"The point is that it is true," he whispered. "It is exactly what I want to say."...
Exactly?...
His mind stuck on that "exactly."... When one has much to say style is troublesome. It is as if one fussed with one's uniform before a battle.... But that is just what one ought to do before a battle.... One ought to have everything in order....
He took a fresh sheet and made three trial beginnings.
"War is like a black fabric."...
"War is a curtain of black fabric across the pathway."
"War is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes and kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let through some gleams of light, and now—I am not dreaming—it grows threadbare, and here and there and at a thousand points the light is breaking through. We owe it to all these dear youths—"
His pen stopped again.
"I must work on a rough draft," said Mr. Britling.