ere most bored who were
most virtuous. For them, with an ideal in their souls, there was no
possibility of relief (for virtue is not its own reward), unless they
were mystics, as some became, who found God good company and needed no
other help. They had rare luck, those fellows with an astounding faith
which rose above the irony and the brutality of that business being done
in the trenches, but there were few of them.

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

XIX

At first, in the beginning of the war, our officers and men believed
that it would have a quick ending. Our first Expeditionary Force came
out to France with the cheerful shout of "Now we sha'n't be long!"
before they fell back from an advancing tide of Germans from Mons to the
Marne, and fell in their youth like autumn leaves. The New Army boys who
followed them were desperate to get out to "the great adventure." They
cursed the length of their training in English camps. "We sha'n't get
out till it's too late!" they said. Too late, O God! Even when they
had had their first spell in the trenches and came up against German
strength they kept a queer faith, for a time, that "something" would
happen to bring peace as quickly as war had come. Peace was always
coming three months ahead. Generals and staff-officers, as wel