; that it would say wounded,\nthat at the worst it would say \"missing,\" that perhaps it might even\ntell of some pleasant surprise, a brief return to home such as the last\nletter had foreshadowed. He read the final, unqualified statement, the\nterse regrets. He stood quite still for a moment or so, staring at the\nwords....\n\nIt was a mile and a quarter from the post office to the Dower House, and\nit was always his custom to give telegraph messengers who came to his\nhouse twopence, and he wanted very much to get rid of the telegraph\ngirl, who stood expectantly before him holding her red bicycle. He felt\nnow very sick and strained; he had a conviction that if he did not by an\neffort maintain his bearing cool and dry he would howl aloud. He felt in\nhis pocket for money; there were some coppers and a shilling. He pulled\nit all out together and stared at it.\n\nHe had an absurd conviction that this ought to be a sixpenny telegram.\nThe thing worried him. He wanted to give the brat sixpence, and he had\nonly threepence and a shilling, and he didn't know what to do and his\nbrain couldn't think. It would be a shocking thing to give her a\nshilling, and he couldn't somehow give just coppers for so important a\nthing as Hugh's death. Then all this problem vanished and he handed the\nchild the shilling. She stared at him, inquiring, incredulous. \"Is there\na reply, Sir, please?\"\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"that's for you. All of it.... This is a peculiar sort of\ntelegram.... It's news of importance....\"\n\nAs he said this he met her eyes, and had a sudden persuasion that she\nknew exactly what it was the telegram had told him, and that she was\nshocked at this gala-like treatment of such terrible news. He hesitated,\nfeeling that he had to say something else, that he was socially\ninadequate, and then he decided that at any cost he must get his face\naway from her staring eyes. She made no movement to turn away. She\nseemed to be taking him in, recording him, for repetition, greedily,\nwith every fibre of her being.\n\nHe stepped past her into the garden, and instantly forgot about her\nexistence....\n\n\nSection 22\n\nHe had been thinking of this possibility for the last few weeks almost\ncontinuously, and yet now that it had come to him he felt that he had\nnever thought about it before, that he must go off alone by himself to\nenvisage this monstrous and terrible fact, without distraction or\ninterruption.\n\nHe saw his wife coming down the alley between the roses.\n\nHe was wrenched by emotions as odd and unaccountable as the emotions of\nadolescence. He had exactly the same feeling now that he had had when in\nhis boyhood some unpleasant admission had to be made to his parents. He\nfelt he could not go through a scene with her yet, that he could not\nendure the task of telling her, of being observed. He turned abruptly to\nhis left. He walked away as if he had not seen her, across his lawn\ntowards the little summer-house upon a knoll that commanded the high\nroad. She called to him, but he did not answer....\n\nHe would not look towards her, but for a time all his senses were alert\nto hear whether she followed him. Safe in the summer-house he could\nglance back.\n\nIt was all right. She was going into the house.\n\nHe drew the telegram from his pocket again furtively, almost guiltily,\nand re-read it. He turned it over and read it again....\n\n_Killed._\n\nThen his own voice, hoarse and strange to his ears, spoke his thought.\n\n\"My God! how unutterably silly.... Why did I let him go? Why did I let\nhim go?\"\n\n\nSection 23\n\nMrs. Britling did not learn of the blow that had struck them until after\ndinner that night. She was so accustomed to ignore his incomprehensible\nmoods that she did not perceive that there was anything tragic about\nhim until they sat at table together. He seemed heavy and sulky and\ndisposed to avoid her, but that sort of moodiness was nothing very\nstrange to her. She knew that things that seemed to her utterly trivial,\nthe reading of political speeches in _The Times_, little comments on\nlife made in the most casual way, mere movements, could so avert him.\nShe had cultivated a certain disregard of such fitful darknesses. But at\nthe dinner-table she looked up, and was stabbed to the heart to see a\nhaggard white face and eyes of deep despair regarding her ambiguously.\n\n\"Hugh!\" she said, and then with a chill intimation, \"_What is it?_\"\n\nThey looked at each other. His face softened and winced.\n\n\"My Hugh,\" he whispered, and neither spoke for some seconds.\n\n\"_Killed_,\" he said, and suddenly stood up whimpering, and fumbled with\nhis pocket.\n\nIt seemed he would never find what he sought. It came at last, a\ncrumpled telegram. He threw it down before her, and then thrust his\nchair back clumsily and went hastily out of the room. She heard him sob.\nShe had not dared to look at his face again.\n\n\"Oh!\" she cried, realising that an impossible task had been thrust upon\nher.\n\n\"But what can I _say_ to him?\" she said, with the telegram in her hand.\n\nThe parlourmaid came into the room.\n\n\"Clear the dinner away!\" said Mrs. Britling, standing at her place.\n\"Master Hugh is killed....\" And then wailing: \"Oh! what can I _say_?\nWhat can I _say_?\"\n\n\nSection 24\n\nThat night Mrs. Britling made the supreme effort of her life to burst\nthe prison of self-consciousness and inhibition in which she was\nconfined. Never before in all her life had she so desired to be\nspontaneous and unrestrained; never before had she so felt herself\nhampered by her timidity, her self-criticism, her deeply ingrained habit\nof never letting herself go. She was rent by reflected distress. It\nseemed to her that she would be ready to give her life and the whole\nworld to be able to comfort her husband now. And she could conceive no\ngesture of comfort. She went out of the dining-room into the hall and\nlistened. She went very softly upstairs until she came to the door of\nher husband's room. There she stood still. She could hear no sound from\nwithin. She put out her hand and turned the handle of the door a little\nway, and then she was startled by the loudness of the sound it made and\nat her own boldness. She withdrew her hand, and then with a gesture of\ndespair, with a face of white agony, she flitted along the corridor to\nher own room.\n\nHer mind was beaten to the ground by this catastrophe, of which to this\nmoment she had never allowed herself to think. She had never allowed\nherself to think of it. The figure of her husband, like some pitiful\nbeast, wounded and bleeding, filled her mind. She gave scarcely a\nthought to Hugh. \"Oh, what can I _do_ for him?\" she asked herself,\nsitting down before her unlit bedroom fire.... \"What can I say or do?\"\n\nShe brooded until she shivered, and then she lit her fire....\n\nIt was late that night and after an eternity of resolutions and doubts\nand indecisions that Mrs. Britling went to her husband. He was sitting\nclose up to the fire with his chin upon his hands, waiting for her; he\nfelt that she would come to him, and he was thinking meanwhile of Hugh\nwith a slow unprogressive movement of the mind. He showed by a movement\nthat he heard her enter the room, but he did not turn to look at her. He\nshrank a little from her approach.\n\nShe came and stood beside him. She ventured to touch him very softly,\nand to stroke his head. \"My dear,\" she said. \"My poor dear!\n\n\"It is so dreadful for you,\" she said, \"it is so dreadful for you. I\nknow how you loved him....\"\n\nHe spread his hands over his face and became very still.\n\n\"My poor dear!\" she said, still stroking his hair, \"my poor dear!\"\n\nAnd then she went on saying \"poor dear,\" saying it presently because\nthere was nothing more had come into her mind. She desired supremely to\nbe his comfort, and in a little while she was acting comfort so poorly\nthat she perceived her own failure. And that increased her failure, and\nthat increased her paralysing sense of failure....\n\nAnd suddenly her stroking hand ceased. Suddenly the real woman cried out\nfrom her.\n\n\"I can't _reach_ you!\" she cried aloud. \"I can't reach you. I would do\nanything.... You! You with your heart half broken....\"\n\nShe turned towards the door. She moved clumsily, she was blinded by her\ntears.\n\nMr. Britling uncovered his face. He stood up astonished, and then pity\nand pitiful understanding came storming across his grief. He made a step\nand took her in his arms. \"My dear,\" he said, \"don't go from me....\"\n\nShe turned to him weeping, and put her arms about his neck, and he too\nwas weeping.\n\n\"My poor wife!\" he said, \"my dear wife. If it were not for you--I think\nI could kill myself to-night. Don't cry, my dear. Don't, don't cry. You\ndo not know how you comfort me. You do not know how you help me.\"\n\nHe drew her to him; he put her cheek against his own....\n\nHis heart was so sore and wounded that he could not endure that another\nhuman being should go wretched. He sat down in his chair and drew her\nupon his knees, and said everything he could think of to console her\nand reassure her and make her feel that she was of value to him. He\nspoke of every pleasant aspect of their lives, of every aspect, except\nthat he never named that dear pale youth who waited now.... He could\nwait a little longer....\n\nAt last she went from him.\n\n\"Good night,\" said Mr. Britling, and took her to the door. \"It was very\ndear of you to come and comfort me,\" he said....\n\n\nSection 25\n\nHe closed the door softly behind her.\n\nThe door had hardly shut upon her before he forgot her. Instantly he was\nalone again, utterly alone. He was alone in an empty world....\n\nLoneliness struck him like a blow. He had dependents, he had cares. He\nhad never a soul to whom he might weep....\n\nFor a time he stood beside his open window. He looked at the bed--but no\nsleep he knew would come that night--until the sleep of exhaustion came.\nHe looked at the bureau at which he had so often written. But the\nwriting there was a shrivelled thing....\n\nThis room was unendurable. He must go out. He turned to the window, and\noutside was a troublesome noise of night-jars and a distant roaring of\nstags, black trees, blacknesses, the sky clear and remote with a great\ncompany of stars.... The stars seemed attentive. They stirred and yet\nwere still. It was as if they were the eyes of watchers. He would go out\nto them....\n\nVery softly he went towards the passage door, and still more softly felt\nhis way across the landing and down the staircase. Once or twice he\npaused to listen.\n\nHe let himself out with elaborate precautions....\n\nAcross the dark he went, and suddenly his boy was all about him,\nplaying, climbing the cedars, twisting miraculously about the lawn on a\nbicycle, discoursing gravely upon his future, lying on the grass,\nbreathing very hard and drawing preposterous caricatures. Once again\nthey walked side by side up and down--it was athwart this very\nspot--talking gravely but rather shyly....\n\nAnd here they had stood a little awkwardly, before the boy went in to\nsay good-bye to his stepmother and go off with his father to the\nstation....\n\n\"I will work to-morrow again,\" whispered Mr. Britling, \"but\nto-night--to-night.... To-night is yours.... Can you hear me, can you\nhear? Your father ... who had counted on you....\"\n\n\nSection 26\n\nHe went into the far corner of the hockey paddock, and there he moved\nabout for a while and then stood for a long time holding the fence with\nboth hands and staring blankly into the darkness. At last he turned\naway, and went stumbling and blundering towards the rose garden. A spray\nof creeper tore his face and distressed him. He thrust it aside\nfretfully, and it scratched his hand. He made his way to the seat in the\narbour, and sat down and whispered a little to himself, and then became\nvery still with his arm upon the back of the seat and his head upon his\narm.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III\n\nTHE TESTAMENT OF MATCHING'S EASY\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE FIRST\n\nMRS. TEDDY GOES FOR A WALK\n\n\nSection 1\n\nAll over England now, where the livery of mourning had been a rare thing\nto see, women and children went about in the October sunshine in new\nblack clothes. Everywhere one met these fresh griefs, mothers who had\nlost their sons, women who had lost their men, lives shattered and hopes\ndestroyed. The dyers had a great time turning coloured garments to\nblack. And there was also a growing multitude of crippled and disabled\nmen. It was so in England, much more was it so in France and Russia, in\nall the countries of the Allies, and in Germany and Austria; away into\nAsia Minor and Egypt, in India and Japan and Italy there was mourning,\nthe world was filled with loss and mourning and impoverishment and\ndistress.\n\nAnd still the mysterious powers that required these things of mankind\nwere unappeased, and each day added its quota of heart-stabbing messages\nand called for new mourning, and sent home fresh consignments of broken\nand tormented men.\n\nSome clung to hopes that became at last almost more terrible than black\ncertainties....\n\nMrs. Teddy went about the village in a coloured dress bearing herself\nconfidently. Teddy had been listed now as \"missing, since reported\nkilled,\" and she had had two letters from his comrades. They said Teddy\nhad been left behind in the ruins of a farm with one or two other\nwounded, and that when the Canadians retook the place these wounded had\nall been found butchered. None had been found alive. Afterwards the\nCanadians had had to fall back. Mr. Direck had been at great pains to\nhunt up wounded men from Teddy's company, and also any likely Canadians\nboth at the base hospital in France and in London, and to get what he\ncould from them. He had made it a service to Cissie. Only one of his\nwitnesses was quite clear about Teddy, but he, alas! was dreadfully\nclear. There had been only one lieutenant among the men left behind, he\nsaid, and obviously that must have been Teddy. \"He had been prodded in\nhalf-a-dozen places. His head was nearly severed from his body.\"\n\nDireck came down and told the story to Cissie. \"Shall I tell it to her?\"\nhe asked.\n\nCissie thought. \"Not yet,\" she said....\n\nLetty's face changed in those pitiful weeks when she was denying death.\nShe lost her pretty colour, she became white; her mouth grew hard and\nher eyes had a hard brightness. She never wept, she never gave a sign of\nsorrow, and she insisted upon talking about Teddy, in a dry offhand\nvoice. Constantly she referred to his final return. \"Teddy,\" she said,\n\"will be surprised at this,\" or \"Teddy will feel sold when he sees how I\nhave altered that.\"\n\n\"Presently we shall see his name in a list of prisoners,\" she said. \"He\nis a wounded prisoner in Germany.\"\n\nShe adopted that story. She had no justification for it, but she would\nhear no doubts upon it. She presently began to prepare parcels to send\nhim. \"They want almost everything,\" she told people. \"They are treated\nabominably. He has not been able to write to me yet, but I do not think\nI ought to wait until he asks me.