His whole opposition to the war rested on the limitations
and discomforts inflicted on his own life. It reminded her of
certain fragments of dialogue she had overheard in the winter, where
she had chanced to find herself alone in a railway carriage full of
a group of disaffected workmen returning from a strike meeting at
Leicester. 'If there are many like these, is the country worth
saving?' she was saying to herself all the time, in a dumb passion.
Yet, after all, those men had done months and years of labour for
the country. Saying 'I will not go!' they had yet gone. Without a
spark of high feeling or conscious self-sacrifice to ease their
toil, they had yet, week by week, made the guns and the shells which
had saved the armies of England. When this temporary outbreak was
over they would go back and make them again. And they were tired
men--sallow-faced, and bowed before their time.
But what had this whimsical, accomplished man before her ever done
for his country that he should rail like this? It was difficult
after a tiring day to keep scorn and dissent concealed.
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