There's the magic call of the unknown experience, of dangers and
hardships. One wants to go. But unless some push comes one does not go.
There is a spell that keeps one to the lair and the old familiar ways.
Now I am afraid--and at the same time I feel that the spell is broken.
The magic prison is suddenly all doors. You may call this ruin,
bankruptcy, invasion, flight; they are doors out of habit and
routine.... I have been doing nothing for so long, except idle things
and discursive things."

"I thought that you managed to be happy here. You have done a lot of
work."

"Writing is recording, not living. But now I feel suddenly that we are
living intensely. It is as if the whole quality of life was changing.
There are such times. There are times when the spirit of life changes
altogether. The old world knew that better than we do. It made a
distinction between weekdays and Sabbaths, and between feasts and fasts
and days of devotion. That is just what has happened now. Week-day rules
must be put aside. Before--oh! three days ago, competition was fair, it
was fair and tolerable to get the best food one could and hold on to
one's own. But that isn't right now. War makes a Sabbath, and we shut
the shops. The banks are shut, and the world still feels as though
Sunday was keeping on...."

He saw his own way clear.

"The scale has altered. It does not matter now in the least if we are
ruined. It does not matter in the least if we have to live upon potatoes
and run into debt for our rent. These now are the most incidental of
things. A week ago they would have been of the first importance. Here we
are face to face with the greatest catastrophe and the greatest
opportunity in history. We have to plunge through catastrophe to
opportunity. There is nothing to be done now in the whole world except
to get the best out of this tremendous fusing up of all the settled
things of life." He had got what he wanted. He left her standing upon
the lawn and hurried back to his desk....

Section 6

When Mr. Britling, after a strenuous morning among high ideals,
descended for lunch, he found Mr. Lawrence Carmine had come over to join
him at that meal. Mr. Carmine was standing in the hall with his legs
very wide apart reading _The Times_ for the fourth time. "I can do no
work," he said, turning round. "I can't fix my mind. I suppose we are
going to war. I'd got so used to the war with Germany that I never
imagined it would happen. Gods