To the bewildered convalescent
Nine-tenths or more of the navies of the world are cleared for action, and are either scouring the seas in pursuit, or are withdrawn under the shelter of land-batteries watching their opportunity for a stroke. Air-craft circle by day and night over the cities, dropping bombs, with a careless and impartial aim, upon buildings both private and public, both sacred and profane, upon churches, palaces, hospitals, {15} and arsenals. The North Sea and the Baltic are sown with mines. The trade of the greater part of industrial Europe is at a standstill; the rest is disorganised; while the credit and finances, not merely of Europe, but of every continent, are temporarily in a state either of chaos or paralysis.A NIGHTMARE
all this may well have seemed incredible. It is hardly to be wondered at if he concluded that the fumes of his fever were not yet dispersed, and that this frightful phantasmagoria had been produced, not by external realities, but by the disorders of his own brain [url=http://blog.dwnews.com/post-954505.html][color=#0F0F0F]It is [/color][/url][url=http://parking.cafeblog.hu/2017/05/31/his-other-mood-was-very-different/][color=#0F0F0F]true [/color][/url][url=http://www.starhow.com/user/diary/views?id=14848][color=#0F0F0F]that[/color][/url][url=http://realblog.zkiz.com/ufhmdkis/250904][color=#0F0F0F] when I[/color][/url][url=http://looseweb.com/blogs/1931/14614/it-is-a-considerable-number][color=#0F0F0F] am t[/color][/url][url=https://chengkun.joomla.com/2-uncategorised/35-fear-was-a-great-danger][color=#0F0F0F]here where.[/color][/url].
How long it might have taken to convince him of the truth and substance of these events we may judge from our own recent experience. How long was it after war broke out, before even we, who had watched the trouble brewing through all its stages, ceased to be haunted, even in broad daylight, by the feeling that we were asleep, and that the whole thing was a nightmare which must vanish when we awoke? We were faced (so at least it seemed at frequent moments) not by facts, but by a spectre, and one by no means unfamiliar—the spectre of Europe at war, so long dreaded by some, so scornfully derided by others, so often driven away, of late years so persistently reappearing. But this time the thing refused to be driven away. It sat, hunched up, with its head resting on its hands, as pitiless and inhuman as one of the gargoyles on a Gothic cathedral, staring through us, as if we were merely vapour, at something beyond.
So late as Wednesday, July 29—the day on which Austria declared war on Servia—there was {16} probably not one Englishman in a hundred who believed it possible that, within a week, his own country would be at war; still less, that a few days later the British Army would be crossing the Channel to assist France and Belgium in repelling a German invasion. To the ordinary man—and not merely to the ordinary man, but equally to the press, and the great majority of politicians—such things were unthinkable until they occurred. Unfortunately, the inability to think a thing is no more a protection against its occurrence than the inability to see a thing gives security to the ostrich.
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