Word: us
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Dates: during 1910-1919
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This autumn, when most of us are out of sorts chafing at enforced inactivity, critical of the government, dissatisfied with the army, and in particular with its age limit of twenty years and nine months and in no way trying to conceal our misery, the few who still seem happy assume heroic proportions. We ask the secret of their cheer, and the invariable answer is their sense of humor. Just what is sense of humor? The dictionary tells us that it is "the ability to perceive the comic." But the lexicographer knew nothing of the subject...
Some few excuse themselves on the ground that they were born without a sense of humor, and if this be so, they never will have one. But with most of us the case is different; the sense of humor is there, but underdeveloped or ignored. If we are wise, we shall give our senses of humor free play these days, and the chances are that neither government, nor the army, nor college life itself will rankle any more...
...sermon of patience has been often preached. Moreover it has been the man in uniform who has generally been in the pulpit. He has calmly told us to bide our time and then has left for France, left for the land of mud and atrocities, while we must linger over our comparative literature and compose our souls in peace...
...conclusion, Dr. Van Dyke maintained that the German submarine warfare, German espionage, bomb plots, and all such machinations had forced us irrevocably into a war which we must fight out until we have forced upon Germany the realization and expiation of her crimes...
Most remarkable, though least remarked, of the things which have been done is an overturning of our entire conception of the part which our nation is to play in the politics of the world. Who is there now who thinks that the greatest good which might come to us from this war is great prosperity? Who is there who conceives of Europe and her agony as the woes of another planet, to be scientifically investigated and discussed, but never to be partaken? Who is there who trusts to the Monroe doctrine the wide sea, and the inherited flintlock over...