Chapter 2

If some uncomplex minded and even moderately articulate man or woman,
living in some small, ordinary respectable London house and going about
his or her work in the customary way, had been prompted by chance upon
June 29th, 1914, to begin to keep on that date a day-by-day diary of his
or her ordinary life, the effects of huge historic events, as revealed
by the every-day incidents to be noted in the streets, to be heard in
his neighbours' houses as well as among his fellow workers, to be read
in the penny or half-penny newspapers, would have resulted--if the
record had been kept faithfully and without any self-conscious sense of
audience--between 1914 and 1918 in the gradual compiling of a human
document of immense historical value. Compared with it, the diaries of
Defoe and Pepys would pale and be flavourless. But it must have been
begun in June, 1914, and have been written with the casualness of that
commonplace realism which is the most convincing realism of all. It is
true that the expression of the uncomplex mind is infrequently
articulate, but the record which would bring home the clearest truth
would be the one unpremeditatedly depicting the effect produced upon the
wholly unprepared and undramatic personality by the monstrous drama, as
the Second Deluge rose for its apparent overwhelming, carrying upon its
flood old civilisations broken from anchor and half submerged as they
tossed on the rising and raging waves. Such a priceless treasure as
this might have been the quite unliterary and unromantic diary of
any--say, Mr. James Simpson of any house number in any respectable side
street in Regents Park, or St. Johns Wood or Hampstead. One can easily
imagine him, sitting in his small, comfortable parlour and bending over
his blotting-pad in unilluminated cheerful absorption after his day's
work. It can also without any special intellectual effort be imagined
that the record might have begun with some such seemingly unprophetic
entry as follows:--

"June 29th, 1914. I made up my mind when I was at the office to-day that
I would begin to keep a diary. I have thought several times that I
would, and Harriet thinks it would be a good thing because we should
have it to refer to when there was any little dispute about dates and
things that have happened. To-night seemed a good time because there is
something to begin the first entry with. Harriet and I spent part of the
evening in reading the newspaper accounts of the assassination of the
Austrian Archduke and his wife. There seems to be a good deal of
excitement about it because he was the next heir to the Austrian throne.
The assassination occurred in Bosnia at a place called Sarajevo.
Crawshaw, whose desk is next to mine in the office, believes it will