Chapter 8

CHAPTER THE THIRD

MALIGNITY

Section 1

And while the countryside of England changed steadily from its lax
pacific amenity to the likeness of a rather slovenly armed camp, while
long-fixed boundaries shifted and dissolved and a great irreparable
wasting of the world's resources gathered way, Mr. Britling did his duty
as a special constable, gave his eldest son to the Territorials,
entertained Belgians, petted his soldiers in the barn, helped Teddy to
his commission, contributed to war charities, sold out securities at a
loss and subscribed to the War Loan, and thought, thought endlessly
about the war.

He could think continuously day by day of nothing else. His mind was as
caught as a galley slave, as unable to escape from tugging at this oar.
All his universe was a magnetic field which oriented everything, whether
he would have it so or not, to this one polar question.

His thoughts grew firmer and clearer; they went deeper and wider. His
first superficial judgments were endorsed and deepened or replaced by
others. He thought along the lonely lanes at night; he thought at his
desk; he thought in bed; he thought in his bath; he tried over his
thoughts in essays and leading articles and reviewed them and corrected
them. Now and then came relaxation and lassitude, but never release. The
war towered over him like a vigilant teacher, day after day, week after
week, regardless of fatigue and impatience, holding a rod in its hand.

Section 2

Certain things had to be forced upon Mr. Britling because they jarred so
greatly with his habits of mind that he would never have accepted them
if he could have avoided doing so.

Notably he would not recognise at first the extreme bitterness of this
war. He would not believe that the attack upon Britain and Western
Europe generally expressed the concentrated emotion of a whole nation.
He thought that the Allies were in conflict with a system and not with a
national will. He fought against the persuasion that the whole mass of a
great civilised nation could be inspired by a genuine and sustained
hatred. Hostility was an uncongenial thing to him; he would not
recognise that the greater proportion of human beings are more readily
hostile than friendly. He did his best to believe--in his "And Now War
Ends" he did his best to make other people believe--that this war was
the perverse exploit of a small group of people, of limited but powerful
influences, an outrage upon the general geniality of mankind. The
cruelty, mischief, and futility of war were so obvious to him that he
was almost apologetic in asserting them. He believed that war had but to
begin and demonstrate its quality among the Western nations in order to