George.  I spent my valuable youth learning Greek and Latin, and I can’t speak or read either of them.  I know that Horace wrote odes, and Cicero made orations, but I can’t quote them.  All I remember about biology is that the fittest are supposed to survive, and in this war I’ve seen the fittest killed off like flies.  You’ve had several years of useful work in the Pindar Shops and the Wire Works, to say nothing of a course in biological chemistry, psychology and sociology under Dr. Jonathan.  I’ll leave it to him whether you don’t know more about life than I do—­about the life and problems of the great mass of people in this country.  And now that the strike’s over—­

Minnie.  The strike’s over!

George.  Yes.  I’ve chosen my life.  It isn’t going to be divided between a Wall Street office and Newport and Palm Beach.  A girl out of a finishing school wouldn’t be of any use to me.  I’m going to stay right here in Foxon Falls, Minnie, I’ve got a real job on my hands, and I need a real woman with special knowledge to help me.  I don’t mean to say we won’t have vacations, and we’ll sit down and get our education together.  Dr. Jonathan will be the schoolmaster.

Minnie.  It’s a dream, George.

George.  Well, Minnie, if it’s a dream worth dying for it’s a dream worth living for.  Your brother Bert died for it.

Curtain

PG EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

Economic freedom, without which political freedom is a farce
Flaming flag of a false martyrdom
It’s money that makes you free
Often times principles is nothing but pride
We can’t take Christianity too literally

A TRAVELLER IN WARTIME.

By Winston Churchill

PREFACE

I am reprinting here, in response to requests, certain recent experiences in Great Britain and France.  These were selected in the hope of conveying to American readers some idea of the atmosphere, of “what it is like” in these countries under the immediate shadow of the battle clouds.  It was what I myself most wished to know.  My idea was first to send home my impressions while they were fresh, and to refrain as far as possible from comment and judgment until I should have had time to make a fuller survey.  Hence I chose as a title for these articles,—­intended to be preliminary, “A Traveller in War-Time.”  I tried to banish from my mind all previous impressions gained from reading.  I wished to be free for the moment to accept and record the chance invitation or adventure, wherever met with, at the Front, in the streets of Paris, in Ireland, or on the London omnibus.  Later on, I hoped to write a book summarizing the changing social conditions as I had found them.

Unfortunately for me, my stay was unexpectedly cut short.  I was able to avail myself of but few of the many opportunities offered.  With this apology, the articles are presented as they were written.