A Writer's Notebook (92 page)

He was a tall, heavily-built fellow, with a shock of wavy, golden hair that glistened in the sun, bright blue eyes and a friendly, open countenance. He had little education and his English was terrible. He had no trace of self-consciousness. He was unaffected, chatty and sociable. He was an airman. He was talking of his experiences. “I never believed in religion before,” he said, “but when I was in a jam I prayed. ‘O God,' I said, ‘let me live till tomorrow.' I just said it over and over again.”

She is a little woman with dark hair and dark eyes, with the prettiness of youth, and neat in her appearance. The vicissitudes of the war have brought her down to the deep South, but till then she had always lived in Portland, Oregon, and she measures everything by the standards, habits and way of living of that city. Whatever is different excites her dislike and contempt. She is happy in the knowledge that she is as good as anybody else and smarter (in the American sense) than most, but is painfully embarrassed when, as here, she is thrown into the society of persons who, she is uneasily conscious,
belong to a higher class than her own. She is at once abashed and aggressive; abashed because she is afraid that they do not take her at her own valuation, and aggressive because she is determined not to let them put anything over on her. She was before her marriage secretary to a business man and never in her life till now had servants to wait on her. It fills her with a half-angry confusion; she thinks it undemocratic; but why she should imagine it more undemocratic to have someone to cook your dinner than to have someone to write your letters is not apparent. She resents the kindness of her hosts as patronage and accepts all that is done for her as her due because she has been forced to leave her home town. She dislikes Easterners; she thinks them stuck up, stilted, condescending and supercilious; in fact she regards them with the same distaste as Americans regard the English. She compares them very unfavourably with the people of Portland, Oregon.

It will be lamentable if in selfishness, lack of foresight and stupidity the Allies after the war neglect in abhorrence of the German vices to practise their virtues. The Germans are ruthless and cruel, faithless to their word, treacherous and tyrannical, dishonest and corrupt. True, every word of it. They have taught their people habits of industry and discipline. They have taken pains to make the youth of their country strong, virile and brave. They have taught them willingly to sacrifice themselves to the common good. (It has little to do with the matter that their notion of the common good differs from ours.) They have made partriotism a powerful and active force. All these are good things and we should be wise to imitate them. People should read history. The people of the Italian republics thought they could maintain their liberty by buying off with hard cash the enemies who threatened them, and with mercenaries defend their frontiers. Their history proves that unless the citizens of a state are prepared to fight, unless they are willing to spend their money to provide sufficient
armaments, they will lose their freedom. It is a trite statement that no one can enjoy freedom unless he is willing to surrender some part of it. It is always forgotten.

I am gratified when a friend slaps me on the back and tells me I'm a fine fellow, but I do a little resent it when with his other hand he picks my pocket.

He's a crook and he's been in jail. He's in the army now and is very unhappy. He's just been promoted again and it has depressed him; he hates life because he says he is always thwarted, every ambition he has ever had has always been realized and he has nothing to live for.

Gushing, she said to me: “What does it feel like to be famous?”

I suppose I've been asked the question twenty times and I never could think how to answer, but today, too late, it suddenly occurred to me.

“It's like having a string of pearls given you. It's nice, but after a while, if you think of it at all, it's only to wonder if they're real or cultured.”

And now that I have my reply ready I don't expect anyone will ever put the question to me again.

Plumbing. When you consider how indifferent Americans are to the quality and cooking of the food they put into their insides, it cannot but strike you as peculiar that they should take such pride in the mechanical appliances they use for its excretion.

How sad that life should be both tragic and trivial: a melodrama in which the noblest sentiments of men serve merely to stir the cheap emotions of a vulgar audience.

Let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Yes, but we die wretchedly and in anguish: yet not always: sometimes we die sitting quietly in an arm-chair over a whisky and soda after a pleasant round of golf, or asleep in our beds without knowing anything about it. Then, I suppose, we have the laugh over those who have tried and tried again and never rested till the end overtook them with so much they wanted to do still undone.