Commonplace Book

'...That was why the sudden plight of war wrought such havoc. One part of "second nature" refused to take it in: would not bend to it and therefore often snapped. Only the deepest part of second nature admitted it, perhaps had been waiting for it, knew it of old as that IT which John tried vainly to see in terms of Hamburg clerks with wives, velocity of metal, flesh wound or painless death, but which remained IT, as vivid as though painted on the faces of the men in grey - not with the obliteration and night camouflage of modern burnt cork, but the bright leer and circle eyes and nodding head of the witch doctor's mask. IT under the whispering shells and the wobbling demoniac dancing shadows from a green flare falling at an indeterminable spot in an unknown land. "IT" was familiar as an old dream.'

from A Share of the World by Hugo Charteris (Part One, Chapter 12)