Commonplace Book

'...Well, he would soon have the nonsense knocked out of him. People said it was a good thing for a young fellow. "Being bullied at school did my son no harm," people said.

It was a good thing, was it, to have the nonsense knocked out of you? Was it, by God! It was a damned unholy thing. That way, the earth-bound way, lay mortal peril for the soul. Was it nonsense to dream of a better world, to live for a better world...'

from The "Lost Generation", a piece in Babes in the Wood by Michael Arlen