i8o IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



the bombs wrecked houses, killed the inhabitants 

 right and left, and generally messed things up. 

 This is sheer savagery, induced by the spirit of 

 retaliation and revenge. It isn't my normal self, 

 it is not the normal self of any of us. It is the self 

 released by war. But it never would have been 

 released by war if we who have better selves to con- 

 trol it had made wars impossible. I am at least 

 one-billionth part responsible for this war, and while 

 one-billionth is not a large fraction, the awful thing 

 to be divided is so vast that my guilt is considerable. 

 Wherein does it consist? How have I failed that 

 ideal of beauty, of harmony, of peace and happiness 

 which should be K and I often believe is, my guide? 



And it seems to me, as I turn the matter over here 

 in the stillness of the forest, that I have failed ex- 

 actly as hundreds of thousands of my fellow- 

 countrymen, and brothers overseas have failed — 

 through selfishness; personal selfishness first, na- 

 tional selfishness second, which is but an expanded 

 form of the personal variety. My woods, my gar- 

 den, my house, my books, my pictures, my comfort, 

 and the other fellow's only as it doesn't interfere 

 with mine — that has been the ugliness in my nat- 

 ure. I have not been ruthless, but only, no doubt, 

 for lack of opportunity. My sin is that I have not 

 worked for others, only for myself. Nationally, it 

 is our commerce, our industries, our prosperity, and 

 the other fellow's only as it doesn't interfere. We 

 have not thought and felt internationally simply 

 because we have never yet really thought and felt 

 inter-socially. For almost two thousand years we 

 have mumbled the phrases of such thought, but how 



