Thinking these not unpleasant thoughts I crept, with head lowered
against wind and rain, along the north side of Trafalgar Square The water poured in cascades from the roof of St. Martin's, and I splashed into puddles at the cross-streets. Huge forms loomed out at me from the darkness, reducing them- selves (in the dim orbit of my torch, now working again) into trim figures hurrying through the night. Outside the Strand Palace Hotel I heard Canadian voices calling to each other. " Where've you got to, Dick? I'm fair lost." I flashed my torch to guide them. The rain-drops glistened upon a laughing face. Yes, it was all right for them. Their summer was secure, their future boundless. But what about our own younger generation? What about the children of those whom my Labour friend had called " you people "? They also have tasted the amenities of life, they also have enjoyed their spring. Is their summer to be taken from them, and are they to become a minority conscious that they were born too late? "You people," "You people "—the words went round in my head as I splashed onwards. Was it
too much to hope that the Lord would temper the wind to these shorn lambs? Or are they doomed to miss the sweet lesson of how pleasant life can be? They have, it is true, no desire for the things which they will be unable to get. They have no wish to cross the oceans in gigantic liners or to eat caviare for tea. For them the old intricacies of class-distinctions are comic and outmoded. They do not want to be rich, and will surrender themselves contentedly to the mediocre, provided only that they can choose their friends. " But is this true? " I asked my- self as I fumbled through the wet ruins of the Temple. " Is it at all likely that when this war is over things will work them- selves out, as last time, in the old contented way? "
* * * *
Previous page
