WAACS IN THE BAKERY
WAAC COOKS PREPARING VEGETABLES
WAAC ENCAMPMENT PROTECTED BY SANDBAGS
That concert which I had felt so apologetic not to attend—what a relief it had been to them that I didn't want to, didn't want to get "local colour" and write of them as being so jolly, so gay! For this again is typical—there are perhaps five girls out of every hundred who enjoy being amused, to whom it is all part of the life which they actually love, but from the greater part goes up the cry, "Work us as hard as you like, but for Heaven's sake don't try and amuse us!"
For, of course, it takes differing temperaments differently. To some community life is little short of a nightmare, but to all there come moments when it is exceedingly maddening. In those moments your own room or a big hot bath are wonderful ways of salvation.
As we talked, from A. came the theory that she was only afraid it would prevent her ever loving motors again; and she had always adored motors as the chief pleasure of life, before they became the chief business. B. could not agree to that. C., who did agree, pointed out that it was on the same principle as never wanting to go back to a place, no matter how beautiful it was, if you had been very unhappy there. Even after your unhappiness was dead and buried it would always spoil that place for you.... B. said "Yes" to that, but argued that it would not spoil the beauty of other places for you, which would be the equivalent of this life spoiling all motors for A., after the war.
The flaws in the analogy were not pursued, for D. advanced an interesting theory that the hardest part of it was that you were so afraid of what you might be missing all the time somewhere else. She argued that the difficulty with her had always been to make up her mind to any one course of action, because it shut off all the others, and, like so many of us, she wanted everything....