I want to know who all the folks were,
what they looked like, what they cared about or thought about, how
they made terms with pain and death, what they hoped, expected,
feared, and what has become of them. Everyone as urgently and
vehemently and interestedly alive as I myself, and yet none of them
with the slightest idea of how they got there or whither they were
going--the great, helpless, good-natured, passive army of men and
women, pouring like a stream through the world, and borne away on
the wings of the wind. They were glad to be alive, no doubt, when
the sun fell on the apple-orchard, and the scent of the fruit was
in the air, and the bees hummed round the blossoms, when people
smile at each other and say kind and meaningless things; they were
afraid, no doubt, as they lay in pain in the stuffy attics, with
the night wind blustering round the chimney-stack, and hoped to be
well again. Then there were occasions and treats, the Sunday
dinner, the wedding, the ride in the farm-cart to Cambridge, the
visit of the married sister from her home close by. I do not
suppose they knew or cared what was happening in the world. War and
politics made little difference to them. They knew about the
weather, they cared perhaps about their work, they liked the Sunday
holiday--all very dim and simple, thoughts not expressed, feelings
not uttered, experience summed up in little bits of phrases. Yet I
like to think that they were pleased with the look of the place
without knowing why.
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