Thus, to escape from the prevailing confusion and folly,
it was not enough to seek the company of the ordinary man of
action: one had to get into contact with the master spirits. This
was a privilege which only a handful of people could enjoy. For
the unprivileged citizen there was no escape. To him the whole
country seemed mad, futile, silly, incompetent, with no hope of
victory except the hope that the enemy might be just as mad. Only
by very resolute reflection and reasoning could he reassure
himself that if there was nothing more solid beneath their
appalling appearances the war could not possibly have gone on for
a single day without a total breakdown of its organization.
The Mad Election
Happy were the fools and the thoughtless men of action in those
days. The worst of it was that the fools were very strongly
represented in parliament, as fools not only elect fools, but can
persuade men of action to elect them too. The election that
immediately followed the armistice was perhaps the maddest that
has ever taken place. Soldiers who had done voluntary and heroic
service in the field were defeated by persons who had apparently
never run a risk or spent a farthing that they could avoid, and
who even had in the course of the election to apologize publicly
for bawling Pacifist or Pro-German at their opponent.
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