OXFORD AND GERMANY
925
men's rooms and throw them into the river. But all we could any
of us do was create such a mental vacuum that all our actions seemed
even to ourselves affectation. My pictures, my love of poetry, my
socialism, all became empty gestures, and I think their "heartiness"
was equally empty.
It is probably true that many of my fellow undergraduates
knew more of the workers than I did, for I was terrified, and I found
it impossible to overcome my shyness even to the extent of going
alone into a pub. Nevertheless, outside the unreality of all our at–
titudes so long as we were at Oxford, there was a real difference be–
tween our points of view. They seriously believed in class differences
and in the inequality of man, even though they could be as little
embarrassed with the workers as with each other (they treated the
workers as "characters" of course). I seriously believed in the equality
of man and that there was no fundamental difference between human
beings which justified the existence of class barriers. They felt un–
embarrassed because they were confident in their own social position.
I was embarr.assed because I felt guilty.
My companions seriously believed that the workers were different
from themselves. They came from different stock, talked with a dif–
ferent accent, had a different position in life. One might tolerate
them, one should be kind to them, but they were different.
For my own part, I can never remember having any attitude
towards other human beings except that what they had in common
far exceeded their differences. Paradoxically, I think it was the
realization that each human being is alone which made me think that
all have so much in common. Every human being is born alone into
a world where he has been thrust without the asking. To him the
world is as new and unknown as an unexplored planet. Not only is
everyone condemned to live, but also to die. In this situation of
isolation within the conditions of
his
own existence, each one must
need the utmost consideration from his fellow beings for life to
be tolerable.
If
one considers that the world is a prison of prisoners
suffering a death sentence into which new prisoners are continually
being flung, and of which the warders are also prisoners, it seems
fantastic that each and every prisoner does not have the freedom of
the prison yard and cell. That everyone who wishes to do so should
not be free to move about and see the world in which he has been
