Parade's End

This, Tietjens thought, is England! A man and a maid walk through Kentish grass fields: the grass ripe for the scythe. The man honourable, clean, upright; the maid virtuous, clean, vigorous; he of good birth; she of birth quite as good; each filled with a too good breakfast that each could yet capably digest. Each come just from an admirably appointed establishment: a table surrounded by the best people, their promenade sanctioned, as it were, by Church - two clergy - the State, two Government officials; by mothers, friends, old maids.

For the Lincolnshire sergeant-major the word Peace meant that a man could stand up on a hill. For him it meant someone to talk to.

If he had been in the army like the two brothers, Ernest and James, next above him... But no doubt he would not have liked the army. Discipline! He supposed he would have put up with the discipline: a gentleman had to. Because noblesse oblige: not for fear of consequences... But army officers seemed to him pathetic. They spluttered and roared to make men jump smartly: at the end of apopleptic efforts the men jumped smartly. But there was the end of it...

Gentlemen don't earn money. Gentlemen, as a matter of fact, don't do anything. They exist. Perfuming the air like Madonna lilies. Money comes into them as air through petals and foliage. Thus the world is made better and brighter. And, of course, thus political life can be kept clean!... So you can't make money.