\"\n\nCissie was afraid to interfere with this.\n\nAfter a time Letty grew impatient at the delay in getting any address\nand took her first parcel to the post office.\n\n\"Unless you know what prison he is at,\" said the postmistress.\n\n\"Pity!\" said Letty. \"I don't know that. Must it wait for that? I\nthought the Germans were so systematic that it didn't matter.\"\n\nThe postmistress made tedious explanations that Letty did not seem to\nhear. She stared straight in front of her at nothing. Then in a pause in\nthe conversation she picked up her parcel.\n\n\"It's tiresome for him to have to wait,\" she said. \"But it can't be long\nbefore I know.\"\n\nShe took the parcel back to the cottage.\n\n\"After all,\" she said, \"it gives us time to get the better sort of\nthroat lozenges for him--the sort the syndicate shop doesn't keep.\"\n\nShe put the parcel conspicuously upon the dresser in the kitchen where\nit was most in the way, and set herself to make a jersey for Teddy\nagainst the coming of the cold weather.\n\nBut one night the white mask fell for a moment from her face.\n\nCissie and she had been sitting in silence before the fire. She had been\nknitting--she knitted very badly--and Cissie had been pretending to\nread, and had been watching her furtively. Cissie eyed the slow,\ntoilsome growth of the slack woolwork for a time, and the touch of angry\neffort in every stroke of the knitting needles. Then she was stirred to\nremonstrance.\n\n\"Poor Letty!\" she said very softly. \"Suppose after all, he is dead?\"\n\nLetty met her with a pitiless stare.\n\n\"He is a prisoner,\" she said. \"Isn't that enough? Why do you jab at me\nby saying that? A wounded prisoner. Isn't that enough despicable\ntrickery for God even to play on Teddy--our Teddy? To the very last\nmoment he shall not be dead. Until the war is over. Until six months\nafter the war....\n\n\"I will tell you why, Cissie....\"\n\nShe leant across the table and pointed her remarks with her knitting\nneedles, speaking in a tone of reasonable remonstrance. \"You see,\" she\nsaid, \"if people like Teddy are to be killed, then all our ideas that\nlife is meant for, honesty and sweetness and happiness, are wrong, and\nthis world is just a place of devils; just a dirty cruel hell. Getting\nborn would be getting damned. And so one must not give way to that idea,\nhowever much it may seem likely that he is dead....\n\n\"You see, if he _is_ dead, then Cruelty is the Law, and some one must\npay me for his death.... Some one must pay me.... I shall wait for six\nmonths after the war, dear, and then I shall go off to Germany and learn\nmy way about there. And I will murder some German. Not just a common\nGerman, but a German who belongs to the guilty kind. A sacrifice. It\nought, for instance, to be comparatively easy to kill some of the\nchildren of the Crown Prince or some of the Bavarian princes. I shall\nprefer German children. I shall sacrifice them to Teddy. It ought not to\nbe difficult to find people who can be made directly responsible, the\npeople who invented the poison gas, for instance, and kill them, or to\nkill people who are dear to them. Or necessary to them.... Women can do\nthat so much more easily than men....\n\n\"That perhaps is the only way in which wars of this kind will ever be\nbrought to an end. By women insisting on killing the kind of people who\nmake them. Rooting them out. By a campaign of pursuit and assassination\nthat will go on for years and years after the war itself is over....\nMurder is such a little gentle punishment for the crime of war.... It\nwould be hardly more than a reproach for what has happened. Falling like\nsnow. Death after death. Flake by flake. This prince. That statesman.\nThe count who writes so fiercely for war.... That is what I am going to\ndo. If Teddy is really dead.... We women were ready enough a year or so\nago to starve and die for the Vote, and that was quite a little thing in\ncomparison with this business.... Don't you see what I mean? It's so\nplain and sensible, Cissie. Whenever a man sits and thinks whether he\nwill make a war or not, then he will think too of women, women with\ndaggers, bombs; of a vengeance that will never tire nor rest; of\nconsecrated patient women ready to start out upon a pilgrimage that will\nonly end with his death.... I wouldn't hurt these war makers. No. In\nspite of the poison gas. In spite of trench feet and the men who have\nbeen made blind and the wounded who have lain for days, dying slowly in\nthe wet. Women ought not to hurt. But I would kill. Like killing\ndangerous vermin. It would go on year by year. Balkan kings, German\nprinces, chancellors, they would have schemed for so much--and come to\njust a rattle in the throat.... And if presently other kings and\nemperors began to prance about and review armies, they too would go....\n\n\"Until all the world understood that women would not stand war any more\nforever....\n\n\"Of course I shall do something of the sort. What else is there to do\nnow for me?\"\n\nLetty's eyes were bright and intense, but her voice was soft and\nsubdued. She went on after a pause in the same casual voice. \"You see\nnow, Cissie, why I cling to the idea that Teddy is alive. If Teddy is\nalive, then even if he is wounded, he will get some happiness out of\nit--and all this won't be--just rot. If he is dead then everything is so\ndesperately silly and cruel from top to bottom--\"\n\nShe smiled wanly to finish her sentence.\n\n\"But, Letty!\" said Cissie, \"there is the boy!\"\n\n\"I shall leave the boy to you. Compared with Teddy I don't care _that_\nfor the boy. I never did. What is the good of pretending? Some women are\nmade like that.\"\n\nShe surveyed her knitting. \"Poor stitches,\" she said....\n\n\"I'm hard stuff, Cissie. I take after mother more than father. Teddy is\nmy darling. All the tenderness of my life is Teddy. If it goes, it\ngoes.... I won't crawl about the world like all these other snivelling\nwidows. If they've killed my man I shall kill. Blood for blood and loss\nfor loss. I shall get just as close to the particular Germans who made\nthis war as I can, and I shall kill them and theirs....\n\n\"The Women's Association for the Extirpation of the whole breed of War\nLords,\" she threw out. \"If I _do_ happen to hurt--does it matter?\"\n\nShe looked at her sister's shocked face and smiled again.\n\n\"You think I go about staring at nothing,\" she remarked.... \"Not a bit\nof it! I have been planning all sorts of things.... I have been thinking\nhow I could get to Germany.... Or one might catch them in\nSwitzerland.... I've had all sorts of plans. They can't go guarded for\never....\n\n\"Oh, it makes me despise humanity to see how many soldiers and how few\nassassins there are in the world.... After the things we have seen. If\npeople did their duty by the dagger there wouldn't be such a thing as a\nWar Lord in the world. Not one.... The Kaiser and his sons and his sons'\nsons would know nothing but fear now for all their lives. Fear would\nonly cease to pursue as the coffin went down into the grave. Fear by\nsea, fear by land, for the vessel he sailed in, the train he travelled\nin, fear when he slept for the death in his dreams, fear when he waked\nfor the death in every shadow; fear in every crowd, fear whenever he was\nalone. Fear would stalk him through the trees, hide in the corner of the\nstaircase; make all his food taste perplexingly, so that he would want\nto spit it out....\"\n\nShe sat very still brooding on that idea for a time, and then stood up.\n\n\"What nonsense one talks!\" she cried, and yawned. \"I wonder why poor\nTeddy doesn't send me a post card or something to tell me his address. I\ntell you what I _am_ afraid of sometimes about him, Cissie.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" said Cissie.\n\n\"Loss of memory. Suppose a beastly lump of shell or something whacked\nhim on the head.... I had a dream of him looking strange about the eyes\nand not knowing me. That, you know, really _may_ have happened.... It\nwould be beastly, of course....\"\n\nCissie's eyes were critical, but she had nothing ready to say.\n\nThere were some moments of silence.\n\n\"Oh! bed,\" said Letty. \"Though I shall just lie scheming.\"\n\n\nSection 2\n\nCissie lay awake that night thinking about her sister as if she had\nnever thought about her before.\n\nShe began to weigh the concentrated impressions of a thousand memories.\nShe and her sister were near in age; they knew each other with an\nextreme intimacy, and yet it seemed to Cissie that night as though she\ndid not know Letty at all. A year ago she would have been certain she\nknew everything about her. But the old familiar Letty, with the bright\ncomplexion, and the wicked eye, with her rebellious schoolgirl\ninsistence upon the beautifulness of \"Boof'l young men,\" and her frank\nand glowing passion for Teddy, with her delight in humorous\nmystifications and open-air exercise and all the sunshine and laughter\nof life, this sister Letty, who had been so satisfactory and complete\nand final, had been thrust aside like a mask. Cissie no longer knew her\nsister's eyes. Letty's hand had become thin and unfamiliar and a little\nwrinkled; she was sharp-featured and thin-lipped; her acts, which had\nonce been predictable, were incomprehensible, and Cissie was thrown back\nupon speculations. In their schooldays Letty had had a streak of intense\nsensibility; she had been easily moved to tears. But never once had she\nwept or given any sign of weeping since Teddy's name had appeared in the\ncasualty list.... What was the strength of this tragic tension? How far\nwould it carry her? Was Letty really capable of becoming a Charlotte\nCorday? Of carrying out a scheme of far-seeing vengeance, of making her\nway through long months and years nearer and nearer to revenge?\n\nWere such revenges possible?\n\nWould people presently begin to murder the makers of the Great War? What\na strange thing it would be in history if so there came a punishment and\nend to the folly of kings!\n\nOnly a little while ago Cissie's imagination might have been captured by\nso romantic a dream. She was still but a year or so out of the stage of\nmelodrama. But she was out of it. She was growing up now to a subtler\nwisdom. People, she was beginning to realise, do not do these simple\nthings. They make vows of devotion and they are not real vows of\ndevotion; they love--quite honestly--and qualify. There are no great\nrevenges but only little mean ones; no life-long vindications except the\nunrelenting vengeance of the law. There is no real concentration of\npeople's lives anywhere such as romance demands. There is change, there\nis forgetfulness. Everywhere there is dispersal. Even to the tragic\nstory of Teddy would come the modifications of time. Even to the\nwickedness of the German princes would presently be added some\nconflicting aspects. Could Letty keep things for years in her mind, hard\nand terrible, as they were now? Surely they would soften; other things\nwould overlay them....\n\nThere came a rush of memories of Letty in a dozen schoolgirl adventures,\ntimes when she had ventured, and times when she had failed; Letty\nfrightened, Letty vexed, Letty launching out to great enterprises, going\nhigh and hard and well for a time, and then failing. She had seen Letty\nsnivelling and dirty; Letty shamed and humiliated. She knew her Letty to\nthe soul. Poor Letty! Poor dear Letty! With a sudden clearness of vision\nCissie realised what was happening in her sister's mind. All this tense\nscheming of revenges was the imaginative play with which Letty warded\noff the black alternative to her hope; it was not strength, it was\nweakness. It was a form of giving way. She could not face starkly the\nsimple fact of Teddy's death. That was too much for her. So she was\nbuilding up this dream of a mission of judgment against the day when she\ncould resist the facts no longer. She was already persuaded, only she\nwould not be persuaded until her dream was ready. If this state of\nsuspense went on she might establish her dream so firmly that it would\nat last take complete possession of her mind. And by that time also she\nwould have squared her existence at Matching's Easy with the elaboration\nof her reverie.\n\nShe would go about the place then, fancying herself preparing for this\ntremendous task she would never really do; she would study German maps;\nshe would read the papers about German statesmen and rulers; perhaps she\nwould even make weak attempts to obtain a situation in Switzerland or in\nGermany. Perhaps she would buy a knife or a revolver. Perhaps presently\nshe would begin to hover about Windsor or Sandringham when peace was\nmade, and the German cousins came visiting again....\n\nInto Cissie's mind came the image of the thing that might be; Letty,\nshabby, draggled, with her sharp bright prettiness become haggard, an\nassassin dreamer, still dependent on Mr. Britling, doing his work rather\nbadly, in a distraught unpunctual fashion.\n\nShe must be told, she must be convinced soon, or assuredly she would\nbecome an eccentric, a strange character, a Matching's Easy Miss\nFlite....\n\n\nSection 3\n\nCissie could think more clearly of Letty's mind than of her own.\n\nShe herself was in a tangle. She had grown to be very fond of Mr.\nDireck, and to have a profound trust and confidence in him, and her\nfondness seemed able to find no expression at all except a constant\ngirding at his and America's avoidance of war. She had fallen in love\nwith him when he was wearing fancy dress; she was a young woman with a\nstronger taste for body and colour than she supposed; what indeed she\nresented about him, though she did not know it, was that he seemed never\ndisposed to carry the spirit of fancy dress into everyday life. To begin\nwith he had touched both her imagination and senses, and she wanted him\nto go on doing that. Instead of which he seemed lapsing more and more\ninto reiterated assurances of devotion and the flat competent discharge\nof humanitarian duties. Always nowadays he was trying to persuade her\nthat what he was doing was the right and honourable thing for him to do;\nwhat he did not realise, what indeed she did not realise, was the\nexasperation his rightness and reasonableness produced in her. When he\nsaw he exasperated her he sought very earnestly to be righter and\nreasonabler and more plainly and demonstrably right and reasonable than\never.\n\nWithal, as she felt and perceived, he was such a good thing, such a very\ngood thing; so kind, so trustworthy, with a sort of slow strength, with\na careful honesty, a big good childishness, a passion for fairness. And\nso helpless in her hands. She could lash him and distress him. Yet she\ncould not shake his slowly formed convictions.\n\nWhen Cissie had dreamt of the lover that fate had in store for her in\nher old romantic days, he was to be _perfect_ always, he and she were\nalways to be absolutely in the right (and, if the story needed it, the\nworld in the wrong). She had never expected to find herself tied by her\naffections to a man with whom she disagreed, and who went contrary to\nher standards, very much as if she was lashed on the back of a very nice\nelephant that would wince to but not obey the goad....