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also military mutinies all over the place as soon as the fighting stopped.
This time nothing of the kind has happened, but neither has there been
anything like the insane enthusiasm of 1914, which I am old enough to
remember, nor has hatred of the enemy gone to the same lengths. This
time people haven't-except in the columns of the newspapers-referred
to the Germans as Huns, they haven't looted German shops or lynched
so-called spies in Hyde Park, and children's papers haven't been deco–
rated with pictures of Germans wearing the faces of pigs : but on the
other hand there has been less protest against the proposals-to dismem–
ber Germany, make use; of forced labor, etc., than there was against the
Versailles settlement. Considering what has happened in Europe, I think
it is worth noticing that almost no English people have changed sides
in this war. At most a few dozen individuals, mostly witl1 a prewar
Fascist history, have quislingized. Towards the end of the war literally
hundreds of thousands of Russians, Poles, Czechs and what-not were
fighting for the Germans or serving in the Todt organization, but no
British or Americans at all. It is the same with the development, or
rather lack of development, on the home front . Never would I have
prophesied that we could go through nearly six years of war without
arriving at either Socialism or Fascism, and with our civil liberties al–
most intact. I don't know whether this semi-anaesthesia in which the
British people contrive to live is a sign of decadence, as many observers
believe, or whether on the other hand it is a kind of instinctive wisdom.
It may well be that it is the best attitude when you live among endless
horrors and calamities which you are powerless to prevent. Possibly we
shall all have to develop it if war becomes continuous, which seems to
me a likely development in the fairly near future.
I understand that with the ending o£ the war you are rearranging
your foreign contributions, so this will be my last letter in this particular
series, which started over four years ago. It doesn't seem worth making
any winding-up remarks, since I did something of the kind in your
last issue but one. I would merely like to finish up by telling you and
your readers how much I have enjoyed writing these letters. In among
the lunatic activities on which I have wasted the war years, they have
given me a wonderful feeling of getting my nose above water. And
finally, I think you all will agree that a word of praise is due to the cen–
sorship department, which has let these letters through with remarkably
little interference. All the best.
GEORGE ORWELL
(Mr. Orwell's London Letter will appear in every third issue of
PARTISAN REVIEW as part of a series of letters from several European
capitals. From time to time Mr. Orwell will also contribute special ar–
ticles to the magazine.)
