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200 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1918
Dennis at all events would not give himself up to become part of the machinery of nations trying to prove which could stand the most blood-letting; machinery that organized the most murder of individuals by individuals who had no personal quarrel with each other.
Mr. Blackwood turned purple. "Your views are disgraceful, sir. Why, to hear you, anyone would think you were pro-Hun."
"I'm not pro-Hun any more than I'm pro-British. I'm not pro-anything that's driving millions of innocent people to slaughter and be slaughtered by each other. I'm for the first people who've got the courage to put down their arms and end the whole thing."
"Isn't this worth fighting for?"
Dennis smiled as he answered the question: "It's worth more than that; it's worth—not fighting for!"
We want more light, more breathing-space, more tolerance and understanding: not this narrow-minded wholesale condemnation and covering-up; this instinctive shuddering and turning away from a side of nature that, like every other side, has its right to a hearing, its right to open discussion."
However magnificently England may think to figure in the world's history after the war, the gross stupidity and cruelty of the way she has treated the genuine pacifists should stand as an eternal blot upon her honour."
They don't know the ghastliness of having to pretend to be as normal as they, and all the while to be stifling and suppressing the most vital side of yourself - the love-side.
Being in the minority doesn't imply being in the wrong.
There's such a lot to be done 'some day', isn't there?
"but I maintain that anything that puts itself outside the general rule and diverges too widely from the ordinary type, is an undesirable element, and should be barred out."
"That means that you'd bar out genius too, and lots of other fine qualities that only exist in the brains of people who are exceptions to the rule"
It was a shame that he should have to suffer so horribly from the consciousness of his abnormality while her own had never caused her the slightest uneasiness.