WAR AND HAPPINESS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2663, 7 January 1916, Page 6

WAR AND HAPPINESS

BY H. HAMILTON FYFE (Special Correspondent of tho "Daily Mail" in Russia.) Petrograd. I. Tin's theme was suggested to mo by a Russian soldier whom I saw a few days ago in one of the public gardens. His arm was bandaged, and he carried it in a sling, but he walked as if the world belonged to him. On his breast were two medals and two crosses. In the Russian Army, you must understand, a man can win many decorations. There arc different grades of different orders: and sometimes the same cross or medal appears to be awarded for repeated acts of bravery. This good fellow sat down upon a seat, jnd, with the aid of a friend who knows far more Russian than I do, I talked to- him a while. "You seem cheerful, brother." "Cheerful indeed I am. Why not?"

"Does your wound pain you?" "That gives me 110 trouble." "Is it comfortable in tho 'lazaret' (hospital) ?" "It is very comfortable;. I live there like a prince. I have a bed to myßelf. In the village wo all slept on. tho top of the stove together: And, do you know, I take off my clothes at night, and only wear a shirt. Not the same shirt as in the daytime—oh, 110, a different shirt. In the village that will make them open their eyes." "Did it grieve you to leave the village, brother?" "It grieved my father and mother at parting, but I had a crucifix round my neck, blessed by the priest. They knew I should not be killed. I was glad to see tho world. AVlien lam old I shall live in the village and be content, but when a man is young he should use his legs and his eyes. He should meet with many other young men, and exercise his wits and his strength against theirs. Now I shall stay and work in the city. That coukf neve rhave happened to mo but for the war." "You may have to go back when your wounds heal." "No, no; that cannot be. My arm will bo stiff. But what of that? A man with a stiff arm is a man for all that. Now I must return to the 'lazaret.' I have a good supper waiting for me there and as many glasses of tea as I want." "Good night, then, brother. God be with you. Here's something for cigarettes." Then off he went, still owning the earth, and my friend and I looked at each other and agreed that there must be many more like him.

Russian soldiers are most of them happy so long as they' are occupied. Even in the long, dragging hours of trench warfare they sit or lie about contentedly enough, gossiping, spelling out old newspapers,- listening to a fairytale (I bought a book of "Tales That Soldiers Tell," and they were all fairy stories), or even doiiig nothing at all. But this cannot be called active happiness It is a negative rather than a positive state. One conies examples, though, of the positive conditions. Ihere is a young "praporstchik" I know —"praporstchiks' are ensigns, volunteers who have been given commissions, and who arc apt to bo both overworked and un-der-valued by the regular officers. This young man had lived the usual life of the capital,, getting up very late in tlie morning, spending the ' day doing nothing in particular, taking a great interest ill food, drinking too _ much vodka and sweet champagne, sitting up very, late-either in night restaurants or in talk with friends—talk on the great issues of life and death (for almost any Russian young man will with equal readiness get- drunk or stay uj) all night discussing the Meaning of Things), but talk which led to nothiug; talk which lie now despises as a mere froth of words. . He lias learnt in war what Things really do Mean. . Ho lias discovered more about life and death than would have been revealed to-him in a million years of plirase-making about them. ' "I never know . before," lie says, "what a splendid feeling it gives one to have all one's faculties alert, all the energy of mind and body directed to one aim. I had never done anything before which really mattered. If I had died before tliis experience came to me I should not have been alive at all." He lias changed in appearance, so bis friends say. His eye is brighter, his jaw firmer; his cheeks have a war glowin them under the clear skill. He has learnt for the first time what it is to be hungry and tired, to eat the plainest food with enjoyment and to sleep soundly on the hardest bed—often the earth; often a bare, woden floor. Life reduced to its simpler elements has brought him health and happiness. 111. Englishmen bavo no need to learn

this lesson from war. Yet many of uiern also have found in it happiness unknown to them hitherto. I had a letter the other day from one who was in peace time an Oxford don. . J. am strangely satisfied with my new nnvnu" 06 / h l 6 WrotG ' "Although the no\e!ty has long worn off I en jov my W ' th a Ze , S , fc wbidl certainly T not OC,;u Py my old ones. In peace W ™ doing, for the most part, tiresome and trivial things, which nevertheless had a worthy end. Now mv daily tasks are charged with interest and meaning. I can see exactly the iim at- which they are directed, anii measure thei progress made towards it. Onlv now and again do I stop to consider what that aim is, and even then I d 0 not cease to enjoy them," There are thousands of our soldiers wnose work in peace was less varied and interesting than that of my friend tho don, drudgery day after day in factories or olfaces, tending machines, adding -up figures, calculating costs, following some dreary, lifeless routine. Think of tho happiness to them of life in the open, work which makes the muscles firm and tlie digestion regular, meals with the ■sauce of appetite and good-fellowship, danger, that tests the nerves, chances of showing skill, of winning distinction.

U ar is the most intense form of reality with which most of us can ever become familiar- 1 mean "real" in the sense of being opposed to the artificiality of politics, of nearly all pro fesn al life, of a great deal of bus ii» oss life, of ninetenths _of everything with which people 111 a highly civilisod and industrialised community occupy themselves. 11 ar strips existence to the buff. It provides the thrills and emotions which iiave been almost entirely smoothed out or our community existence. It quickens .our sense of comradesliip, 0 f the dependence of man on man. It levcP Ule " wearer t0 a common Even women enjoy vividly the feeling that their war activities are more worthy while than anything they have done before. 0110 of the gentlest and Kindliest of the nurses whom I have come across during this war told me she had never been so much alive, never been so glad to be alive, as when sho was working at the front under painful and even dangerous conditions. All sympathies, all energies are raised by active service" to their fullest power. 'Tor the first time," another Oxford friend writes to me, "we find all our activities flowing into one channel, fused into a white heat of energy for the accomplishment of a great end". To adopt a hackneyed but in this connection a useful phrase, there ceases to bo so much Ego in our Cosmos. We are lifted out of the bonds of personality on to a plan where we seem to exist and labour as part of a vast movement, much as the trees in a forest might teel, all growing together in unison to produce a harmonious effect, not 0110 thinking about its own particular growth. It js only when-we cttise to be selfconscious, when we.can "stand out of our own light," that we can be truly happy. .This is the essence of what I mean by the happiness of war.