BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 8 SEPT. 1920
BRACERS 19700. AL. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

On the Mediterranean,1
8 Sp 1920

The sea is so calm that the stars are reflected in it. The ship moves so steadily that one is not awarea it is a ship.2 The passengers dance and sing, forgetting all thought of disaster. In the steerage crowds of yellow coolies think unintelligible thoughts, while sentries with fixed bayonets preserve us from assassination at their hands.

To me meanwhile come ghastly visions. Civilization has grown frivolous through divorce from instinct: the uncivilized have grown destructive through envy, and would rather that all should perish than that the pleasures of the fortunate should continue. Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome perished, in a doom of frivolity and destructive envy. It seems it is the turn of our civilization to go downb in the sunless depths over which we float so thoughtlessly. Everything turns to death — not least the efforts after new construction, which are thwarted by the thoughtless anger of those to whom the present moment is enough. We seem to have lost the power to build.

Probably the old world must die,c in an agony of war and starvation and aimless savagery. In the end there will be left a diminished race of men living on the soil, not trading with each other, staying strangers at sight. Life will be honest and stark once more, and the slow upward process will begin again as in the time of Charlemagne. But no wisdom will have been learnt; when men have again become liberated from the primitive needs of hunger, they will again seek to satisfy the frivolous impulses rather than the deep abiding instincts, and the deep instincts will take vengeance by bringing madness.

From time to time madness descends upon men from on high. Thousands of years ago, when the world was already old and weary, a Chinese Emperor loved a lady to whom the savour of life had grown stale. He tried every way to make her smile, but in vain. At last he found a way: he filled a lake with wine, drove his subjects into it — they drank, became intoxicated, and were drowned. I do not know what Power rules the world, but I think this Power — God or Devil — must resemble the Chinese Emperor,3 and be providing sport for his celestial or infernal concubine by the spectacle of our intoxication. Shall I drink and perish merrily? Or shall I remain sober and record the spectacle, for the still madder ages that are to come?

• 1

  [document] Document 200701. This is not a personal letter.

• 2

  ship  S.S. Porthos.

• 3

  a Chinese Emperor Emperor Jie (1818–1766 BC), the 17th and last Emperor of the Xia Dynasty.

Textual Notes

• a

  is not aware above deleted forgets

• b

  down before deleted to perish

• c

  die above deleted perish