Chapter II

Life is a continual passage from one illusion to another. No sooner has the eager volunteer found out that the desire to help is apt to be treated as evidence of a criminal disposition, and that war-work is as shy as deer in the depths of a forest--no sooner has he or she discovered these things than yet another discovery destroys yet another illusion. The war-work when brought to bay and caught is not the right kind of war-work. You--for I may as well admit that I am talking direct to the eager volunteer--you had expected something else. This war-work that presents itself is either beneath your powers, or it is beyond your powers; or it is unsuited to your individuality or to your social station or to your health or to your hands or feet. You can scarcely say what you had expected, but at any rate ... I will tell you what you had expected. You had expected the ideal--work that showed you at your best, picturesque work, interesting work, work free from monotony, work of which you could see the immediate beautiful results, work which taxed you without overtaxing you, really important work without the moral risks attaching to real responsibility. Such was the work you had expected, and the chances are ten to one that the work you have actually got is dull, monotonous, apparently futile; any fool could do it, though it is exhausting and inconvenient. Or, on the other hand, it is, while dull and monotonous, too exacting for a well-intentioned mediocre brain like yours (you don’t actually mean that, but you try to be modest)--in short it is not suitable work.

Axiom: There is not enough suitable work to go round, nor the thousandth part of what would be enough. Unsuitableness is a characteristic of nearly all war-work. Lowering your great powers down, or forcing your little powers up, to the level of the work offered--this, too, is part of war-work.