TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

becoming less irrational and exasperated. And I told
mysdf that if I wasn't careful I should go from bad
to worse, realizing that the sun had been shining in.
at the window all the afternoon and I'd been lying
there tearing myself to pieces and feeling miserable
and frustrated. I suppose my nerves really are a bit
rotten, I thought, lighting my pipe and trying to be
sensible. But I was still worried by feeling so inglori-
ous, f was nearly thirty-two and nothing that I'd
done seenftd to have been any good. There was some
consolation in the feeling that one wasn't as old as
one's age, but when I tried to think about the future
I found that I couldn't see it. There was no future
except "the rest of the War", and I didn't want that.
My knight-errantry about the War had fizzled out in
more ways than one, and I couldn't go back to being
the same as I was before it started. The "good old
days" had been pleasant enough in their way, but
what could a repetition of them possibly lead to?

How could I begin my life all over again when I
had no conviction about anything except that- the
War was a dirty trick which had been played on me
and my generation? That, at any rate, was some-
thing to be angry and bitter about now that every-
thing had fallen to pieces and one's #iind was in a
muddle and one's nerves were all on^edge.

Yes; my mind was in a muddle; andit seemed that
I had learned but one thing from being a soldier—
that if we continue to accept war as a social institu-
tion we must also recognize that the Prussian system
is the best, and Prussian militarism must be taught to
children in schools. They must be taught to offer their
finest instincts for exploitation by the unpitying
machinery of scientific warfare. And they must not
be allowed to ask why they are doing it.

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