\n\nSo she nagged him and taunted him, and would hear no word of his case.\nAnd he wanted dreadfully to discuss his case. He felt that the point of\nconscience about the munitions was particularly fine and difficult. He\nwished she would listen and enter into it more. But she thought with\nthat more rapid English flash which is not so much thinking as feeling.\nHe loved that flash in her in spite of his persuasion of its injustice.\n\nHer thought that he ought to go to the war made him feel like a\nrenegade; but her claim that he was somehow still English held him in\nspite of his reason. In the midst of such perplexities he was glad to\nfind one neutral task wherein he could find himself whole-heartedly with\nand for Cissie.\n\nHe hunted up the evidence of Teddy's fate with a devoted pertinacity.\n\nAnd in the meanwhile the other riddle resolved itself. He had had a\ncertain idea in his mind for some time. He discovered one day that it\nwas an inspiration. He could keep his conscientious objection about\nAmerica, and still take a line that would satisfy Cissie. He took it.\n\nWhen he came down to Matching's Easy at her summons to bear his\nconvincing witness of Teddy's fate, he came in an unwonted costume. It\nwas a costume so wonderful in his imagination that it seemed to cry\naloud, to sound like a trumpet as he went through London to Liverpool\nStreet station; it was a costume like an international event; it was a\ncostume that he felt would blare right away to Berlin. And yet it was a\ncostume so commonplace, so much the usual wear now, that Cissie, meeting\nhim at the station and full of the thought of Letty's trouble, did not\nremark it, felt indeed rather than observed that he was looking more\nstrong and handsome than he had ever done since he struck upon her\nimagination in the fantastic wrap that Teddy had found for him in the\nmerry days when there was no death in the world. And Letty too,\nresistant, incalculable, found no wonder in the wonderful suit.\n\nHe bore his testimony. It was the queer halting telling of a\npatched-together tale....\n\n\"I suppose,\" said Letty, \"if I tell you now that I don't believe that\nthat officer was Teddy you will think I am cracked.... But I don't.\"\n\nShe sat staring straight before her for a time after saying this. Then\nsuddenly she got up and began taking down her hat and coat from the peg\nbehind the kitchen door. The hanging strap of the coat was twisted and\nshe struggled with it petulantly until she tore it.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" cried Cissie.\n\nLetty's voice over her shoulder was the harsh voice of a scolding woman.\n\n\"I'm going out--anywhere.\" She turned, coat in hand. \"Can't I go out if\nI like?\" she asked. \"It's a beautiful day.... Mustn't I go out?... I\nsuppose you think I ought to take in what you have told me in a moment.\nJust smile and say '_Indeed!_' ... Abandoned!--while his men retreated!\nHow jolly! And then not think of it any more.... Besides, I must go out.\nYou two want to be left together. You want to canoodle. Do it while you\ncan!\"\n\nThen she put on coat and hat, jamming her hat down on her head, and said\nsomething that Cissie did not immediately understand.\n\n\"_He'll_ have his turn in the trenches soon enough. Now that he's made\nup his mind.... He might have done it sooner....\"\n\nShe turned her back as though she had forgotten them. She stood for a\nmoment as though her feet were wooden, not putting her feet as she\nusually put her feet. She took slow, wide, unsure steps. She went\nout--like something that is mortally injured and still walks--into the\nautumnal sunshine. She left the door wide open behind her.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nAnd Cissie, with eyes full of distress for her sister, had still to\ngrasp the fact that Direck was wearing a Canadian uniform....\n\nHe stood behind her, ashamed that in such a moment this fact and its\nneglect by every one could be so vivid in his mind.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nCissie's estimate of her sister's psychology had been just. The reverie\nof revenge had not yet taken a grip upon Letty's mind sufficiently\nstrong to meet the challenge of this conclusive evidence of Teddy's\ndeath. She walked out into a world of sunshine now almost completely\nconvinced that Teddy was dead, and she knew quite well that her dream of\nsome dramatic and terrible vindication had gone from her. She knew that\nin truth she could do nothing of that sort....\n\nShe walked out with a set face and eyes that seemed unseeing, and yet it\nwas as if some heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. It was\nover; there was no more to hope for and there was nothing more to fear.\nShe would have been shocked to realise that her mind was relieved.\n\nShe wanted to be alone. She wanted to be away from every eye. She was\nlike some creature that after a long nightmare incubation is at last\nborn into a clear, bleak day. She had to feel herself; she had to\nstretch her mind in this cheerless sunshine, this new world, where there\nwas to be no more Teddy and no real revenge nor compensation for Teddy.\nTeddy was past....\n\nHitherto she had had an angry sense of being deprived of Teddy--almost\nas though he were keeping away from her. Now, there was no more Teddy to\nbe deprived of....\n\nShe went through the straggling village, and across the fields to the\nhillside that looks away towards Mertonsome and its steeple. And where\nthe hill begins to fall away she threw herself down under the hedge by\nthe path, near by the stile into the lane, and lay still. She did not so\nmuch think as remain blank, waiting for the beginning of impressions....\n\nIt was as it were a blank stare at the world....\n\nShe did not know if it was five minutes or half an hour later that she\nbecame aware that some one was looking at her. She turned with a start,\nand discovered the Reverend Dimple with one foot on the stile, and an\nexpression of perplexity and consternation upon his chubby visage.\n\nInstantly she understood. Already on four different occasions since\nTeddy's disappearance she had seen the good man coming towards her,\nalways with a manifest decision, always with the same faltering doubt as\nnow. Often in their happy days had she and Teddy discussed him and\nderided him and rejoiced over him. They had agreed he was as good as\nJane Austen's Mr. Collins. He really was very like Mr. Collins, except\nthat he was plumper. And now, it was as if he was transparent to her\nhard defensive scrutiny. She knew he was impelled by his tradition, by\nhis sense of fitness, by his respect for his calling, to offer her his\nministrations and consolations, to say his large flat amiabilities over\nher and pat her kindly with his hands. And she knew too that he dreaded\nher. She knew that the dear old humbug knew at the bottom of his heart\nquite certainly that he was a poor old humbug, and that she was in his\nsecret. And at the bottom of his heart he found himself too honest to\nforce his poor platitudes upon any who would not be glad of them. If she\ncould have been glad of them he would have had no compunction. He was a\nman divided against himself; failing to carry through his rich\npretences, dismayed.\n\nHe had been taking his afternoon \"constitutional.\" He had discovered her\nbeyond the stile just in time to pull up. Then had come a fatal, a\npreposterous hesitation. She stared at him now, with hard,\nexpressionless eyes.\n\nHe stared back at her, until his plump pink face was all consternation.\nHe was extraordinarily distressed. It was as if a thousand unspoken\nthings had been said between them.\n\n\"No wish,\" he said, \"intrude.\"\n\nIf he had had the certain balm, how gladly would he have given it!\n\nHe broke the spell by stepping back into the lane. He made a gesture\nwith his hands, as if he would have wrung them. And then he had fled\ndown the lane--almost at a run.\n\n\"Po' girl,\" he shouted. \"Po' girl,\" and left her staring.\n\nStaring--and then she laughed.\n\nThis was good. This was the sort of thing one could tell Teddy, when at\nlast he came back and she could tell him anything. And then she realised\nagain; there was no more Teddy, there would be no telling. And suddenly\nshe fell weeping.\n\n\"Oh, Teddy, Teddy,\" she cried through her streaming tears. \"How could\nyou leave me? How can I bear it?\"\n\nNever a tear had she shed since the news first came, and now she could\nweep, she could weep her grief out. She abandoned herself unreservedly\nto this blessed relief....\n\n\nSection 6\n\nThere comes an end to weeping at last, and Letty lay still, in the red\nlight of the sinking sun.\n\nShe lay so still that presently a little foraging robin came dirting\ndown to the grass not ten yards away and stopped and looked at her. And\nthen it came a hop or so nearer.\n\nShe had been lying in a state of passive abandonment, her swollen wet\neyes open, regardless of everything. But those quick movements caught\nher back to attention. She began to watch the robin, and to note how it\nglanced sidelong at her and appeared to meditate further approaches. She\nmade an almost imperceptible movement, and straightway the little\ncreature was in a projecting spray of berried hawthorn overhead.\n\nHer tear-washed mind became vaguely friendly. With an unconscious\ncomfort it focussed down to the robin. She rolled over, sat up, and\nimitated his friendly \"cheep.\"\n\n\nSection 7\n\nPresently she became aware of footsteps rustling through the grass\ntowards her.\n\nShe looked over her shoulder and discovered Mr. Britling approaching by\nthe field path. He looked white and tired and listless, even his\nbristling hair and moustache conveyed his depression; he was dressed in\nan old tweed knickerbocker suit and carrying a big atlas and some\npapers. He had an effect of hesitation in his approach. It was as if he\nwanted to talk to her and doubted her reception for him.\n\nHe spoke without any preface. \"Direck has told you?\" he said, standing\nover her.\n\nShe answered with a sob.\n\n\"I was afraid it was so, and yet I did not believe it,\" said Mr.\nBritling. \"Until now.\"\n\nHe hesitated as if he would go on, and then he knelt down on the grass a\nlittle way from her and seated himself. There was an interval of\nsilence.\n\n\"At first it hurts like the devil,\" he said at last, looking away at\nMertonsome spire and speaking as if he spoke to no one in particular.\n\"And then it hurts. It goes on hurting.... And one can't say much to any\none....\"\n\nHe said no more for a time. But the two of them comforted one another,\nand knew that they comforted each other. They had a common feeling of\nfellowship and ease. They had been stricken by the same thing; they\nunderstood how it was with each other. It was not like the attempted\ncomfort they got from those who had not loved and dreaded....\n\nShe took up a little broken twig and dug small holes in the ground with\nit.\n\n\"It's strange,\" she said, \"but I'm glad I know for sure.\"\n\n\"I can understand that,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"It stops the nightmares.... It isn't hopes I've had so much as\nfears.... I wouldn't admit he was dead or hurt. Because--I couldn't\nthink it without thinking it--horrible. _Now_--\"\n\n\"It's final,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"It's definite,\" she said after a pause. \"It's like thinking he's\nasleep--for good.\"\n\nBut that did not satisfy her. There was more than this in her mind. \"It\ndoes away with the half and half,\" she said. \"He's dead or he is\nalive....\"\n\nShe looked up at Mr. Britling as if she measured his understanding.\n\n\"You don't still doubt?\" he said.\n\n\"I'm content now in my mind--in a way. He wasn't anyhow there--unless he\nwas dead. But if I saw Teddy coming over the hedge there to me--It would\nbe just natural.... No, don't stare at me. I know really he is dead. And\nit is a comfort. It is peace.... All the thoughts of him being crushed\ndreadfully or being mutilated or lying and screaming--or things like\nthat--they've gone. He's out of his spoilt body. He's my unbroken Teddy\nagain.... Out of sight somewhere.... Unbroken.... Sleeping.\"\n\nShe resumed her excavation with the little stick, with the tears running\ndown her face.\n\nMr. Britling presently went on with the talk. \"For me it came all at\nonce, without a doubt or a hope. I hoped until the last that nothing\nwould touch Hugh. And then it was like a black shutter falling--in an\ninstant....\"\n\nHe considered. \"Hugh, too, seems just round the corner at times. But at\ntimes, it's a blank place....\n\n\"At times,\" said Mr. Britling, \"I feel nothing but astonishment. The\nwhole thing becomes incredible. Just as for weeks after the war began I\ncouldn't believe that a big modern nation could really go to\nwar--seriously--with its whole heart.... And they have killed Teddy and\nHugh....\n\n\"They have killed millions. Millions--who had fathers and mothers and\nwives and sweethearts....\"\n\n\nSection 8\n\n\"Somehow I can't talk about this to Edith. It is ridiculous, I know. But\nin some way I can't.... It isn't fair to her. If I could, I would....\nQuite soon after we were married I ceased to talk to her. I mean talking\nreally and simply--as I do to you. And it's never come back. I don't\nknow why.... And particularly I can't talk to her of Hugh.... Little\nthings, little shadows of criticism, but enough to make it\nimpossible.... And I go about thinking about Hugh, and what has happened\nto him sometimes... as though I was stifling.\"\n\nLetty compared her case.\n\n\"I don't want to talk about Teddy--not a word.\"\n\n\"That's queer.... But perhaps--a son is different. Now I come to think\nof it--I've never talked of Mary.... Not to any one ever. I've never\nthought of that before. But I haven't. I couldn't. No. Losing a lover,\nthat's a thing for oneself. I've been through that, you see. But a\nson's more outside you. Altogether. And more your own making. It's not\nlosing a thing _in_ you; it's losing a hope and a pride.... Once when I\nwas a little boy I did a drawing very carefully. It took me a long\ntime.... And a big boy tore it up. For no particular reason. Just out of\ncruelty.... That--that was exactly like losing Hugh....\"\n\nLetty reflected.\n\n\"No,\" she confessed, \"I'm more selfish than that.\"\n\n\"It isn't selfish,\" said Mr. Britling. \"But it's a different thing. It's\nless intimate, and more personally important.\"\n\n\"I have just thought, 'He's gone. He's gone.' Sometimes, do you know, I\nhave felt quite angry with him. Why need he have gone--so soon?\"\n\nMr. Britling nodded understandingly.\n\n\"I'm not angry. I'm not depressed. I'm just bitterly hurt by the ending\nof something I had hoped to watch--always--all my life,\" he said. \"I\ndon't know how it is between most fathers and sons, but I admired Hugh.