Hate

What seems like a long time ago - I was a little surprised to find that it was only March - I read a story by Galsworthy called 'The Apple Tree', as noticed at reference 1. I have not got any further with Freud in the interval, at least not as far as the story is concerned, but yesterday, more or less by chance, I happened to put my hand on the book again and read the short story called 'The dog it was that died', written shortly after the end of the First World War.

For some reason it struck a strong chord. Perhaps the misery of all the people caught in the middle of a fight, in this case a German-English family caught in England at the start of that war. The husband being interned and then repatriated. I had not known about this last and I associate to the controversial treatment of Japanese-US families caught in the US at the start of the Second World War. But I never knew anything about what happened to such families caught in Japan - there must have been some, even if the numbers were, I imagine, very much smaller. Or in Germany for that matter.

Perhaps it was the connection to the misery of those caught in the middle in the Kenyan Emergency, noticed yesterday at reference 3. Both involved internment camps, aka concentration camps.

The present story is more about how such fights, such wars, bring to the surface all kinds of unpleasant, perhaps necessary, traits and behaviour. Traits and behaviour which are best put away afterwards - but a putting away which is not always possible. Some people are good for wars, and others are good for peace. I associate to once reading of what used to be called Red Indians, having war chiefs and peace chiefs, knowing full well that the two were not the same.

It all seems a long way from the 'Forsyte Saga' - but further reflection needed.

PS 1: what Galsworthy refers to as an old jingle, comes at the end of a poem by Oliver Goldsmith, turned up by Bing and snapped above. Gemini tells me that 'The poem 'An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog' was published in 1766. / It was included in Oliver Goldsmith's novel, The Vicar of Wakefield, which was published in that same year'. I have not checked but I would be very surprised if he had got this wrong. 

I don't think I had ever heard of this poem, but plenty of other people seem to have, including Tom Stoppard who used this very same line as the name of a radio play. While I got no further with Goldsmith than reading the play 'She stoops to conquer' as a child at my secondary school - a play which surfaces from time to time to this day. And about which I can remember nothing at all.

I only managed two of the eleven minutes available at reference 6, snapped above. But it does confirm what Gemini had to say. Perhaps it was his source.

PS 2: Agatha Christie is quite strong on how people who had 'good' wars, often find it difficult to adjust to the peace that eventually follows. It crops up quite often in her stories.

PS 3: after breakfast: two reflections so far, both rather off the point. First, the elegy does not appear in the Opie anthology, with this last to be found, for example, at reference 7. Plenty of other dogs though. Second, in the case of 'She stoops to conquer', I have remembered the catalogue entry for the item in question, but not the item itself. The meta-data rather than the data. I think that this happens quite often, but I dare say the other thing happens too, that an image of some sort comes to mind, but you have not got a clue from where it might have come. I must look out for such a thing.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-apple-tree.html.

Reference 2: The dog it was that died - John Galsworthy - 1919.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/08/more-first-impressions.html.

Reference 4: A elegy on the death of a mad dog - Oliver Goldsmith - 1766.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dog_It_Was_That_Died.

Reference 6: https://youtu.be/aiedppArr7o.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/opie-opie.html.