" He thanks
God not because of the carnage, but because when the wine-press of new
ideals was being trodden, he was born in an age when he could do his
share.
America's going through just about the same experience as
myself. She's feeling broader in the chest, bigger in the heart and
her eyes are clearer. When she catches sight of the America that she
was, she's filled with doubt--she can't believe that that person with
the Stars and Stripes wrapped round her and a money-bag in either hand
ever was herself. Home, clean and honourable for every man who ever
loved her and has pledged his life for an ideal with the
Allies--that's what she's become now.
I read again the words that I wrote about those chaps in the London
hospital, men who had journeyed to their Calvary glad-hearted from the
farthest corners of the world. From this distance I see them in truer
perspective than when we lay companions side by side in that long line
of neat, white cots. I used to grope after ways to explain them--to
explain the courage which in their utter heroism they did not realise
they possessed. They had grown so accustomed to a brave way of living
that they sincerely believed they were quite ordinary persons. That's
courage at its finest--when it becomes unconscious and instinctive.
At first I said, "I know why they're so cheerful--it's because they're
all here in one ward together. They're all mutilated more or less, so
they don't feel that they're exceptional.
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