Evening star., 1941-07-28
British Will TO Live and Contempt
For Enemy Called Their Best Weapon

. wv W f~'
ters that a dolls hospital had
moved to another street. The
firm intention to continue to
patch up dollies was absurd. but
in that absurdity was the will to
live.
I watched faces, looking hum
grily for confirmation, looking
bravely for repudiation. People
walked briskly past. Girls with
stout legs, men bent on their
business. They ignored the ruins.
They did not avert their eyes
from them; they overlooked
them.
Rather grim" was the only
comment of my companions. And
then our car swept off into rural
England, into the eternal, be-
loved landscape of cumulus
clouds in the ever-changing
English sky, browsing cattle,
thrifty haycocks that combed and
brushed and lovingly tended the
land-a shy country, gentle and
retreating.
Boys and girls peddled bicycles
on the road and soldiers passed,
walking and on bikes. They did
not look quite like soldiers. They
were too casual, too at ease. Yet
I had the feeling that they were
watching, that every one was
watching in an unostentatious
way as though unwilling to pay
too great a tribute to the enemy,
who was dangerous, but still con-
temptible.
L have $50 sulphur bombs sunk
in my lily pond" I heard some
one say. They don't disturb the
lilies. just for the moment they
invade
Slow but Assured.
as this wartime?" I thought
in the pub, with its dark, beamed
ceiling, its faded cretonnes, it's
flletS of fish and its beer. 1t
was dark when we came to Lon
don. The driver proceeded Slow
lv but surely, as one walks
through rooms of ones own house
when the lights have gone out.
The sky was wanly gray. There
was no moon. Only as my eyes
became accustomed could I see
that l was moving among ruins
by the ghostly outlines of gaping
walls, by the vague contours of a
broken arch, by the sightless eyes
of building that was all front
and no rear, and the sky gray
ing through it.
But the porter at the desk
took my name and gave me mes
Sages as he did in other days
before all this began. A little
more warmth and friendliness to
those who come from beyond the
fortress, from that other world,
that other world of people who
DO not know. And then the next
day and the next.
Why was it that I should feel
so comforted, so secure, so safe
IN this heart, that has become
the heart of the world? Perhaps
the enemy will come over again
and drop destruction and twist
form into chaos. Still I should
feel safe. l should feel safe be-
cause I have found what Walt
Whitman described as "a city
invincible to the attacks of the
whole of the rest OF the earth
-. the new city of friends"
I have not seen a sullen face
nor heard any angry word since
my arrival in England. Out of
what depths I wonder do these
people draw upon inexhaustible
reserves of nerves? There Is no
stridency, no clamor in the peo-
pie. Nobody brags, but every
body is proud in secret way.
That Is it.
These people have a seeret-a
secret understanding. l think,
each with the other. An un-
spoken love affair with England.
AS man has no fear when he
fights to protect his love so these
people, loving, have utterly lost
fear.
One has a curious feeling Of
envy. Every one is terribly kind
too kind. Still one is an out
slider. There is something these
people have in common that
cannot share. 1t is to have looked
reality full in the face and to
have ceased to be afraid.
That, I think, is what 1t means
TO be free.
Do not try to break these peo-
pie, Germans. You will do more
than break your weapons. You
will break your hearts.
tReleased by the Bell Syndicate, Incl