\nI found exquisite things in him. I doubt if other people saw them. He\nwas quiet. He seemed clumsy. But he had an extraordinary fineness. He\nwas a creature of the most delicate and rapid responses.... These aren't\nmy fond delusions. It was so.... You know, when he was only a few days\nold, he would start suddenly at any strange sound. He was alive like an\nÆolian harp from the very beginning.... And his hair when he was\nborn--he had a lot of hair--was like the down on the breast of a bird. I\nremember that now very vividly--and how I used to like to pass my hand\nover it. It was silk, spun silk. Before he was two he could talk--whole\nsentences. He had the subtlest ear. He loved long words.... And then,\"\nhe said with tears in his voice, \"all this beautiful fine structure,\nthis brain, this fresh life as nimble as water--as elastic as a steel\nspring, it is destroyed....\n\n\"I don't make out he wasn't human. Often and often I have been angry\nwith him, and disappointed in him. There were all sorts of weaknesses in\nhim. We all knew them. And we didn't mind them. We loved him the better.\nAnd his odd queer cleverness!.... And his profound wisdom. And then all\nthis beautiful and delicate fabric, all those clear memories in his dear\nbrain, all his whims, his sudden inventions....\n\n\"You know, I have had a letter from his chum Park. He was shot through a\nloophole. The bullet went through his eye and brow.... Think of it!\n\n\"An amazement ... a blow ... a splattering of blood. Rags of tormented\nskin and brain stuff.... In a moment. What had taken eighteen\nyears--love and care....\"\n\nHe sat thinking for an interval, and then went on, \"The reading and\nwriting alone! I taught him to read myself--because his first governess,\nyou see, wasn't very clever. She was a very good methodical sort, but\nshe had no inspiration. So I got up all sorts of methods for teaching\nhim to read. But it wasn't necessary. He seemed to leap all sorts of\ndifficulties. He leapt to what one was trying to teach him. It was as\nquick as the movement of some wild animal....\n\n\"He came into life as bright and quick as this robin looking for\nfood....\n\n\"And he's broken up and thrown away.... Like a cartridge case by the\nside of a covert....\"\n\nHe choked and stopped speaking. His elbows were on his knees, and he put\nhis face between his hands and shuddered and became still. His hair was\ntroubled. The end of his stumpy moustache and a little roll of flesh\nstood out at the side of his hand, and made him somehow twice as\npitiful. His big atlas, from which papers projected, seemed forgotten by\nhis side. So he sat for a long time, and neither he nor Letty moved or\nspoke. But they were in the same shadow. They found great comfort in\none another. They had not been so comforted before since their losses\ncame upon them.\n\n\nSection 9\n\nIt was Mr. Britling who broke silence. And when he drew his hands down\nfrom his face and spoke, he said one of the most amazing and unexpected\nthings she had ever heard in her life.\n\n\"The only possible government in Albania,\" he said, looking steadfastly\nbefore him down the hill-side, \"is a group of republican cantons after\nthe Swiss pattern. I can see no other solution that is not offensive to\nGod. It does not matter in the least what we owe to Serbia or what we\nowe to Italy. We have got to set this world on a different footing. We\nhave got to set up the world at last--on justice and reason.\"\n\nThen, after a pause, \"The Treaty of Bucharest was an evil treaty. It\nmust be undone. Whatever this German King of Bulgaria does, that treaty\nmust be undone and the Bulgarians united again into one people. They\nmust have themselves, whatever punishment they deserve, they must have\nnothing more, whatever reward they win.\"\n\nShe could not believe her ears.\n\n\"After this precious blood, after this precious blood, if we leave one\nplot of wickedness or cruelty in the world--\"\n\nAnd therewith he began to lecture Letty on the importance of\ninternational politics--to every one. How he and she and every one must\nunderstand, however hard it was to understand.\n\n\"No life is safe, no happiness is safe, there is no chance of bettering\nlife until we have made an end to all that causes war....\n\n\"We have to put an end to the folly and vanity of kings, and to any\npeople ruling any people but themselves. There is no convenience, there\nis no justice in any people ruling any people but themselves; the ruling\nof men by others, who have not their creeds and their languages and\ntheir ignorances and prejudices, that is the fundamental folly that has\nkilled Teddy and Hugh--and these millions. To end that folly is as much\nour duty and business as telling the truth or earning a living....\"\n\n\"But how can you alter it?\"\n\nHe held out a finger at her. \"Men may alter anything if they have motive\nenough and faith enough.\"\n\nHe indicated the atlas beside him.\n\n\"Here I am planning the real map of the world,\" he said. \"Every sort of\ndistrict that has a character of its own must have its own rule; and the\ngreat republic of the united states of the world must keep the federal\npeace between them all. That's the plain sense of life; the federal\nworld-republic. Why do we bother ourselves with loyalties to any other\ngovernment but that? It needs only that sufficient men should say it,\nand that republic would be here now. Why have we loitered so long--until\nthese tragic punishments come? We have to map the world out into its\nstates, and plan its government and the way of its tolerations.\"\n\n\"And you think it will come?\"\n\n\"It will come.\"\n\n\"And you believe that men will listen to such schemes?\" said Letty.\n\nMr. Britling, with his eyes far away over the hills, seemed to think.\n\"Yes,\" he said. \"Not perhaps to-day--not steadily. But kings and empires\ndie; great ideas, once they are born, can never die again. In the end\nthis world-republic, this sane government of the world, is as certain as\nthe sunset. Only....\"\n\nHe sighed, and turned over a page of his atlas blindly.\n\n\"Only we want it soon. The world is weary of this bloodshed, weary of\nall this weeping, of this wasting of substance and this killing of sons\nand lovers. We want it soon, and to have it soon we must work to bring\nit about. We must give our lives. What is left of our lives....\n\n\"That is what you and I must do, Letty. What else is there left for us\nto do?... I will write of nothing else, I will think of nothing else now\nbut of safety and order. So that all these dear dead--not one of them\nbut will have brought the great days of peace and man's real beginning\nnearer, and these cruel things that make men whimper like children, that\nbreak down bright lives into despair and kill youth at the very moment\nwhen it puts out its clean hands to take hold of life--these cruelties,\nthese abominations of confusion, shall cease from the earth forever.\"\n\n\nSection 10\n\nLetty regarded him, frowning, and with her chin between her fists....\n\n\"But do you really believe,\" said Letty, \"that things can be better than\nthey are?\"\n\n\"But--_Yes!_\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"I don't,\" said Letty. \"The world is cruel. It is just cruel. So it will\nalways be.\"\n\n\"It need not be cruel,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"It is just a place of cruel things. It is all set with knives. It is\nfull of diseases and accidents. As for God--either there is no God or he\nis an idiot. He is a slobbering idiot. He is like some idiot who pulls\noff the wings of flies.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"There is no progress. Nothing gets better. How can _you_ believe in God\nafter Hugh? _Do_ you believe in God?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Britling after a long pause; \"I do believe in God.\"\n\n\"Who lets these things happen!\" She raised herself on her arm and thrust\nher argument at him with her hand. \"Who kills my Teddy and your\nHugh--and millions.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\"But he _must_ let these things happen. Or why do they happen?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. Britling. \"It is the theologians who must answer that.\nThey have been extravagant about God. They have had silly absolute\nideas--that He is all powerful. That He's omni-everything. But the\ncommon sense of men knows better. Every real religious thought denies\nit. After all, the real God of the Christians is Christ, not God\nAlmighty; a poor mocked and wounded God nailed on a cross of matter....\nSome day He will triumph.... But it is not fair to say that He causes\nall things now. It is not fair to make out a case against him. You have\nbeen misled. It is a theologian's folly. God is not absolute; God is\nfinite.... A finite God who struggles in his great and comprehensive way\nas we struggle in our weak and silly way--who is _with_ us--that is the\nessence of all real religion.... I agree with you so--Why! if I thought\nthere was an omnipotent God who looked down on battles and deaths and\nall the waste and horror of this war--able to prevent these\nthings--doing them to amuse Himself--I would spit in his empty face....\"\n\n\"Any one would....\"\n\n\"But it's your teachers and catechisms have set you against God.... They\nwant to make out He owns all Nature. And all sorts of silly claims. Like\nthe heralds in the Middle Ages who insisted that Christ was certainly a\ngreat gentleman entitled to bear arms. But God is within Nature and\nnecessity. Necessity is a thing beyond God--beyond good and ill, beyond\nspace and time, a mystery everlastingly impenetrable. God is nearer than\nthat. Necessity is the uttermost thing, but God is the innermost thing.\nCloser He is than breathing and nearer than hands and feet. He is the\nOther Thing than this world. Greater than Nature or Necessity, for he is\na spirit and they are blind, but not controlling them.... Not yet....\"\n\n\"They always told me He was the maker of Heaven and Earth.\"\n\n\"That's the Jew God the Christians took over. It's a Quack God, a\nPanacea. It's not my God.\"\n\nLetty considered these strange ideas.\n\n\"I never thought of Him like that,\" she said at last. \"It makes it all\nseem different.\"\n\n\"Nor did I. But I do now.... I have suddenly found it and seen it plain.\nI see it so plain that I am amazed that I have not always seen it.... It\nis, you see, so easy to understand that there is a God, and how complex\nand wonderful and brotherly He is, when one thinks of those dear boys\nwho by the thousand, by the hundred thousand, have laid down their\nlives.... Ay, and there were German boys too who did the same.... The\ncruelties, the injustice, the brute aggression--they saw it differently.\nThey laid down their lives--they laid down their lives.... Those dear\nlives, those lives of hope and sunshine....\n\n\"Don't you see that it must be like that, Letty? Don't you see that it\nmust be like that?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, \"I've seen things differently from that.\"\n\n\"But it's so plain to me,\" said Mr. Britling. \"If there was nothing else\nin all the world but our kindness for each other, or the love that made\nyou weep in this kind October sunshine, or the love I bear Hugh--if\nthere was nothing else at all--if everything else was cruelty and\nmockery and filthiness and bitterness, it would still be certain that\nthere was a God of love and righteousness. If there were no signs of God\nin all the world but the godliness we have seen in those two boys of\nours; if we had no other light but the love we have between us....\n\n\"You don't mind if I talk like this?\" said Mr. Britling. \"It's all I can\nthink of now--this God, this God who struggles, who was in Hugh and\nTeddy, clear and plain, and how He must become the ruler of the\nworld....\"\n\n\"This God who struggles,\" she repeated. \"I have never thought of Him\nlike that.\"\n\n\"Of course He must be like that,\" said Mr. Britling. \"How can God be a\nPerson; how can He be anything that matters to man, unless He is limited\nand defined and--human like ourselves.... With things outside Him and\nbeyond Him.\"\n\n\nSection 11\n\nLetty walked back slowly through the fields of stubble to her cottage.\n\nShe had been talking to Mr. Britling for an hour, and her mind was full\nof the thought of this changed and simplified man, who talked of God as\nhe might have done of a bird he had seen or of a tree he had sheltered\nunder. And all mixed up with this thought of Mr. Britling was this\nstrange idea of God who was also a limited person, who could come as\nclose as Teddy, whispering love in the darkness. She had a ridiculous\nfeeling that God really struggled like Mr. Britling, and that with only\nsome indefinable inferiority of outlook Mr. Britling loved like God. She\nloved him for his maps and his dreams and the bareness of his talk to\nher. It was strange how the straining thought of the dead Teddy had\npassed now out of her mind. She was possessed by a sense of ending and\nbeginning, as though a page had turned over in her life and everything\nwas new. She had never given religion any thought but contemptuous\nthought for some years, since indeed her growing intelligence had\ndismissed it as a scheme of inexcusable restraints and empty pretences,\na thing of discords where there were no discords except of its making.\nShe had been a happy Atheist. She had played in the sunshine, a natural\ncreature with the completest confidence in the essential goodness of the\nworld in which she found herself. She had refused all thought of\npainful and disagreeable things. Until the bloody paw of war had wiped\nout all her assurance. Teddy, the playmate, was over, the love game was\nended for ever; the fresh happy acceptance of life as life; and in the\nplace of Teddy was the sorrow of life, the pity of life, and this coming\nof God out of utter remoteness into a conceivable relation to her own\nexistence.\n\nShe had left Mr. Britling to his atlas. He lay prone under the hedge\nwith it spread before him. His occupation would have seemed to her only\na little while ago the absurdest imaginable. He was drawing boundaries\non his maps very carefully in red ink, with a fountain pen. But now she\nunderstood.\n\nShe knew that those red ink lines of Mr. Britling's might in the end\nprove wiser and stronger than the bargains of the diplomats....