TCD MS 11274/62 folio 4 recto
[28 February [1917]]
admit that but would you? I have come to think that it is all talk this ‘war for right’ ‘war in a good cause’ etc etc Nobody cares a straw what sort of a cause they have if a war is on then all those of patriotism, adventure, romance all will be ready to go and you will meet self sacrifice and carnage amongst all soldiers (en masse). This fact, (surely by now this must be recognised as a fact) makes all newspaper discussions & parliamentary debates ineffective for they always start off with a statement of how right we are and then somebody gets up and says “Good Lord you dont mean to pretend you went to war for so & so”. And then the first fellow says “Well youre a nice sort of a chap arent you? to be trying to run-down your country”. “And a damned good answer too” as the Colonel some where said but still it shows you cant have war & common-sense Poor B.Shaw as kindly a man as ever was probably got into terrible trouble for his articles “Commonsense about the war” and naturally offended many but he should have known that Commonsense and war are impossible to assimilate in the same state of thought. Might one not as well say “Mathematics & motherhood”? Im awfully sorry about poor James Stephens I do hope he will get better. The arrest of authors and writers in Dub-