heir cause that they've no time
or inclination to detest what thwarts them. We've no cause--only
negatives, and that means hatred, and self-torture, and a beastly
jaundice of soul.'

Then I knew that Wake's fault was not spiritual pride, as I had
diagnosed it at Biggleswick. The man was abased with humility.

'I see more than other people see,' he went on, 'and I feel more.
That's the curse on me. You're a happy man and you get things done,
because you only see one side of a case, one thing at a time. How would
you like it if a thousand strings were always tugging at you, if you
saw that every course meant the sacrifice of lovely and desirable
things, or even the shattering of what you know to be unreplaceable?
I'm the kind of stuff poets are made of, but I haven't the poet's gift,
so I stagger about the world left-handed and game-legged ... Take the
war. For me to fight would be worse than for another man to run away.
From the bottom of my heart I believe that it needn't have happened,
and that all war is a blistering iniquity. And yet belief has got very
little to do with virtue. I'm not as good a man as you, Hannay, who
have never thought out anything in your life. My time in the Labour
battalion taught me something. I knew that with all my fine aspirations
I wasn't as true a man as fellows whose talk was silly oaths and who
didn't care a tinker's curse about their soul.'

I remember that I looked at him with a sudden understanding. 'I think I
know you. You're the sort of chap who won't fight for his country
because he can't be sure that she's altogether in the right. But he'd
cheerfully die for her, right or wrong.'

His face relaxed in a slow smile. 'Queer that you should say that. I
think it's pretty near the truth. Men like me aren't afraid to die, but
they haven't quite the courage to live. Every man should be happy in a
service like you, when he obeys orders. I couldn't get on in any
service. I lack the bump of veneration. I can't swallow things merely
because I'm told to. My sort are always talking about "service", but we
haven't the temperament to serve. I'd give all I have to be an ordinary
cog in the wheel, instead of a confounded outsider who finds fault with
the machinery ... Take a great violent high-handed fellow like you. You
can sink yourself till you become only a name and a number. I couldn't
if I tried. I'm not sure if I want to either. I cling to the odds and
ends that are my own.'

'I wish