Chapter V

When you have proved that in war-work you are a decent human being--and you will prove this by sticking to the work long after you are weary of it, and by refusing to fly off to something else because it promises to be more diverting and less annoying than your present job--then you will part company with the war-workers’ last illusion. Namely, the illusion that her efforts will meet with gratitude. Gratitude is going to be an extremely rare commodity, and it is not a very good thing to receive, anyhow. You see, there will be so few people with leisure to devote to gratitude. Everybody is or will be war-working. Even soldiers and sailors are doing something for the war, though to listen to some civilians one would suppose the military side of war to be relatively quite unimportant. No! Gratitude will not choke the market. On the contrary, criticism will be rife, for we are all experts in war-work. The highest hope of the average war-worker must be to escape censure. Official food-controllers, who are possibly the supreme type of war-worker, are thankful if they escape with their heads. And herein is a great lesson.

Axiom: The reward of war-work will be in the treaty of peace.

THE DIARY HABIT

THE DIARY HABIT