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Quotation of the Day for November 11, 2018"The end of the war was so swift and dramatic that no one had time to adjust feelings to changed circumstances. I learned on the morning of November 11, a few hours in advance of the general public, that the armistice was coming. I went out into the street, and told a Belgian soldier, who said: 'Tiens, c'est chic!' I went into a tobacconist's and told the lady who served me. "I am glad of that," she said, "because now we shall be able to get rid of the interned Germans." At eleven o'clock, when the Armistice was announced, I was in Tottenham Court Road. Within two minutes everybody in all the shops and offices had come into the street. They commandeered the buses, and made them go where they liked. I saw a man and a woman, complete strangers to each other, meet in the middle of the road and kiss as they passed. "Late into the night I stayed alone in the streets, watching the temper of the crowd, as I had done in the August days four years before. The crowd was frivolous still, and had learned nothing during the period of horror, except to snatch at pleasure more recklessly than before. I felt strangely solitary amid the rejoicings, like a ghost dropped by accident from some other planet. True, I rejoiced also, but I could find nothing in common between my rejoicing and that of the crowd." - Bertrand Russell, from his Autobiography, recalling the end of the First World War on November 11, 1918. Submitted by: Mike Krawchuk Nov. 9, 2018  |
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