NO MORE
PARADES
by
FORD MADOX FORD
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers New York
by arrangement with A. & C. BONI
Copyright, 1925, By Albert y Charles Boni, Inc
To WILLIAM BIRD
MY DEAR BIRD,—
I have always held—and I hold as strongly now as ever—that anovel should have no preface. It should have no preface for æsthetico-moralreasons, and because prefatory matter takes away from the reality of,and therefore damages, a book. A dedicatory letter is a subterfuge. Thatsubterfuge I feel forced to adopt, and must take the consequences.
The reason is this: All novels are historical, but all novels do notdeal with such events as get on to the pages of history. This No MoreParades does. It becomes, therefore, necessary to delimit what, in it,is offered as, on the author's responsibility, observed event.
State, underline and emphasize the fact how you will it is impossible toget into the heads of even intelligent public critics the fact that theopinions of a novelist's characters as stated in any novel are not ofnecessity the opinions of the novelist. It cannot be done. How it may bewith one's public one has no means of knowing. Perhaps they read onewith more generosity and care. Presumably they do, for they have eitherspent money on, or taken some trouble to obtain, the volume.
In this novel the events, such as it treats of, are vouched for bymyself. There was in France, at the time covered by this novel, animmense base camp, unbelievably crowded with men whom we were engaged ingetting up the line, working sometimes day and night in the effort. Thatimmense army was also extremely depressed by the idea that those whocontrolled it overseas would—I will not use the word betray, sincethat implies volition—but "let us down." We were oppressed, ordered,counter-ordered, commanded, countermanded, harassed, strafed,denounced—and, above all, dreadfully worried. The never-ending senseof worry, in fact, far surpassed any of the "exigencies of troops actuallyin contact with enemy forces," and that applied not merely to the bases,but to the whole field of military operations. Unceasing worry!
We took it out in what may or may not have been unjust suspicions of theall-powerful ones who had our lives in their hands—and seemedindifferent enough to the fact. So this novel recounts what thoseopinions were: it does not profess to dictate whether those opinionswere or were not justified. There is, I think, not one word in it whichrecords any opinions or words of mine as being my words or opinions. Ibelieve I may say that, as to the greater part of such public matters asare here discussed, I have no opinions at all. After seven or eightyears I have been unable to form any. I present therefore only what Iobserved or heard.
Few writers can have engaged themselves as combatants in what, pleaseGod, will yet prove to be the war that ended war, without the intentionof aiding with their writings, if they survived, in bringing about sucha state of mind as should end wars as possibilities.
This obviously is a delicate task. If you overstate horrors you inducein your reader a state of mind such as, by reaction, causes the horrorsto become matters of indifference. If you overstate heroisms you induceindifference to heroisms—of which the late war produced, Heavenknows, plenty enough, so that to be indifferent to them is villainy.Casting about, then, for