From ‘Some reflections of an alien enemy: the contradiction between being and feeling an Englishman, by a Czech’, The Spectator, 17 April 1915:
What I most regret having lost is my previous unawareness of there being any difference between me and Englishmen. In saying we, I used to mean we English people; somehow or other I find myself now compelled to distinguish between me, a foreigner, and you, English people. Quite proper that it should be so; yet at the same time I feel as though I had lost my birthright. The disappearance of my instinctive sense of identity with my fellow-men, qnite irrespective of their nationality, fills me with sadness. An invisible, yet for all that quite tangible, barrier seems to have arisen around me. I shrink from meeting you lest I be taken for a spy! Occasionally my thoughts flit back to what I am now at last compelled to acknowledge as my own country; to that charming valley in far-away Moravia, the scene of my childish woes and joys.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in