Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
I was eleven when the war started. If I honestly sort out my memories and disregard what I have learned since, I must admit that nothing in the whole war moved me so deeply as the loss of the Titanic had done a few years earlier. This comparatively petty disaster shocked the whole world, and the shock has not quite died away even yet. I remember the terrible, detailed accounts read out at the breakfast table (in those days it was a common habit to read the newspaper aloud), and I remember that in all the long list of horrors the one that most impressed me was that at the last the Titanic suddenly up-ended and sank bow foremost, so that the people clinging to the stern were lifted no less than three hundred feet into the air before they plunged into the abyss. It gave me a sinking sensation in the belly which I can still all but feel. Nothing in the war ever gave me quite that sensation.
George Orwell, 'My Country Right or Left' (1940) in Essays (London: Penguin Books, Kindle Edition), locs 3106-16.
George Orwell, 'My Country Right or Left' (1940) in Essays (London: Penguin Books, Kindle Edition), locs 3106-16.
