DOI article:
Grahame, Kenneth: Dies Iræ
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27811#0109
By Kenneth Grahame 10$
that this intolerable state of things must somehow cease. All
that I could do I had already done. As well-meaning a fellow as
ever stepped was pounding along the road that day, with an
exceeding sore heart ; one who only wished to live and let live,
in touch with his fellows, and appreciating what joys life had to
offer. What was wanted now was a complete change of environ-
ment. Somewhere in the world, I felt sure, justice and sympathy
still resided. There were places called pampas, for instance, that
sounded well. League upon league of grass, with just an occa-
sional wild horse, and not a relation within the horizon ! To a
bruised spirit this seemed a sane and a healing sort of existence.
There were other pleasant corners, again, where you dived for
pearls and stabbed sharks in the stomach with your big knife. No
relations would be likely to come interfering with you when thus
blissfully occupied. And yet I did not wish—just yet—to have
done with relations entirely. They should be made to feel their
position first, to see themselves as they really were, and to wish—
when it was too late—that they had behaved more properly.
Of all professions, the army seemed to lend itself the most
thoroughly to the scheme. You enlisted, you followed the drum,
you marched, fought, and ported arms, under strange skies,
through unrecorded years. At last, at long last, your opportunity
would come, when the horrors of war were flickering through the
quiet country-side where you were cradled and bred, but where
the memory of you had long been dim. Folk would run together,
clamorous, palsied with fear ; and among the terror-stricken
groups would figure certain aunts. " What hope is left us ? "
they would ask themselves, " save in the clemency of the General,
the mysterious, invincible General, of whom men tell such romantic
tales ? " And the army would march in, and the guns would
rattle and leap along the village street, and last of all you—you,
the
that this intolerable state of things must somehow cease. All
that I could do I had already done. As well-meaning a fellow as
ever stepped was pounding along the road that day, with an
exceeding sore heart ; one who only wished to live and let live,
in touch with his fellows, and appreciating what joys life had to
offer. What was wanted now was a complete change of environ-
ment. Somewhere in the world, I felt sure, justice and sympathy
still resided. There were places called pampas, for instance, that
sounded well. League upon league of grass, with just an occa-
sional wild horse, and not a relation within the horizon ! To a
bruised spirit this seemed a sane and a healing sort of existence.
There were other pleasant corners, again, where you dived for
pearls and stabbed sharks in the stomach with your big knife. No
relations would be likely to come interfering with you when thus
blissfully occupied. And yet I did not wish—just yet—to have
done with relations entirely. They should be made to feel their
position first, to see themselves as they really were, and to wish—
when it was too late—that they had behaved more properly.
Of all professions, the army seemed to lend itself the most
thoroughly to the scheme. You enlisted, you followed the drum,
you marched, fought, and ported arms, under strange skies,
through unrecorded years. At last, at long last, your opportunity
would come, when the horrors of war were flickering through the
quiet country-side where you were cradled and bred, but where
the memory of you had long been dim. Folk would run together,
clamorous, palsied with fear ; and among the terror-stricken
groups would figure certain aunts. " What hope is left us ? "
they would ask themselves, " save in the clemency of the General,
the mysterious, invincible General, of whom men tell such romantic
tales ? " And the army would march in, and the guns would
rattle and leap along the village street, and last of all you—you,
the