WAR NOT A PICNIC.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLII, Issue 12828, 22 April 1916, Page 3

WAR NOT A PICNIC.

Professor Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, i" "The Cambridge Magazine," writes of the war: — , . "Our new poets scarcely touch on this beastly war, as it seems to me, for tins sufficient reason that it is beastly. 1 don't'know if readers of "The Cambridge .Magazine" will agree, but I, for one, have no use at all for patriotic lyricism in this business. . . "When it is over., indeed, no words shall be too solemn, as no thoughts can be too sad and holy, for the young who so blithelv accepted their fate and went out to suffer and die for us all.. Their recollected laughter is the noblest song we shall hear in.our time. But the lads known to me, of all ranks, went off nursin" no such pretty, romantic, bloodthirsty illusions about war as seem to be clung to by some of their elders at home. . j I only know, i ! That as he turned to go And waved his hand, ' . | In his voung eyes a sudden glory sJione. —Yes; but it".was'the glory of gay sacrifice, not of gay ambition. In fact (pace Professor Ridgeway) the youth of France and England had found' war out even before this inferno started. They have had to accept it as the alternative to. the ruination of better things; but' I shall be surprised if they come back with any high opinion of war for war's sake—war as a 'purifier,' 'degeneracy's antiseptic," 'toughener of the moral fibre'—or, indeed, are not impatient of all the maudlin disguises under which our pulpiteers and journalists present it. "The stuffing had oozed out of that idol some while before August, 1914, and, since poetry is not concerned with rubbish. I respect these young poets for spurning it and occupying themselves with things o:" permanent value."