October 19th 1939

Oct 19th Thursday

We, i.e. the allies, won a spanking diplomatic victory over Germany and Russia in completing, today, a tripartite agreement with Turkey*. Nothing has served to seduce the Turks from their promise to Britain and France – a pleasing little commentary upon the ability of European states (so called civilised) to keep faith.

Our own little ration effort came to an end with the record output of 18,000 books filled in and docketed in less than 4 days. I think we were all sorry. Something like that helps one to keep one's grip.

I believe it is not so much that the war has changed such a great deal in our lives that gives a feeling of instability and unreality, as that it has left so much unchanged.

After the first wild whirling weeks, we have settled down. We go about our ordinary work, we go out to tea, to the pictures, or shopping, and it is easily possible to forget, so vitiating is the continuity. So much does serve as an anodyne. 

Looking forward at the horrid face of war - a dim-discovered monster looming before us - the sight was unbearable. But perhaps now that it has thrown its shadow over us, so complete is the darkness, that we cannot even see its hideous face. And I think, looking back, we shall imagine that we felt sentiments and emotions that we were really too numbed to feel, because then we shall be sure that if we didn’t feel them, we ought to have done.

“Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo”**: the stringing up, the tension of war doesn’t last all the time.

*See the detail in Hansard on 19th October 1939
**"Nor does Apollo always keep his bow drawn" - Horace, Carmina (Odes) 2/10:19-20.