* * * *
Mr. MacNeice was in County Antrim on that warm August night, and I in Cornwall. I walked down to the jetty through the cobbled street. From each cottage as we hurried down to the little harbour came the same well- bred voice intoning from its box. Like beads upon some necklace of woe the phrases were caught up from one lit blind to another. " — left by air this morning for an unknown destination "; " immediate conference of the Oslo Powers "; " called up several classes of reservists as a pre- cautionary measure "; " the House of Commons is to meet in special session on Thursday next "; " upon the frontier between Poland and Czecho-Slovakia." Even when we had reached the dinghy and rowed out across the star-strewn harbour that gentle monotone could still be heard. Yet through all my sadness was threaded the old sense of wonder. At that very moment the same words were being said in eight million lighted rooms ; the same sad glances were being exchanged ; at that same moment, in London as in Edinburgh, at Fowey as at Cushendun. *
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