He had chosen to spend his days in the world of men. Life was what mattered, its slow, priceless pulse, its burning fragility; his debt lay with those importunate Flanders echoes that had never really left him. The private could aspire to be a general because both general and private, at their best, recognized the dire importance of strategy, fortitude, the value of their imperiled existence; but when the machinist became the executive he left the world of tangibles and human conjugacy and entered a shadow world of credits and consols – a world that seemed to reward nothing so much as irresponsibility and boundless greed. And when the thunder rolled down upon them – as he knew it would – how would he feel, playing with paper, striving to outwit his fellows, drinking imported Scotch evenings and listening to the brittle parade of comedians on radio …?
He had chosen to spend his days in the world of men. Life was what mattered, its slow, priceless pulse, its burning fragility; his debt lay with those importunate Flanders echoes that had never really left him. The private could aspire to be a general because both general and private, at their best, recognized the dire importance of strategy, fortitude, the value of their imperiled existence; but when the machinist became the executive he left the world of tangibles and human conjugacy and entered a shadow world of credits and consols – a world that seemed to reward nothing so much as irresponsibility and boundless greed. And when the thunder rolled down upon them – as he knew it would – how would he feel, playing with paper, striving to outwit his fellows, drinking imported Scotch evenings and listening to the brittle parade of comedians on radio …?
