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XXX

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

I sometimes wonder whether you think you have been sent into the world for your own aather, not from your miserably inadequate report but from that of the Infernal Police, that the patient’s behaviour during the first raid has been the worst possible He has been very frightened and thinks hireat coward and therefore feels no pride; but he has done everything his duty deainst this disaster all you can produce on the credit side is a burst of ill tearette s of a prayer What is the use of whining toon the Ene that your opportunities and intentions should be taken into account, then I aainst you At any rate, you will soon find that the justice of Hell is purely realistic, and concerned only with results Bring us back food, or be food yourself

The only constructive passage in your letter is where you say that you still expect good results froh But it won’t fall into your hands Fatigue can produce extre like vision If you have often seen er, malice and impatience, that is because thoseis that ue is a better soil for peevishness than absolute exhaustion This depends partly on physical causes, but partly on soue sier, but unexpected demands on a man already tired Whatever ht to: the sense of disappointment can, with very little skill on our part, be turned into a sense of injury It is after iven in to the irremediable, after they have despaired of relief and ceased to think even a half-hour ahead, that the dangers of huin To produce the best results froue, therefore, you must feed him with false hopes Put into histhat the air-raid will not be repeated Keep hiht of how erate the weariness byhim think it will soon be over; for er at the veryIn this, as in the proble to avoid is the total commitment Whatever he says, let his inner resolution be not to bear whatever comes to him, but to bear it "for a reasonable period" - and let the reasonable period be shorter than the trial is likely to last It need not be much shorter; in attacks on patience, chastity, and fortitude, the fun is to make the man yield just when (had he but known it) relief was alht

I do not knohether he is likely to irl under conditions of strain or not If he does, ue makes women talk more and men talk less Much secret resentment, even between lovers, can be raised fro will not provide material for an intellectual attack on his faith - your previous failures have put that out of your power But there is a sort of attack on the e him feel, when first he sees human remains plastered on a wall, that this is "what the world is really like" and that all his religion has been a fantasy You will

notice that we have got the of the word "real"’ They tell each other, of soreat spiritual experience, "All that really happened was that you heard so"; here "Real" means the bare physical facts, separated from the other elements in the experience they actually had On the other hand, they will also say "It’s all very well discussing that high dive as you sit here in an aret up there and see what it’s really like": here "real" is being used in the opposite sense to mean, not the physical facts (which they know already while discussing the matter in armchairs) but the emotional effect those facts will have on a human consciousness Either application of the word could be defended; but our business is to keep the two going at once so that the emotional value of the word "real" can be placed now on one side of the account, now on the other, as it happens to suit us The general rule which we have now pretty well established a them is that in all experiences which can make them happier or better only the physical facts are "Real" while the spiritual elee or corrupt thenore them is to be an escapist Thus in birth the blood and pain are "real", the rejoicing a liness reveal what death "really means" The hatefulness of a hated person is "real" - in hatred you see men as they are, you are disillusioned; but the loveliness of a loved person isa "real" core of sexual appetite or economic association Wars and poverty are "really" horrible; peace and plenty are mere physical facts about which men happen to have certain senti one another of wanting "to cat the cake and have it"; but thanks to our labours they arefor the cake and not eating it Your patient, properly handled, will have no difficulty in regarding his eht of human entrails as a revelation of Reality and his eht of happy children or fair weather as mere sentiment,

Your affectionate uncle

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