\n\nIn the last hour he had come very near to her. She found herself full of\nan unwonted affection for him. She had never troubled her head about her\nrelations with any one except Teddy before. Now suddenly she seemed to\nbe opening out to all the world for kindness. This new idea of a\nfriendly God, who had a struggle of his own, who could be thought of as\nkindred to Mr. Britling, as kindred to Teddy--had gripped her\nimagination. He was behind the autumnal sunshine; he was in the little\nbird that had seemed so confident and friendly. Whatever was kind,\nwhatever was tender; there was God. And a thousand old phrases she had\nread and heard and given little heed to, that had lain like dry bones in\nher memory, suddenly were clothed in flesh and became alive. This\nGod--if this was God--then indeed it was not nonsense to say that God\nwas love, that he was a friend and companion.... With him it might be\npossible to face a world in which Teddy and she would never walk side by\nside again nor plan any more happiness for ever. After all she had been\nvery happy; she had had wonderful happiness. She had had far more\nhappiness, far more love, in her short years or so than most people had\nin their whole lives. And so in the reaction of her emotions, Letty, who\nhad gone out with her head full of murder and revenge, came back through\nthe sunset thinking of pity, of the thousand kindnesses and tendernesses\nof Teddy that were, after all, perhaps only an intimation of the\nlimitless kindnesses and tendernesses of God.... What right had she to a\nwhite and bitter grief, self-centred and vindictive, while old Britling\ncould still plan an age of mercy in the earth and a red-gold sunlight\nthat was warm as a smile from Teddy lay on all the world....\n\nShe must go into the cottage and kiss Cissie, and put away that parcel\nout of sight until she could find some poor soldier to whom she could\nsend it. She had been pitiless towards Cissie in her grief. She had, in\nthe egotism of her sorrow, treated Cissie as she might have treated a\nchair or a table, with no thought that Cissie might be weary, might\ndream of happiness still to come. Cissie had still to play the lover,\nand her man was already in khaki. There would be no such year as Letty\nhad had in the days before the war darkened the world. Before Cissie's\nmarrying the peace must come, and the peace was still far away. And\nDireck too would have to take his chances....\n\nLetty came through the little wood and over the stile that brought her\ninto sight of the cottage. The windows of the cottage as she saw it\nunder the bough of the big walnut tree, were afire from the sun. The\ncrimson rambler over the porch that she and Teddy had planted was still\nbearing roses. The door was open and people were moving in the porch.\n\nSome one was coming out of the cottage, a stranger, in an unfamiliar\ncostume, and behind him was a man in khaki--but that was Mr. Direck! And\nbehind him again was Cissie.\n\nBut the stranger!\n\nHe came out of the frame of the porch towards the garden gate....\n\nWho--who was this stranger?\n\nIt was a man in queer-looking foreign clothes, baggy trousers of some\nsoft-looking blue stuff and a blouse, and he had a white-bandaged left\narm. He had a hat stuck at the back of his head, and a beard....\n\nHe was entirely a stranger, a foreigner. Was she going insane? Of course\nhe was a stranger!\n\nAnd then he moved a step, he made a queer sideways pace, a caper, on the\npath, and instantly he ceased to be strange and foreign. He became\namazingly, incredibly, familiar by virtue of that step....\n\n_No!_\n\nHer breath stopped. All Letty's being seemed to stop. And this stranger\nwho was also incredibly familiar, after he had stared at her motionless\nform for a moment, waved his hat with a gesture--a gesture that crowned\nand scaled the effect of familiarity. She gave no sign in reply.\n\nNo, that familiarity was just a mad freakishness in things.\n\nThis strange man came from Belgium perhaps, to tell something about\nTeddy....\n\nAnd then she surprised herself by making a groaning noise, an absurd\nsilly noise, just like the noise when one imitates a cow to a child. She\nsaid \"Mooo-oo.\"\n\nAnd she began to run forward, with legs that seemed misfits, waving her\nhands about, and as she ran she saw more and more certainly that this\nwounded man in strange clothing was Teddy. She ran faster and still\nfaster, stumbling and nearly falling. If she did not get to him speedily\nthe world would burst.\n\nTo hold him, to hold close to him!...\n\n\"Letty! Letty! Just one arm....\"\n\nShe was clinging to him and he was holding her....\n\nIt was all right. She had always known it was all right. (Hold close to\nhim.) Except just for a little while. But that had been foolishness.\nHadn't she always known he was alive? And here he was alive! (Hold close\nto him.) Only it was so good to be sure--after all her torment; to hold\nhim, to hang about him, to feel the solid man, kissing her, weeping too,\nweeping together with her. \"Teddy my love!\"\n\n\nSection 12\n\nLetty was in the cottage struggling to hear and understand things too\ncomplicated for her emotion-crowded mind. There was something that Mr.\nDireck was trying to explain about a delayed telegram that had come soon\nafter she had gone out. There was much indeed that Mr. Direck was trying\nto explain. What did any explanation really matter when you had Teddy,\nwith nothing but a strange beard and a bandaged arm between him and\nyourself? She had an absurd persuasion at first that those two\nstrangenesses would also presently be set aside, so that Teddy would\nbecome just exactly what Teddy had always been.\n\nTeddy had been shot through the upper arm....\n\n\"My hand has gone, dear little Letty. It's my left hand, luckily. I\nshall have to wear a hook like some old pirate....\"\n\nThere was something about his being taken prisoner. \"That other\nofficer\"--that was Mr. Direck's officer--\"had been lying there for\ndays.\" Teddy had been shot through the upper arm, and stunned by a\nfalling beam. When he came to he was disarmed, with a German standing\nover him....\n\nThen afterwards he had escaped. In quite a little time he had escaped.\nHe had been in a railway station somewhere in Belgium; locked in a\nwaiting-room with three or four French prisoners, and the junction had\nbeen bombed by French and British aeroplanes. Their guard and two of the\nprisoners had been killed. In the confusion the others had got away into\nthe town. There were trucks of hay on fire, and a store of petrol was\nin danger. \"After that one was bound to escape. One would have been shot\nif one had been found wandering about.\"\n\nThe bomb had driven some splinters of glass and corrugated iron into\nTeddy's wrist; it seemed a small place at first; it didn't trouble him\nfor weeks. But then some dirt got into it.\n\nIn the narrow cobbled street beyond the station he had happened upon a\nwoman who knew no English, but who took him to a priest, and the priest\nhad hidden him.\n\nLetty did not piece together the whole story at first. She did not want\nthe story very much; she wanted to know about this hand and arm.\n\nThere would be queer things in the story when it came to be told. There\nwas an old peasant who had made Teddy work in his fields in spite of his\nsmashed and aching arm, and who had pointed to a passing German when\nTeddy demurred; there were the people called \"they\" who had at that time\norganised the escape of stragglers into Holland. There was the night\nwatch, those long nights in succession before the dash for liberty. But\nLetty's concern was all with the hand. Inside the sling there was\nsomething that hurt the imagination, something bandaged, a stump. She\ncould not think of it. She could not get away from the thought of it.\n\n\"But why did you lose your hand?\"\n\nIt was only a little place at first, and then it got painful....\n\n\"But I didn't go into a hospital because I was afraid they would intern\nme, and so I wouldn't be able to come home. And I was dying to come\nhome. I was--homesick. No one was ever so homesick. I've thought of this\nplace and the garden, and how one looked out of the window at the\npassers-by, a thousand times. I seemed always to be seeing them. Old\nDimple with his benevolent smile, and Mrs. Wolker at the end cottage,\nand how she used to fetch her beer and wink when she caught us looking\nat her, and little Charlie Slobberface sniffing on his way to the pigs\nand all the rest of them. And you, Letty. Particularly you. And how we\nused to lean on the window-sill with our shoulders touching, and your\ncheek just in front of my eyes.... And nothing aching at all in one....\n\n\"How I thought of that and longed for that!...\n\n\"And so, you see, I didn't go to the hospital. I kept hoping to get to\nEngland first. And I left it too long....\"\n\n\"Life's come back to me with you!\" said Letty. \"Until just to-day I've\nbelieved you'd come back. And to-day--I doubted.... I thought it was all\nover--all the real life, love and the dear fun of things, and that there\nwas nothing before me, nothing before me but just holding out--and\nkeeping your memory.... Poor arm. Poor arm. And being kind to people.\nAnd pretending you were alive somewhere.... I'll not care about the arm.\nIn a little while.... I'm glad you've gone, but I'm gladder you're back\nand can never go again.... And I will be your right hand, dear, and your\nleft hand and all your hands. Both my hands for your dear lost left one.\nYou shall have three hands instead of two....\"\n\n\nSection 13\n\nLetty stood by the window as close as she could to Teddy in a world that\nseemed wholly made up of unexpected things. She could not heed the\nothers, it was only when Teddy spoke to the others, or when they spoke\nto Teddy, that they existed for her.\n\nFor instance, Teddy was presently talking to Mr. Direck.\n\nThey had spoken about the Canadians who had come up and relieved the\nEssex men after the fight in which Teddy had been captured. And then it\nwas manifest that Mr. Direck was talking of his regiment. \"I'm not the\nonly American who has gone Canadian--for the duration of the war.\"\n\nHe had got to his explanation at last.\n\n\"I've told a lie,\" he said triumphantly. \"I've shifted my birthplace six\nhundred miles.\n\n\"Mind you, I don't admit a thing that Cissie has ever said about\nAmerica--not one thing. You don't understand the sort of proposition\nAmerica is up against. America is the New World, where there are no\nraces and nations any more; she is the Melting Pot, from which we will\ncast the better state. I've believed that always--in spite of a thousand\nlittle things I believe it now. I go back on nothing. I'm not fighting\nas an American either. I'm fighting simply as myself.... I'm not going\nfighting for England, mind you. Don't you fancy that. I don't know I'm\nso particularly in love with a lot of English ways as to do that. I\ndon't see how any one can be very much in love with your Empire, with\nits dead-alive Court, its artful politicians, its lords and ladies and\nsnobs, its way with the Irish and its way with India, and everybody\nshifting responsibility and telling lies about your common people. I'm\nnot going fighting for England. I'm going fighting for Cissie--and\njustice and Belgium and all that--but more particularly for Cissie. And\nanyhow I can't look Pa Britling in the face any more.... And I want to\nsee those trenches--close. I reckon they're a thing it will be\ninteresting to talk about some day.... So I'm going,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\"But chiefly--it's Cissie. See?\"\n\nCissie had come and stood by the side of him.\n\nShe looked from poor broken Teddy to him and back again.\n\n\"Up to now,\" she said, \"I've wanted you to go....\"\n\nTears came into her eyes.\n\n\"I suppose I must let you go,\" she said. \"Oh! I'd hate you not to\ngo....\"\n\n\nSection 14\n\n\"Good God! how old the Master looks!\" cried Teddy suddenly.\n\nHe was standing at the window, and as Mr. Direck came forward\ninquiringly he pointed to the figure of Mr. Britling passing along the\nroad towards the Dower House.\n\n\"He does look old. I hadn't noticed,\" said Mr. Direck.\n\n\"Why, he's gone grey!\" cried Teddy, peering. \"He wasn't grey when I\nleft.\"\n\nThey watched the knickerbockered figure of Mr. Britling receding up the\nhill, atlas and papers in his hands behind his back.\n\n\"I must go out to him,\" said Teddy, disengaging himself from Letty.\n\n\"No,\" she said, arresting him with her hand.\n\n\"But he will be glad--\"\n\nShe stood in her husband's way. She had a vision of Mr. Britling\nsuddenly called out of his dreams of God ruling the united states of the\nworld, to rejoice at Teddy's restoration....\n\n\"No,\" she said; \"it will only make him think again of Hugh--and how he\ndied. Don't go out, Teddy. Not now. What does he care for _you_?... Let\nhim rest from such things.... Leave him to dream over his atlas.... He\nisn't so desolate--if you knew.... I will tell you, Teddy--when I\ncan....\n\n\"But just now--No, he will think of Hugh again.... Let him go.... He has\nGod and his atlas there.... They're more than you think.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THE SECOND\n\nMR. BRITLING WRITES UNTIL SUNRISE\n\n\nSection 1\n\nIt was some weeks later. It was now the middle of November, and Mr.\nBritling, very warmly wrapped in his thick dressing-gown and his thick\nllama wool pyjamas, was sitting at his night desk, and working ever and\nagain at an essay, an essay of preposterous ambitions, for the title of\nit was \"The Better Government of the World.\"\n\nLatterly he had had much sleepless misery. In the day life was\ntolerable, but in the night--unless he defended himself by working, the\nlosses and cruelties of the war came and grimaced at him, insufferably.\nNow he would be haunted by long processions of refugees, now he would\nthink of the dead lying stiff and twisted in a thousand dreadful\nattitudes. Then again he would be overwhelmed with anticipations of the\nfrightful economic and social dissolution that might lie ahead.... At\nother times he thought of wounds and the deformities of body and spirit\nproduced by injuries. And sometimes he would think of the triumph of\nevil. Stupid and triumphant persons went about a world that stupidity\nhad desolated, with swaggering gestures, with a smiling consciousness of\nenhanced importance, with their scornful hatred of all measured and\ntemperate and kindly things turned now to scornful contempt. And\nmingling with the soil they walked on lay the dead body of Hugh, face\ndownward. At the back of the boy's head, rimmed by blood-stiffened\nhair--the hair that had once been \"as soft as the down of a bird\"--was a\nbig red hole. That hole was always pitilessly distinct. They stepped on\nhim--heedlessly. They heeled the scattered stuff of his exquisite brain\ninto the clay....\n\nFrom all such moods of horror Mr. Britling's circle of lamplight was his\nsole refuge. His work could conjure up visions, like opium visions, of a\nworld of order and justice. Amidst the gloom of world bankruptcy he\nstuck to the prospectus of a braver enterprise--reckless of his chances\nof subscribers....\n\n\nSection 2\n\nBut this night even this circle of lamplight would not hold his mind.\nDoubt had crept into this last fastness. He pulled the papers towards\nhim, and turned over the portion he had planned.\n\nHis purpose in the book he was beginning to write was to reason out the\npossible methods of government that would give a stabler, saner control\nto the world. He believed still in democracy, but he was realising more\nand more that democracy had yet to discover its method. It had to take\nhold of the consciences of men, it had to equip itself with still\nunformed organisations. Endless years of patient thinking, of\nexperimenting, of discussion lay before mankind ere this great idea\ncould become reality, and right, the proven right thing, could rule the\nearth.