LONDON IN WAR-TIME

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 17, 15 October 1917, Page 7

LONDON IN WAR-TIME

"MORE TEDIUM' AND LESS BREAD THAN USUAL." "People from tho far ends of tlie-pW[ vinces sometime.-) talk as4hough. it rausi, be extraordinarily interesting to livo in London in what With air raids and tho coming and going of soldiers and its nearness to the fighting line, says the "New. Statesman." "They feel ihey are missing something if they do not. seo it in such historic circumstances. "Mr. E. V. Lucas, in ono of the essays ih 'Cloud and Silver,' relates an anecdote -which ive conlniend to all those who envy people who live in London in theso unusual days:— " 'Sam Lewie, tho money-lender, was, at-Monte Carlo, a regular liabituo of the Casino. Ono day he bade everyone farewell. "I shan't see you for a fortnight or so/' he said; "Xm off to Rome. "Rome?" they inquired in astonishment. "Yes, I'm told irs -wonderful." Two or three nights later he was back in his seat at the gambling table. "But what about Rome?" liis friends asked'. You can 'ave Home," said Sam.' "To all thoso who are jealous of our life in - war-time London we would say with equal heartiness: 'You can ave Jx)ndon/ We would not perhaps say it quia sincerely. We would not in some ways like to have entirely missed London. But thero is teally nothing in it except more tedium and less broad than US "Wo. farioy a truly, philosophical man would be strangely indifferent to wartime phenomena except in so far as his idealism or duty compelled him to *nka part in the "business. _ Wo do not suggest that he would remain au dessus de la melee in a cynical indifference, but that he would' not-force himself, into the porches of war ■ from vulgar curiosity* He would remain curious about nightingales and bees and mathematics. "The men in the trenches long for the return of peaoe, not altogether because of the perils of war, bat because tho things they used to have to do in peace time were much less dull than the things they have to do m,war-time, i.£ey have -no taste for the noise of explosions. They know that their whole being does not respond to such things as.lt does to the murmur of quiet waters flowing over stones or oven to the narsli voice of a. corncrake.'" Tho loudest explosion is at best a. sort of fatal accident; the appeal is entirely sensational "No experience that does not belong to tho heart and the imagination, as tho preachers would say, is worth losing an hour's peace of mind over."