I had a pleasant surpirse yesterday.
Inspired by Matt's blog I decided to read Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Our library does not have it, so I bought a used copy of it online and it came in the mail yesterday. It is not a very long book, and I read the whole thing yesterday afternoon.

The main character is a schoolmaster at Brookfield, who was hired in 1870 and taught Roman history and Latin there until the end of WWI. Throughout his career he saw many changes to society - I think the 1890s in England were as revolutionary as the 1920s in America. Through his eyes the reader gains a sense of the importance of history, or, as Mr. Chips would put it, a sense of proportion.

It seemed tragically sensational when the first Old Brookfeldian was killed in action - in September. Chips thought, when that news came: A hundred years ago boys from the school were fighting against the French. Strange, in a way, that the sacrifices of one generation should so cancel out those of another. He tried to express this to Blades, the Head of School House; but Blades, eighteen years old and already in training for a cadetship, only laughed. What had all that history to do with it, anyhow? Just old Chips with one of his queer ideas, that's all....

And once, on a night of full moonlight, the air-raid warning was given while Chips was taking his lower fourth in Latin. The guns began almost instantly, and, as there was plenty of shrapnel falling about outside, it seemed to Chips that they might just as well stay where they were, on the ground floor of School House. It was pretty solidly built and made as good a dugout as Brookfield could offer; and as for a direct hit, well, they could not expect to survive that, wherever they were.

So he went on with his Latin, speaking a little louder amid the reverberating crashes of the guns and the shrill whine of anti-aircraft shells. Some of the boys were nervous; few were able to be attentive. He said, gently: "It may possibly seem to you, Robertson - at this particular moment in the world's history - umph - that the affairs of Caesar in Gaul some two thousand years ago - are - umph - of somewhat secondary importance - and that - umph - the irregular conjugation of the verb tollo is - umph - even less important still. But believe me - umph - my dear Robertson - that is not really the case." Just then there came a particularly loud explosion - quite near. "You cannot - umph - judge the importance of things - umph - by the noise they make. Oh dear me, no." A little chuckle. "And these things - umph - that have mattered - for thousands of years - are not going to be - snuffed out - because some stink merchant - in his laboratory - invents a new kind of mischief." Titters of nervous laughter; for Buffles, the pale, lean, and medically unfit science master, was nicknamed the Stink Merchant. Another explosion - nearer still. "Let us - um - resume our work. It if is fate that we are soon to be - umph - interrupted, let us be found employing ourselves in something - umph - really appropriate. Is there any one who will volunteer to construe?"

Maynard, chubby, dauntless, clever, and impudent, said: "I will, sir."

"Very good. Turn to page forty and begin at the bottom line."

"The explosions still continued deafeningly; the whole building shook as if it were being lifted off its foundations. Maynard found the page, which was some way ahead, and began, shrilly: -

"Genus hoc erat pugnae - this was the kind of fight - quo se Germani exercuerant - in which the Germans busied themselves. Oh, sir, that's good - that's really very funny indeed, sir - one of your very best -"

Laughing began, and Chips added: "Well - umph - you can see - now - that these dead languages - umph - can come to life again - sometimes - eh? Eh?

Afterward they learned that five bombs had fallen in and around Brookfield, the nearest of them just outside the School grounds. Nine persons had been killed.