\n\nMeanwhile the world must still remain a scene of blood-stained\nmelodrama, of deafening noise, contagious follies, vast irrational\ndestructions. One fine life after another went down from study and\nuniversity and laboratory to be slain and silenced....\n\nWas it conceivable that this mad monster of mankind would ever be caught\nand held in the thin-spun webs of thought?\n\nWas it, after all, anything but pretension and folly for a man to work\nout plans for the better government of the world?--was it any better\nthan the ambitious scheming of some fly upon the wheel of the romantic\ngods?\n\nMan has come, floundering and wounding and suffering, out of the\nbreeding darknesses of Time, that will presently crush and consume him\nagain. Why not flounder with the rest, why not eat, drink, fight,\nscream, weep and pray, forget Hugh, stop brooding upon Hugh, banish all\nthese priggish dreams of \"The Better Government of the World,\" and turn\nto the brighter aspects, the funny and adventurous aspects of the war,\nthe Chestertonian jolliness, _Punch_ side of things? Think you because\nyour sons are dead that there will be no more cakes and ale? Let mankind\nblunder out of the mud and blood as mankind has blundered in....\n\nLet us at any rate keep our precious Sense of Humour....\n\nHe pulled his manuscript towards him. For a time he sat decorating the\nlettering of his title, \"The Better Government of the World,\" with\nlittle grinning gnomes' heads and waggish tails....\n\n\nSection 3\n\nOn the top of Mr. Britling's desk, beside the clock, lay a letter,\nwritten in clumsy English and with its envelope resealed by a label\nwhich testified that it had been \"OPENED BY CENSOR.\"\n\nThe friendly go-between in Norway had written to tell Mr. Britling that\nHerr Heinrich also was dead; he had died a wounded prisoner in Russia\nsome months ago. He had been wounded and captured, after undergoing\ngreat hardships, during the great Russian attack upon the passes of the\nCarpathians in the early spring, and his wound had mortified. He had\nrecovered partially for a time, and then he had been beaten and injured\nagain in some struggle between German and Croatian prisoners, and he had\nsickened and died. Before he died he had written to his parents, and\nonce again he had asked that the fiddle he had left in Mr. Britling's\ncare should if possible be returned to them. It was manifest that both\nfor him and them now it had become a symbol with many associations.\n\nThe substance of this letter invaded the orange circle of the lamp; it\nwould have to be answered, and the potentialities of the answer were\nrunning through Mr. Britling's brain to the exclusion of any impersonal\ncomposition. He thought of the old parents away there in Pomerania--he\nbelieved but he was not quite sure, that Heinrich had been an only\nson--and of the pleasant spectacled figure that had now become a broken\nand decaying thing in a prisoner's shallow grave....\n\nAnother son had gone--all the world was losing its sons....\n\nHe found himself thinking of young Heinrich in the very manner, if with\na lesser intensity, in which he thought about his own son, as of hopes\nsenselessly destroyed. His mind took no note of the fact that Heinrich\nwas an enemy, that by the reckoning of a \"war of attrition\" his death\nwas balance and compensation for the death of Hugh. He went straight to\nthe root fact that they had been gallant and kindly beings, and that the\nsame thing had killed them both....\n\nBy no conceivable mental gymnastics could he think of the two as\nantagonists. Between them there was no imaginable issue. They had both\nvery much the same scientific disposition; with perhaps more dash and\ninspiration in the quality of Hugh; more docility and method in the case\nof Karl. Until war had smashed them one against the other....\n\nHe recalled his first sight of Heinrich at the junction, and how he had\nlaughed at the sight of his excessive Teutonism. The close-cropped\nshining fair head surmounted by a yellowish-white corps cap had appeared\ndodging about among the people upon the platform, and manifestly asking\nquestions. The face had been very pink with the effort of an\nunaccustomed tongue. The young man had been clad in a suit of white\nflannel refined by a purple line; his boots were of that greenish yellow\nleather that only a German student could esteem \"chic\"; his rucksack\nwas upon his back, and the precious fiddle in its case was carried very\ncarefully in one hand; this same dead fiddle. The other hand held a\nstick with a carved knob and a pointed end. He had been too German for\nbelief. \"Herr Heinrich!\" Mr. Britling had said, and straightway the\nheels had clashed together for a bow, a bow from the waist, a bow that a\nheedless old lady much burthened with garden produce had greatly\ndisarranged. From first to last amidst our off-hand English ways Herr\nHeinrich had kept his bow--and always it had been getting disarranged.\n\nThat had been his constant effect; a little stiff, a little absurd, and\nalways clean and pink and methodical. The boys had liked him without\nreserve, Mrs. Britling had liked him; everybody had found him a likeable\ncreature. He never complained of anything except picnics. But he did\nobject to picnics; to the sudden departure of the family to wild\nsurroundings for the consumption of cold, knifeless and forkless meals\nin the serious middle hours of the day. He protested to Mr. Britling,\nrespectfully but very firmly. It was, he held, implicit in their\nunderstanding that he should have a cooked meal in the middle of the\nday. Otherwise his Magen was perplexed and disordered. In the evening he\ncould not eat with any gravity or profit....\n\nTheir disposition towards under-feeding and a certain lack of fine\nsentiment were the only flaws in the English scheme that Herr Heinrich\nadmitted. He certainly found the English unfeeling. His heart went even\nless satisfied than his Magen. He was a being of expressive affections;\nhe wanted great friendships, mysterious relationships, love. He tried\nvery bravely to revere and to understand and be occultly understood by\nMr. Britling; he sought long walks and deep talks with Hugh and the\nsmall boys; he tried to fill his heart with Cissie; he found at last\nmarvels of innocence and sweetness in the Hickson girl. She wore her\nhair in a pigtail when first he met her, and it made her almost\nMarguerite. This young man had cried aloud for love, warm and filling,\nlike the Mittagsessen that was implicit in their understanding. And all\nthese Essex people failed to satisfy him; they were silent, they were\nsubtle, they slipped through the fat yet eager fingers of his heart, so\nthat he fell back at last upon himself and his German correspondents and\nthe idealisation of Maud Hickson and the moral education of Billy.\nBilly. Mr. Britling's memories came back at last to the figure of young\nHeinrich with the squirrel on his shoulder, that had so often stood in\nthe way of the utter condemnation of Germany. That, seen closely, was\nthe stuff of one brutal Prussian. What quarrel had we with him?...\n\nOther memories of Heinrich flitted across Mr. Britling's reverie.\nHeinrich at hockey, running with extreme swiftness and little skill,\ntricked and baffled by Letty, dodged by Hugh, going headlong forward and\nheadlong back, and then with a cry flinging himself flat on the ground\nexhausted.... Or again Heinrich very grave and very pink, peering\nthrough his glasses at his cards at Skat.... Or Heinrich in the boats\nupon the great pond, or Heinrich swimming, or Heinrich hiding very, very\nartfully from the boys about the garden on a theory of his own, or\nHeinrich in strange postures, stalking the deer in Claverings Park. For\na time he had had a great ambition to creep quite close to a deer and\n_touch_ it.... Or Heinrich indexing. He had a passion for listing and\nindexing books, music, any loose classifiable thing. His favourite\namusement was devising schemes for the indentation of dictionary leaves,\nso that one could turn instantly to the needed word. He had bought and\ncut the edges of three dictionaries; each in succession improved upon\nthe other; he had had great hopes of patents and wealth arising\ntherefrom.... And his room had been a source of strange sounds; his\nsearch for music upon the violin. He had hoped when he came to\nMatching's Easy to join \"some string quartette.\" But Matching's Easy\nproduced no string quartette. He had to fall back upon the pianola, and\ntry to play duets with that. Only the pianola did all the duet itself,\nand in the hands of a small Britling was apt to betray a facetious\nmoodiness; sudden alternations between extreme haste and extreme\nlassitude....\n\nThen there came a memory of Heinrich talking very seriously; his glasses\nmagnifying his round blue eyes, talking of his ideas about life, of his\nbeliefs and disbeliefs, of his ambitions and prospects in life.\n\nHe confessed two principal ambitions. They varied perhaps in their\nabsolute dimensions, but they were of equal importance in his mind. The\nfirst of these was, so soon as he had taken his doctorate in philology,\nto give himself to the perfecting of an International Language; it was\nto combine all the virtues of Esperanto and Ido. \"And then,\" said Herr\nHeinrich, \"I do not think there will be any more wars--ever.\" The second\nambition, which was important first because Herr Heinrich found much\ndelight in working at it, and secondly because he thought it would give\nhim great wealth and opportunity for propagating the perfect speech, was\nthe elaboration of his system of marginal indentations for dictionaries\nand alphabetical books of reference of all sorts. It was to be so\ncomplete that one would just stand over the book to be consulted, run\nhand and eye over its edges and open the book--\"at the very exact spot.\"\nHe proposed to follow this business up with a quite Germanic\nthoroughness. \"Presently,\" he said, \"I must study the machinery by which\nthe edges of books are cut. It is possible I may have to invent these\nalso.\" This was the double-barrelled scheme of Herr Heinrich's career.\nAnd along it he was to go, and incidentally develop his large vague\nheart that was at present so manifestly unsatisfied....\n\nSuch was the brief story of Herr Heinrich.\n\nThat story was over--just as Hugh's story was over. That first volume\nwould never now have a second and a third. It ended in some hasty grave\nin Russia. The great scheme for marginal indices would never be\npatented, the duets with the pianola would never be played again.\n\nImagination glimpsed a little figure toiling manfully through the slush\nand snow of the Carpathians; saw it staggering under its first\nexperience of shell fire; set it amidst attacks and flights and fatigue\nand hunger and a rush perhaps in the darkness; guessed at the wounding\nblow. Then came the pitiful pilgrimage of the prisoners into captivity,\ncaptivity in a land desolated, impoverished and embittered. Came wounds\nwrapped in filthy rags, pain and want of occupation, and a poor little\nbent and broken Heinrich sitting aloof in a crowded compound nursing a\nmortifying wound....\n\nHe used always to sit in a peculiar attitude with his arms crossed on\nhis crossed legs, looking slantingly through his glasses....\n\nSo he must have sat, and presently he lay on some rough bedding and\nsuffered, untended, in infinite discomfort; lay motionless and thought\nat times, it may be, of Matching's Easy and wondered what Hugh and Teddy\nwere doing. Then he became fevered, and the world grew bright-coloured\nand fantastic and ugly for him. Until one day an infinite weakness laid\nhold of him, and his pain grew faint and all his thoughts and memories\ngrew faint--and still fainter....\n\nThe violin had been brought into Mr. Britling's study that afternoon,\nand lay upon the further window-seat. Poor little broken sherd, poor\nlittle fragment of a shattered life! It looked in its case like a baby\nin a coffin.\n\n\"I must write a letter to the old father and mother,\" Mr. Britling\nthought. \"I can't just send the poor little fiddle--without a word. In\nall this pitiful storm of witless hate--surely there may be one\ngreeting--not hateful.\n\n\"From my blackness to yours,\" said Mr. Britling aloud. He would have to\nwrite it in English. But even if they knew no English some one would be\nfound to translate it to them. He would have to write very plainly.\n\n\nSection 4\n\nHe pushed aside the manuscript of \"The Better Government of the World,\"\nand began to write rather slowly, shaping his letters roundly and\ndistinctly:\n\n\n    _Dear Sir,_\n\n    _I am writing this letter to you to tell you I am sending back the\n    few little things I had kept for your son at his request when the\n    war broke out. I am sending them--_\n\nMr. Britling left that blank for the time until he could arrange the\nmethod of sending to the Norwegian intermediary.\n\n    _Especially I am sending his violin, which he had asked me thrice to\n    convey to you. Either it is a gift from you or it symbolised many\n    things for him that he connected with home and you. I will have it\n    packed with particular care, and I will do all in my power to ensure\n    its safe arrival._\n\n    _I want to tell you that all the stress and passion of this war has\n    not made us here in Matching's Easy forget our friend your son. He\n    was one of us, he had our affection, he had friends here who are\n    still his friends. We found him honourable and companionable, and we\n    share something of your loss. I have got together for you a few\n    snapshots I chance to possess in which you will see him in the\n    sunshine, and which will enable you perhaps to picture a little more\n    definitely than you would otherwise do the life he led here. There\n    is one particularly that I have marked. Our family is lunching\n    out-of-doors, and you will see that next to your son is a youngster,\n    a year or so his junior, who is touching glasses with him. I have\n    put a cross over his head. He is my eldest son, he was very dear to\n    me, and he too has been, killed in this war. They are, you see,\n    smiling very pleasantly at each other._\n\nWhile writing this Mr. Britling had been struck by the thought of the\nphotographs, and he had taken them out of the little drawer into which\nhe was accustomed to thrust them. He picked out the ones that showed the\nyoung German, but there were others, bright with sunshine, that were now\ncharged with acquired significances; there were two showing the children\nand Teddy and Hugh and Cissie and Letty doing the goose step, and there\nwas one of Mr. Van der Pant, smiling at the front door, in Heinrich's\nabandoned slippers. There were endless pictures of Teddy also. It is the\nhappy instinct of the Kodak to refuse those days that are overcast, and\nthe photographic record of a life is a chain of all its kindlier\naspects. In the drawer above these snapshots there were Hugh's letters\nand a miscellany of trivial documents touching on his life.\n\nMr. Britling discontinued writing and turned these papers over and\nmused. Heinrich's letters and postcards had got in among them, and so\nhad a letter of Teddy's....