So Many People Seem To Imagine That

I Wish Those People Who Write So Glibly About This Being A Holy War And The Orators Who Talk So Much About Going On, No Matter How Long The War Lasts And What It May Mean, Could See A Case Of Musterd Gas - The Poor Things Burnt And Blistered All Over With Great Musterd Coloured Suppurating Blisters, With Blind Eyes, All Sticky And Stuck Together, And Always Fighting For Breath, With Voices A Mere Whisper, Saying Their Throats Are Closing And They Know They Will Choke.

Nevertheless, Hateful As Saying 'no' Always Is To An Imaginative Person, And Certain As The Offence May Be That It Will Cause To Individuals Whose Own Work Does Not Require Isolated Effort, The Writer Who Is Engaged On A Book Must Learn To Say It. He Must Say It Consistently To All Interrupters; To The Numerous Callers And Correspondents Who Want Him To Speak, Open Bazaars, See Them For 'only' Ten Minutes, Attend Literary Parties, Put People Up, Or Read, Correct And Find Publishers For Semi-literate Manuscripts By His Personal Friends.

We Should Never Be At The Mercy Of Providence If Only We Understood That We Ourselves Are Providence.

Most Men, Whether Men Or Women, Wish Above All Else To Be Comfortable, And Thought Is A Pre-eminently Uncomfortable Process; It Brings To The Individual Far More Suffering Than Happiness In A Semi-civilised World Which Still Goes To War.

Few Of Humanity's Characteristics Are More Disconcerting Than Its Ability To Reduce World-events To Its Own Level, Wherever This May Happen To Be.