The Pen and the Sword

“THE great book about the war has still to be written,” say those in whom the passion for classification takes the place of the capacity to think clearly. As if the whole truth about the war 0f 1914–1918 could be got into one book! As if there were some peculiar necessity to get it all into one book! No, we can safely leave “the great book about the war” to some Tolstoy of the future. The more important and interesting fact is that the literature of the war is already of considerable bulk and is rapidly being augmented. It is, I suggest, a fact of particular importance to all librarians. Would it not be a useful service to the causes of history and sociology to reserve in every library a corner for the literature that derives from the experiences of men during the four black years?