5 APRIL 1940, Page 16

This, I feel, may be a lesson which in our

great crisis can be taught us by the grotesque silliness of our April cele- bration. When I was a child it was a delight to me to inform my nurse, on April 1st, that her petticoat was slipping down. She would make embarrassed but deft movements to correct such subsidence and I in delight would scream at her " April Fool!" (in itself a rude expression) " April Fool!" But since the day when I put away childish things I have felt that the humiliation of others conveys no lasting pleasure.

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