a more realistic spectacle in "The Birth of a Nation." Far too few men
are actually killed and wounded, and the job is much too large for the
materialists. They do not know how to employ effectively the huge forces
they have raised into being._

_If somehow we can grope our way back to the springs of Beauty all may
yet be saved, but it will require the sacrifice of everything we have.
For myriads it will mean the offering of their lives, for that is all
they possess, and it must be done freely, gladly, with their souls
purified, if it is to avail anything. Pride, ambition, selfishness,
self-will must go, or we perish blind miserables._

_For myself, you know I am willingly in service as a common soldier,
although some years beyond conscription age. Ungrudgingly I gave up
alcohol--almost a lifelong necessity--and for months I, the Epicurean,
have been dispassionately measuring the supposed hardships of war that I
might truly understand what a soldier has to undergo. With Beauty in the
bloodbeat privation is nothing. What can touch me now except the amusing
joy of giving up for the common good? Yet who actually loves humankind
less than I? But the subordination idea intrigues me, possesses me,
satisfies me. How better can I prove my patent of snobbery and my innate
right cordially to dislike my fellowmen?_

_The social degradation involved in functioning as an enlisted man was
and, of course, is the worst of the annoyances. I am neither young
enough nor sufficiently democratic to enjoy day after day a
below-stairs status. It is a trial, I confess, but I venture to persuade
myself that I do all that is required of me with admirable abasement and
detachment. Occasionally, indeed, it is capital fun to play the
anonymous cipher. I am often urged to obtain a commission. But I cannot
quite do that, for would not that be a confession that I hadn't the
pluck to stick it out? I must remain as I am. Many of my contemporaries
are finding the khaki an easy means of increasing their literary
reputations. Wise brothers, ye have chosen your roles. I prefer mine._

_Before you have seen my book through the press I may be dead. With all
my heart I hope I shall not come back, for then impersonally I shall
have fallen for a cause in which I have no faith. What more
distinguished end for an incurable poseur? Have I not been called that?
Plant, I beg you, mignonette to encircle my arrowroot fields._

_What has all this to do with the So