I went out into the night to enjoy a smoke. The world seemed to be dazed, bewildered, tragic; and I think that in reality....
Believe me, sir, when I speak of civilisation and regret it, I quite know what I am saying; and it is not wireless telegraphy that will alter my opinion. It is all the more tragic because we are helpless; we cannot reverse the course which the world is taking. And yet!
Civilisation—the true civilisation—exists. I think often of it. In my mind it is the harmony of a choir chanting a hymn; it is a marble statue on an arid, burnt-up hillside; it is the Man who said, “Love one another,” or “Return good for evil.” But for two thousand years these phrases have been merely repeated, and the chief priests have too much vested interest in temporal things to conceive anything of the kind.
We are mistaken about happiness and about good. The noblest natures have also been mistaken, for silence and solitude are too often denied them. I have seen the monstrous steriliser on its throne. I tell you, of a truth, civilisation is not to be found there any more than in the shining forceps of the surgeon. Civilisation is not in this terrible trumpery; and if it is not in the heart of man, then it exists nowhere.
THE END
Printed by Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd.
Colchester, London & Eton, England
FOOTNOTES:
[2] G.B.C., abbreviation for groupe de brancardiers du corps (the corps ambulance division).
[3] A.C.A., abbreviation for ambulance du corps d’armée.