The Spectator at war: Taking one’s pleasure

From a letter, ‘Ascot in Wartime’, The Spectator, 13 March 1915:

[To the editor of The Spectator]

Sir,—”Pleasure as usual” is “certainly a vile motto,” say you in your note to “Schoolmaster’s” letter regarding Ascot in last week’s Spectator. You are profoundly comprehensive. I had, by the way, turned to your note almost immediately after reading the following on your front page: “in human affairs, military as well as moral and political, nothing absolute can be affirmed.” But I will leave that to take care of itself. I should like to ask whether your condemnation includes all usual pleasures, and if not which of them are outside it and which are not. For example, reading the Spectator weekly is a genuine pleasure to me, as to others, and a usual one. It is of course possible that my reading it may be beneficial to the community, but it is read mainly as a pleasure.