The long unendurable nightmare had begun. And the reign of Cant, Delusion and Delirium. I have shown, with a certain amount of excusable ferocity, how devilishly and perniciously the old régime of Cant affected people’s sexual lives, and hence the whole of their lives and characters, and those of their children. The subsequent reaction was, at least in its origin, healthy and right. There simply _had_ to be a better attitude, the facts had to be faced. And nobody with any courage will allow himself to be frightened out of saying so, either by the hush-hush partisans of the old régime or doing-what-grandpa-did-and-let’s-pretend-it’s-all-lovely, or by the fact that numerous congenital idiots have prattled and babbled and slobbered about “Sex” until the very word is an exacerbation. But the sexual life _is_ important. It is in so many cases the dominant or the next to dominant factor in peoples’ lives. We can’t write about their lives without bringing it in; so for God’s sake let’s do so honestly and openly, in accordance with what we believe to be the facts, or else give up pretending that we are writing about life. No more Cant. And I mean free love Cant just as much as orange-blossoms and pealing church bells Cant.... If you’re going to argue that Cant is necessary (the old political excuse) then for Heaven’s sake let’s chuck up the game and hand in our checks. But it isn’t necessary. It can only be necessary when deceit is necessary, when people have to be influenced to act against their right instincts and true interests. If you want to judge a man, a cause, a nation, ask: Do they Cant? If the War had been an honest affair for any participant, it would not have needed this preposterous bolstering up of Cant. The only honest people—if they existed—were those who said: “This is foul brutality, but we respect and admire brutality, and admit we are brutes; in fact, we are proud of being brutes.” All right, then we know. “War is hell.” It is, General Sherman, it is, a bloody brutal hell. Thanks for your honesty. You, at least, were an honourable murderer. It was the régime of Cant _before_ the War which made the Cant _during_ the War so damnably possible and easy. On our coming of age the Victorians generously handed us a charming little cheque for fifty guineas—fifty-one months of hell, and the results. Charming people, weren’t they? Virtuous and far-sighted. But it wasn’t their fault? They didn’t make the War? It was Prussia, and Prussian militarism? Right you are, right ho! Who made Prussia a great power and subsidized Frederick the Second to do it, thereby snatching an empire from France? England. Who backed up Prussia against Austria, and Bismarck against Napoleon III? England. And whose Cant governed England in the nineteenth century? But never mind this domestic squabble of mine—put it that I mean the “Victorians” of all nations.