But this night even this circle of lamplight would not hold his mind.  Doubt had crept into this last fastness.  He pulled the papers towards him, and turned over the portion he had planned.

His purpose in the book he was beginning to write was to reason out the possible methods of government that would give a stabler, saner control to the world.  He believed still in democracy, but he was realising more and more that democracy had yet to discover its method.  It had to take hold of the consciences of men, it had to equip itself with still unformed organisations.  Endless years of patient thinking, of experimenting, of discussion lay before mankind ere this great idea could become reality, and right, the proven right thing, could rule the earth.

Meanwhile the world must still remain a scene of blood-stained melodrama, of deafening noise, contagious follies, vast irrational destructions.  One fine life after another went down from study and university and laboratory to be slain and silenced....

Was it conceivable that this mad monster of mankind would ever be caught and held in the thin-spun webs of thought?

Was it, after all, anything but pretension and folly for a man to work out plans for the better government of the world?—­was it any better than the ambitious scheming of some fly upon the wheel of the romantic gods?

Man has come, floundering and wounding and suffering, out of the breeding darknesses of Time, that will presently crush and consume him again.  Why not flounder with the rest, why not eat, drink, fight, scream, weep and pray, forget Hugh, stop brooding upon Hugh, banish all these priggish dreams of “The Better Government of the World,” and turn to the brighter aspects, the funny and adventurous aspects of the war, the Chestertonian jolliness, Punch side of things?  Think you because your sons are dead that there will be no more cakes and ale?  Let mankind blunder out of the mud and blood as mankind has blundered in....

Let us at any rate keep our precious Sense of Humour....

He pulled his manuscript towards him.  For a time he sat decorating the lettering of his title, “The Better Government of the World,” with little grinning gnomes’ heads and waggish tails....

Section 3

On the top of Mr. Britling’s desk, beside the clock, lay a letter, written in clumsy English and with its envelope resealed by a label which testified that it had been “OPENED BY CENSOR.”

The friendly go-between in Norway had written to tell Mr. Britling that Herr Heinrich also was dead; he had died a wounded prisoner in Russia some months ago.  He had been wounded and captured, after undergoing great hardships, during the great Russian attack upon the passes of the Carpathians in the early spring, and his wound had mortified.  He had recovered partially for a time, and then he had been beaten and injured again in some struggle between German and Croatian prisoners, and he had sickened and died.  Before he died he had written to his parents, and once again he had asked that the fiddle he had left in Mr. Britling’s care should if possible be returned to them.  It was manifest that both for him and them now it had become a symbol with many associations.