====
Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
American writers on peace and against war
Henry James: Beguiled into thinking war, worst horror that attends the life of nations, could not recur
====
Henry James
From The American
Newman had come out of the war with a brevet of brigadier-general, an honor which in this case – without invidious comparisons – had lighted upon shoulders amply competent to bear it. But though he could manage a fight, when need was, Newman heartily disliked the business; his four years in the army had left him with an angry, bitter sense of the waste of precious things – life and time and money and “smartness” and the early freshness of purpose; and he had addressed himself to the pursuits of peace with passionate zest and energy.
Source