23 FEBRUARY 1940, page 15

People And Things

By HAROLD NICOLSON S LEEPING in Sussex the other night I was aroused at dawn by the sound of a bugle, and in the field across the road I could see men in battle-dress hurrying......

Especially Noticeable Are These Tides Or Waves In Matters Of

sex. Oxford seems to undergo rhythmic variations between puritanisni and profligacy every ten years. The truly startling levity of the period between 1890 and 1900 was followed......

And How Transitional, In Truth, Are These Fashions In Feel-

ing. For the last thirty years I have constantly revisited Oxford and have invariably been astonished by the con- tinuity of types. Gazing down from high table upon the......

I Am Amazed By The Acquiescence Of This Generation. Yet

were the young men of 1914 so very different? Was there really so much faith and fire about us? I do not recollect that the men who marched away in the autumn dawns of 1914 were......

What Do These Young Men Think About When They Stand

there looking out upon the snow falling? Is there any faith within them or any fire? Or is it just a dumb acceptance of the snow falling, and the interminable sound of boots......

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What are they thinking of, these men, as they crunch along the English lanes or kick their heavy boots against the door-step of their billets, jerking of the snow which has......

And Then There Is A Difference In What We Used

to call " patriotism." In 1914 there may have been as many or as few disloyal people as there are today; but the loyal people who constituted the vast majority were all loyal to......