But it
is the whole hypothesis of war, it is its very nature and first principle,
that the man in the trench is almost as much a suffering and abnormal
person as the man in the hospital. Hit or unhit, conqueror or conquered,
he is, by nature of the case, having less pleasure than is proper and
natural to a man.
Fourth (for I need not dwell here on the mere diabolical idiocy that can
regard beer or tobacco as in some way evil and unseemly in themselves),
there is the most important element in this strange outbreak; at least,
the most dangerous and the most important for us. There is that main
feature in the degradation of the old middle class: the utter
disappearance of its old appetite for liberty. Here there is no question
of whether the men are to smoke cigarettes, or the women choose to send
cigarettes, or even that the officers or doctors choose to allow
cigarettes. The thing is to cease, and we may note one of the most
recurrent ideas of the servile State: it is mentioned in the passive mood.
It must be stopped, and we must not even ask who has stopped it!
THE TYRANNY OF BAD JOURNALISM
The amazing decision of the Government to employ methods quite alien to
England, and rather belonging to the police of the Continent, probably
arises from the appearance of papers which are lucid and fighting, like
the papers of the Continent.
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