\n\nThe letters reinforced the photographs in their reminder how kind and\npleasant a race mankind can be. Until the wild asses of nationalism came\nkicking and slaying amidst them, until suspicion and jostling greed and\nmalignity poison their minds, until the fools with the high explosives\nblow that elemental goodness into shrieks of hate and splashes of blood.\nHow kindly men are--up to the very instant of their cruelties! His mind\nteemed suddenly with little anecdotes and histories of the goodwill of\nmen breaking through the ill-will of war, of the mutual help of sorely\nwounded Germans and English lying together in the mud and darkness\nbetween the trenches, of the fellowship of captors and prisoners, of\nthe Saxons at Christmas fraternising with the English.... Of that he had\nseen photographs in one of the daily papers....\n\nHis mind came back presently from these wanderings to the task before\nhim.\n\nHe tried to picture these Heinrich parents. He supposed they were\nkindly, civilised people. It was manifest the youngster had come to him\nfrom a well-ordered and gentle-spirited home. But he imagined them--he\ncould not tell why--as people much older than himself. Perhaps young\nHeinrich had on some occasion said they were old people--he could not\nremember. And he had a curious impulse too to write to them in phrases\nof consolation; as if their loss was more pitiable than his own. He\ndoubted whether they had the consolation of his sanguine temperament,\nwhether they could resort as readily as he could to his faith, whether\nin Pomerania there was the same consoling possibility of an essay on the\nBetter Government of the World. He did not think this very clearly, but\nthat was what was at the back of his mind. He went on writing.\n\n    _If you think that these two boys have both perished, not in some\n    noble common cause but one against the other in a struggle of\n    dynasties and boundaries and trade routes and tyrannous\n    ascendancies, then it seems to me that you must feel as I feel that\n    this war is the most tragic and dreadful thing that has ever\n    happened to mankind._\n\nHe sat thinking for some minutes after he had written that, and when\npresently he resumed his writing, a fresh strain of thought was\ntraceable even in his opening sentence.\n\n    _If you count dead and wounds this is the most dreadful war in\n    history; for you as for me, it has been almost the extremity of\n    personal tragedy.... Black sorrow.... But is it the most dreadful\n    war?_\n\n    _I do not think it is. I can write to you and tell you that I do\n    indeed believe that our two sons have died not altogether in vain.\n    Our pain and anguish may not be wasted--may be necessary. Indeed\n    they may be necessary. Here am I bereaved and wretched--and I hope.\n    Never was the fabric of war so black; that I admit. But never was\n    the black fabric of war so threadbare. At a thousand points the\n    light is shining through._\n\nMr. Britling's pen stopped.\n\nThere was perfect stillness in the study bedroom.\n\n\"The tinpot style,\" said Mr. Britling at last in a voice of extreme\nbitterness.\n\nHe fell into an extraordinary quarrel with his style. He forgot about\nthose Pomeranian parents altogether in his exasperation at his own\ninexpressiveness, at his incomplete control of these rebel words and\nphrases that came trailing each its own associations and suggestions to\nhamper his purpose with it. He read over the offending sentence.\n\n\"The point is that it is true,\" he whispered. \"It is exactly what I want\nto say.\"...\n\nExactly?...\n\nHis mind stuck on that \"exactly.\"... When one has much to say style is\ntroublesome. It is as if one fussed with one's uniform before a\nbattle.... But that is just what one ought to do before a battle.... One\nought to have everything in order....\n\nHe took a fresh sheet and made three trial beginnings.\n\n    _\"War is like a black fabric.\"_...\n\n    _\"War is a curtain of black fabric across the pathway.\"_\n\n    _\"War is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes and\n    kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let through some gleams of\n    light, and now--I am not dreaming--it grows threadbare, and here and\n    there and at a thousand points the light is breaking through. We owe\n    it to all these dear youths--\"_\n\nHis pen stopped again.\n\n\"I must work on a rough draft,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\n\nSection 5\n\nThree hours later Mr. Britling was working by daylight, though his study\nlamp was still burning, and his letter to old Heinrich was still no\nbetter than a collection of material for a letter. But the material was\nfalling roughly into shape, and Mr. Britling's intentions were finding\nthemselves. It was clear to him now that he was no longer writing as his\nlimited personal self to those two personal selves grieving, in the old,\nlarge, high-walled, steep-roofed household amidst pine woods, of which\nHeinrich had once shown him a picture. He knew them too little for any\nsuch personal address. He was writing, he perceived, not as Mr. Britling\nbut as an Englishman--that was all he could be to them--and he was\nwriting to them as Germans; he could apprehend them as nothing more. He\nwas just England bereaved to Germany bereaved....\n\nHe was no longer writing to the particular parents of one particular\nboy, but to all that mass of suffering, regret, bitterness and fatigue\nthat lay behind the veil of the \"front.\" Slowly, steadily, the manhood\nof Germany was being wiped out. As he sat there in the stillness he\ncould think that at least two million men of the Central Powers were\ndead, and an equal number maimed and disabled. Compared with that our\nBritish losses, immense and universal as they were by the standard of\nany previous experience, were still slight; our larger armies had still\nto suffer, and we had lost irrevocably not very much more than a quarter\nof a million. But the tragedy gathered against us. We knew enough\nalready to know what must be the reality of the German homes to which\nthose dead men would nevermore return....\n\nIf England had still the longer account to pay, the French had paid\nalready nearly to the limits of endurance. They must have lost well over\na million of their mankind, and still they bled and bled. Russia too in\nthe East had paid far more than man for man in this vast swapping off of\nlives. In a little while no Censorship would hold the voice of the\npeoples. There would be no more talk of honour and annexations,\nhegemonies and trade routes, but only Europe lamenting for her dead....\n\nThe Germany to which he wrote would be a nation of widows and children,\nrather pinched boys and girls, crippled men, old men, deprived men, men\nwho had lost brothers and cousins and friends and ambitions. No triumph\nnow on land or sea could save Germany from becoming that. France too\nwould be that, Russia, and lastly Britain, each in their degree. Before\nthe war there had been no Germany to which an Englishman could appeal;\nGermany had been a threat, a menace, a terrible trampling of armed men.\nIt was as little possible then to think of talking to Germany as it\nwould have been to have stopped the Kaiser in mid career in his hooting\ncar down the Unter den Linden and demand a quiet talk with him. But the\nGermany that had watched those rushes with a slightly doubting pride had\nher eyes now full of tears and blood. She had believed, she had obeyed,\nand no real victory had come. Still she fought on, bleeding, agonising,\nwasting her substance and the substance of the whole world, to no\nconceivable end but exhaustion, so capable she was, so devoted, so proud\nand utterly foolish. And the mind of Germany, whatever it was before the\nwar, would now be something residual, something left over and sitting\nbeside a reading-lamp as he was sitting beside a reading-lamp, thinking,\nsorrowing, counting the cost, looking into the dark future....\n\nAnd to that he wrote, to that dimly apprehended figure outside a circle\nof the light like his own circle of light--which was the father of\nHeinrich, which was great Germany, Germany which lived before and which\nwill yet outlive the flapping of the eagles....\n\n    _Our boys_, he wrote, _have died, fighting one against the other.\n    They have been fighting upon an issue so obscure that your German\n    press is still busy discussing what it was. For us it was that\n    Belgium was invaded and France in danger of destruction. Nothing\n    else could have brought the English into the field against you. But\n    why you invaded Belgium and France and whether that might have been\n    averted we do not know to this day. And still this war goes on and\n    still more boys die, and these men who do not fight, these men in\n    the newspaper offices and in the ministries plan campaigns and\n    strokes and counter-strokes that belong to no conceivable plan at\n    all. Except that now for them there is something more terrible than\n    war. And that is the day of reckoning with their own people._\n\n    _What have we been fighting for? What are we fighting for? Do you\n    know? Does any one know? Why am I spending what is left of my\n    substance and you what is left of yours to keep on this war against\n    each other? What have we to gain from hurting one another still\n    further? Why should we be puppets any longer in the hands of crowned\n    fools and witless diplomatists? Even if we were dumb and acquiescent\n    before, does not the blood of our sons now cry out to us that this\n    foolery should cease? We have let these people send our sons to\n    death._\n\n    _It is you and I who must stop these wars, these massacres of boys._\n\n    _Massacres of boys! That indeed is the essence of modern war. The\n    killing off of the young. It is the destruction of the human\n    inheritance, it is the spending of all the life and material of the\n    future upon present-day hate and greed. Fools and knaves,\n    politicians, tricksters, and those who trade on the suspicions and\n    thoughtless, generous angers of men, make wars; the indolence and\n    modesty of the mass of men permit them. Are you and I to suffer such\n    things until the whole fabric of our civilisation, that has been so\n    slowly and so laboriously built up, is altogether destroyed?_\n\n    _When I sat down to write to you I had meant only to write to you of\n    your son and mine. But I feel that what can be said in particular of\n    our loss, need not be said; it can be understood without saying.\n    What needs to be said and written about is this, that war must be\n    put an end to and that nobody else but you and me and all of us can\n    do it. We have to do that for the love of our sons and our race and\n    all that is human. War is no longer human; the chemist and the\n    metallurgist have changed all that. My boy was shot through the eye;\n    his brain was blown to pieces by some man who never knew what he had\n    done. Think what that means!... It is plain to me, surely it is\n    plain to you and all the world, that war is now a mere putting of\n    the torch to explosives that flare out to universal ruin. There is\n    nothing for one sane man to write to another about in these days but\n    the salvation of mankind from war._\n\n    _Now I want you to be patient with me and hear me out. There was a\n    time in the earlier part of this war when it was hard to be patient\n    because there hung over us the dread of losses and disaster. Now we\n    need dread no longer. The dreaded thing has happened. Sitting\n    together as we do in spirit beside the mangled bodies of our dead,\n    surely we can be as patient as the hills._\n\n    _I want to tell you quite plainly and simply that I think that\n    Germany which is chief and central in this war is most to blame for\n    this war. Writing to you as an Englishman to a German and with war\n    still being waged, there must be no mistake between us upon this\n    point. I am persuaded that in the decade that ended with your\n    overthrow of France in 1871, Germany turned her face towards evil,\n    and that her refusal to treat France generously and to make friends\n    with any other great power in the world, is the essential cause of\n    this war. Germany triumphed--and she trampled on the loser. She\n    inflicted intolerable indignities. She set herself to prepare for\n    further aggressions; long before this killing began she was making\n    war upon land and sea, launching warships, building strategic\n    railways, setting up a vast establishment of war material,\n    threatening, straining all the world to keep pace with her\n    threats.... At last there was no choice before any European nation\n    but submission to the German will, or war. And it was no will to\n    which righteous men could possibly submit. It came as an illiberal\n    and ungracious will. It was the will of Zabern. It is not as if you\n    had set yourselves to be an imperial people and embrace and unify\n    the world. You did not want to unify the world. You wanted to set\n    the foot of an intensely national Germany, a sentimental and\n    illiberal Germany, a Germany that treasured the portraits of your\n    ridiculous Kaiser and his litter of sons, a Germany wearing uniform,\n    reading black letter, and despising every kultur but her own, upon\n    the neck of a divided and humiliated mankind. It was an intolerable\n    prospect. I had rather the whole world died._\n\n    _Forgive me for writing \"you.\" You are as little responsible for\n    that Germany as I am for--Sir Edward Grey. But this happened over\n    you; you did not do your utmost to prevent it--even as England has\n    happened, and I have let it happen over me...._\n\n\"It is so dry; so general,\" whispered Mr. Britling. \"And yet--it is this\nthat has killed our sons.\"\n\nHe sat still for a time, and then went on reading a fresh sheet of his\nmanuscript.\n\n    _When I bring these charges against Germany I have little\n    disposition to claim any righteousness for Britain. There has been\n    small splendour in this war for either Germany or Britain or Russia;\n    we three have chanced to be the biggest of the combatants, but the\n    glory lies with invincible France. It is France and Belgium and\n    Serbia who shine as the heroic lands. They have fought defensively\n    and beyond all expectation, for dear land and freedom. This war for\n    them has been a war of simple, definite issues, to which they have\n    risen with an entire nobility. Englishman and German alike may well\n    envy them that simplicity. I look to you, as an honest man schooled\n    by the fierce lessons of this war, to meet me in my passionate\n    desire to see France, Belgium and Serbia emerge restored from all\n    this blood and struggle, enlarged to the limits of their\n    nationality, vindicated and secure. Russia I will not write about\n    here; let me go on at once to tell you about my own country;\n    remarking only that between England and Russia there are endless\n    parallelisms. We have similar complexities, kindred difficulties. We\n    have for instance an imported dynasty, we have a soul-destroying\n    State Church which cramps and poisons the education of our ruling\n    class, we have a people out of touch with a secretive government,\n    and the same traditional contempt for science. We have our Irelands\n    and Polands. Even our kings bear a curious likeness...._\n\nAt this point there was a break in the writing, and Mr. Britling made,\nas it were, a fresh beginning.