Trenches, Hospitals, The Common Grave--there Are No

Kropp On The Other Hand Is A Thinker. He Proposes That A Declaration Of War Should Be A Kind Of Popular Festival With Entrance-tickets And Bands, Like A Bull Fight. Then In The Arena The Ministers And Generals Of The Two Countries, Dressed In Bathing-drawers And Armed With Clubs, Can Have It Out On Themselves. Whoever Survives The Country Wins. That Would Be Much Simpler And More Than Just This Arrangement, Where The Wrong People Do The Fighting

To Me The Front Is A Mysterious Whirlpool. Though I Am In Still Water Far Away From Its Centre, I Feel The Whirl Of The Vortex Sucking Me Slowly, Irresistibly, Inescapably Into Itself.

The Coffin, It Shall Protect Me, Though Death Himself Lies In It

I Want That Quiet Rapture Again. I Want To Feel The Same Powerful, Nameless Urge That I Used To Feel When I Turned To My Books. The Breath Of Desire That Then Arose From The Coloured Backs Of The Books, Shall Fill Me Again, Melt The Heavy, Dead Lump Of Lead That Lies Somewhere In Me And Waken Again The Impatience Of The Future, The Quick Joy In The World Of Thought, It Shall Bring Back Again The Lost Eagerness Of My Youth. I Sit And Wait.

He Fell In October 1918, On A Day That Was So Quiet And Still On The Whole Front, That The Army Report Confined Itself To The Single Sentence: All Quiet On The Western Front. He Had Fallen Forward And Lay On The Earth As Though Sleeping. Turning Him Over One Saw That He Could Not Have Suffered Long; His Face Had An Expression Of Calm, As Though Almost Glad The End Had Come.