applicability
In reading Wells's educational romance Joan and Peter, I just ran across a passage that struck me:
If Peter took hold of the war by the one elemental fact that Belgium had been invaded most abominably and peaceful villagers murdered in their own fields, the young Germans on the other hand had been trained to a whole system of false interpretations. They were assured that they fought to break up a ring of threatening enemies. And that the whole thing was going to be the most magnificent adventure in history. Their minds had been prepared elaborately and persistently for this heroic struggle-in which they were to win easily.
I could not help thinking of the recent events in Israel, which of course Wells could have had no inkling of, but to which they seem, as Tolkien puts it, applicable.
If Peter took hold of the war by the one elemental fact that Belgium had been invaded most abominably and peaceful villagers murdered in their own fields, the young Germans on the other hand had been trained to a whole system of false interpretations. They were assured that they fought to break up a ring of threatening enemies. And that the whole thing was going to be the most magnificent adventure in history. Their minds had been prepared elaborately and persistently for this heroic struggle-in which they were to win easily.
I could not help thinking of the recent events in Israel, which of course Wells could have had no inkling of, but to which they seem, as Tolkien puts it, applicable.