\n\n    _Politically the British Empire is a clumsy collection of strange\n    accidents. It is a thing as little to be proud of as the outline of\n    a flint or the shape of a potato. For the mass of English people\n    India and Egypt and all that side of our system mean less than\n    nothing; our trade is something they do not understand, our imperial\n    wealth something they do not share. Britain has been a group of\n    four democracies caught in the net of a vast yet casual imperialism;\n    the common man here is in a state of political perplexity from the\n    cradle to the grave. None the less there is a great people here even\n    as there is a great people in Russia, a people with a soul and\n    character of its own, a people of unconquerable kindliness and with\n    a peculiar genius, which still struggle towards will and expression.\n    We have been beginning that same great experiment that France and\n    America and Switzerland and China are making, the experiment of\n    democracy. It is the newest form of human association, and we are\n    still but half awake to its needs and necessary conditions. For it\n    is idle to pretend that the little city democracies of ancient times\n    were comparable to the great essays in practical republicanism that\n    mankind is making to-day. This age of the democratic republics that\n    dawn is a new age. It has not yet lasted for a century, not for a\n    paltry hundred years.... All new things are weak things; a rat can\n    kill a man-child with ease; the greater the destiny, the weaker the\n    immediate self-protection may be. And to me it seems that your\n    complete and perfect imperialism, ruled by Germans for Germans, is\n    in its scope and outlook a more antiquated and smaller and less\n    noble thing than these sprawling emergent giant democracies of the\n    West that struggle so confusedly against it...._\n\n    _But that we do struggle confusedly, with pitiful leaders and\n    infinite waste and endless delay; that it is to our indisciplines\n    and to the dishonesties and tricks our incompleteness provokes, that\n    the prolongation of this war is to be ascribed, I readily admit. At\n    the outbreak of this war I had hoped to see militarism felled within\n    a year...._\n\n\nSection 6\n\nFrom this point onward Mr. Britling's notes became more fragmentary.\nThey had a consecutiveness, but they were discontinuous. His thought had\nleapt across gaps that his pen had had no time to fill. And he had\nbegun to realise that his letter to the old people in Pomerania was\nbecoming impossible. It had broken away into dissertation.\n\n\"Yet there must be dissertations,\" he said. \"Unless such men as we are\ntake these things in hand, always we shall be misgoverned, always the\nsons will die....\"\n\n\nSection 7\n\n    _I do not think you Germans realise how steadily you were conquering\n    the world before this war began. Had you given half the energy and\n    intelligence you have spent upon this war to the peaceful conquest\n    of men's minds and spirits, I believe that you would have taken the\n    leadership of the world tranquilly--no man disputing. Your science\n    was five years, your social and economic organisation was a quarter\n    of a century in front of ours.... Never has it so lain in the power\n    of a great people to lead and direct mankind towards the world\n    republic and universal peace. It needed but a certain generosity of\n    the imagination...._\n\n    _But your Junkers, your Imperial court, your foolish vicious\n    Princes; what were such dreams to them?... With an envious\n    satisfaction they hurled all the accomplishment of Germany into the\n    fires of war...._\n\n\nSection 8\n\n    _Your boy, as no doubt you know, dreamt constantly of such a world\n    peace as this that I foreshadow; he was more generous than his\n    country. He could envisage war and hostility only as\n    misunderstanding. He thought that a world that could explain itself\n    clearly would surely be at peace. He was scheming always therefore\n    for the perfection and propagation of Esperanto or Ido, or some such\n    universal link. My youngster too was full of a kindred and yet\n    larger dream, the dream of human science, which knows neither king\n    nor country nor race_....\n\n    _These boys, these hopes, this war has killed_....\n\nThat fragment ended so. Mr. Britling ceased to read for a time. \"But has\nit killed them?\" he whispered....\n\n\"If you had lived, my dear, you and your England would have talked with\na younger Germany--better than I can ever do....\"\n\nHe turned the pages back, and read here and there with an accumulating\ndiscontent.\n\n\nSection 9\n\n\"Dissertations,\" said Mr. Britling.\n\nNever had it been so plain to Mr. Britling that he was a weak, silly,\nill-informed and hasty-minded writer, and never had he felt so\ninvincible a conviction that the Spirit of God was in him, and that it\nfell to him to take some part in the establishment of a new order of\nliving upon the earth; it might be the most trivial part by the scale of\nthe task, but for him it was to be now his supreme concern. And it was\nan almost intolerable grief to him that his services should be, for all\nhis desire, so poor in quality, so weak in conception. Always he seemed\nto be on the verge of some illuminating and beautiful statement of his\ncause; always he was finding his writing inadequate, a thin treachery to\nthe impulse of his heart, always he was finding his effort weak and\nineffective. In this instance, at the outset he seemed to see with a\ngolden clearness the message of brotherhood, or forgiveness, of a common\ncall. To whom could such a message be better addressed than to those\nsorrowing parents; from whom could it come with a better effect than\nfrom himself? And now he read what he had made of this message. It\nseemed to his jaded mind a pitifully jaded effort. It had no light, it\nhad no depth. It was like the disquisition of a debating society.\n\nHe was distressed by a fancy of an old German couple, spectacled and\npeering, puzzled by his letter. Perhaps they would be obscurely hurt by\nhis perplexing generalisations. Why, they would ask, should this\nEnglishman preach to them?\n\nHe sat back in his chair wearily, with his chin sunk upon his chest. For\na time he did not think, and then, he read again the sentence in front\nof his eyes.\n\n    _\"These boys, these hopes, this war has killed.\"_\n\nThe words hung for a time in his mind.\n\n\"No!\" said Mr. Britling stoutly. \"They live!\"\n\nAnd suddenly it was borne in upon his mind that he was not alone. There\nwere thousands and tens of thousands of men and women like himself,\ndesiring with all their hearts to say, as he desired to say, the\nreconciling word. It was not only his hand that thrust against the\nobstacles.... Frenchmen and Russians sat in the same stillness, facing\nthe same perplexities; there were Germans seeking a way through to him.\nEven as he sat and wrote. And for the first time clearly he felt a\nPresence of which he had thought very many times in the last few weeks,\na Presence so close to him that it was behind his eyes and in his brain\nand hands. It was no trick of his vision; it was a feeling of immediate\nreality. And it was Hugh, Hugh that he had thought was dead, it was\nyoung Heinrich living also, it was himself, it was those others that\nsought, it was all these and it was more, it was the Master, the Captain\nof Mankind, it was God, there present with him, and he knew that it was\nGod. It was as if he had been groping all this time in the darkness,\nthinking himself alone amidst rocks and pitfalls and pitiless things,\nand suddenly a hand, a firm strong hand, had touched his own. And a\nvoice within him bade him be of good courage. There was no magic\ntrickery in that moment; he was still weak and weary, a discouraged\nrhetorician, a good intention ill-equipped; but he was no longer lonely\nand wretched, no longer in the same world with despair. God was beside\nhim and within him and about him.... It was the crucial moment of Mr.\nBritling's life. It was a thing as light as the passing of a cloud on an\nApril morning; it was a thing as great as the first day of creation. For\nsome moments he still sat back with his chin upon his chest and his\nhands dropping from the arms of his chair. Then he sat up and drew a\ndeep breath....\n\nThis had come almost as a matter of course.\n\nFor weeks his mind had been playing about this idea. He had talked to\nLetty of this Finite God, who is the king of man's adventure in space\nand time. But hitherto God had been for him a thing of the intelligence,\na theory, a report, something told about but not realised.... Mr.\nBritling's thinking about God hitherto had been like some one who has\nfound an empty house, very beautiful and pleasant, full of the promise\nof a fine personality. And then as the discoverer makes his lonely,\ncurious explorations, he hears downstairs, dear and friendly, the voice\nof the Master coming in....\n\nThere was no need to despair because he himself was one of the feeble\nfolk. God was with him indeed, and he was with God. The King was coming\nto his own. Amidst the darknesses and confusions, the nightmare\ncruelties and the hideous stupidities of the great war, God, the Captain\nof the World Republic, fought his way to empire. So long as one did\none's best and utmost in a cause so mighty, did it matter though the\nthing one did was little and poor?\n\n\"I have thought too much of myself,\" said Mr. Britling, \"and of what I\nwould do by myself. I have forgotten _that which was with me_....\"\n\n\nSection 10\n\nHe turned over the rest of the night's writing presently, and read it\nnow as though it was the work of another man.\n\nThese later notes were fragmentary, and written in a sprawling hand.\n\n    _\"Let us make ourselves watchers and guardians of the order of the\n    world...._\n\n    _\"If only for love of our dead...._\n\n    _\"Let us pledge ourselves to service. Let us set ourselves with all\n    our minds and all our hearts to the perfecting and working out of\n    the methods of democracy and the ending for ever of the kings and\n    emperors and priestcrafts and the bands of adventurers, the traders\n    and owners and forestallers who have betrayed mankind into this\n    morass of hate and blood--in which our sons are lost--in which we\n    flounder still....\"_\n\nHow feeble was this squeak of exhortation! It broke into a scolding\nnote.\n\n\"Who have betrayed,\" read Mr. Britling, and judged the phrase.\n\n\"Who have fallen with us,\" he amended....\n\n\"One gets so angry and bitter--because one feels alone, I suppose.\nBecause one feels that for them one's reason is no reason. One is\nenraged by the sense of their silent and regardless contradiction, and\none forgets the Power of which one is a part....\"\n\nThe sheet that bore the sentence he criticised was otherwise blank\nexcept that written across it obliquely in a very careful hand were the\nwords \"Hugh,\" and \"Hugh Philip Britling.\"...\n\nOn the next sheet he had written: \"Let us set up the peace of the World\nRepublic amidst these ruins. Let it be our religion, our calling.\"\n\nThere he had stopped.\n\nThe last sheet of Mr. Britling's manuscript may be more conveniently\ngiven in fac-simile than described.\n\n[Handwritten:\n\n  Hugh\n  Hugh\n  My dear Hugh\n\n  Lawyers Princes\n  Dealers in Contention\n\n  _Honesty_\n\n  'Blood Blood ...\n\n  [Transcriber's Note: illegible] an End to them\n\n]\n\n\nSection 11\n\nHe sighed.\n\nHe looked at the scattered papers, and thought of the letter they were\nto have made.\n\nHis fatigue spoke first.\n\n\"Perhaps after all I'd better just send the fiddle....\"\n\nHe rested his cheeks between his hands, and remained so for a long time.\nHis eyes stared unseeingly. His thoughts wandered and spread and faded.\nAt length he recalled his mind to that last idea. \"Just send the\nfiddle--without a word.\"\n\n\"No. I must write to them plainly.\n\n\"About God as I have found Him.\n\n\"As He has found me....\"\n\nHe forgot the Pomeranians for a time. He murmured to himself. He turned\nover the conviction that had suddenly become clear and absolute in his\nmind.\n\n\"Religion is the first thing and the last thing, and until a man has\nfound God and been found by God, he begins at no beginning, he works to\nno end. He may have his friendships, his partial loyalties, his scraps\nof honour. But all these things fall into place and life falls into\nplace only with God. Only with God. God, who fights through men against\nBlind Force and Night and Non-Existence; who is the end, who is the\nmeaning. He is the only King.... Of course I must write about Him. I\nmust tell all my world of Him. And before the coming of the true King,\nthe inevitable King, the King who is present whenever just men\nforegather, this blood-stained rubbish of the ancient world, these puny\nkings and tawdry emperors, these wily politicians and artful lawyers,\nthese men who claim and grab and trick and compel, these war makers and\noppressors, will presently shrivel and pass--like paper thrust into a\nflame....\"\n\nThen after a time he said:\n\n\"Our sons who have shown us God....\"\n\n\nSection 12\n\nHe rubbed his open hands over his eyes and forehead.\n\nThe night of effort had tired his brain, and he was no longer thinking\nactively. He had a little interval of blankness, sitting at his desk\nwith his hands pressed over his eyes....\n\nHe got up presently, and stood quite motionless at the window, looking\nout.\n\nHis lamp was still burning, but for some time he had not been writing by\nthe light of his lamp. Insensibly the day had come and abolished his\nneed for that individual circle of yellow light. Colour had returned to\nthe world, clean pearly colour, clear and definite like the glance of a\nchild or the voice of a girl, and a golden wisp of cloud hung in the sky\nover the tower of the church. There was a mist upon the pond, a soft\ngrey mist not a yard high. A covey of partridges ran and halted and ran\nagain in the dewy grass outside his garden railings. The partridges were\nvery numerous this year because there had been so little shooting.\nBeyond in the meadow a hare sat up as still as a stone. A horse\nneighed.... Wave after wave of warmth and light came sweeping before the\nsunrise across the world of Matching's Easy. It was as if there was\nnothing but morning and sunrise in the world.\n\nFrom away towards the church came the sound of some early worker\nwhetting a scythe.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END"