They may even be suffering quite
terribly by it. But they are no more mastering its causes, reasons,
conditions, and the possibility of its future prevention than a monkey
that has been rescued in a scorching condition from the burning of a
house will have mastered the problem of a fire. It is just happening to
and about them. It may, for anything they have learnt about it, happen
to them again.
A vast majority of people are being swamped by the spectacular side of
the business. It was very largely my fear of being so swamped myself
that made me reluctant to go as a spectator to the front. I knew that my
chances of being hit by a bullet were infinitesimal, but I was extremely
afraid of being hit by some too vivid impression. I was afraid that I
might see some horribly wounded man or some decayed dead body that would
so scar my memory and stamp such horror into me as to reduce me to a
mere useless, gibbering, stop-the-war-at-any-price pacifist. Years ago
my mind was once darkened very badly for some weeks with a kind of fear
and distrust of life through a sudden unexpected encounter one tranquil
evening with a drowned body. But in this journey in Italy and France,
although I have had glimpses of much death and seen many wounded men,
I have had no really horrible impressions at all. That side of the
business has, I think, been overwritten.
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