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It was Ruth all over again. I had some very good friends who stood by me, and still do. But my acquaintances vanished, taking the girls with them. Young people seemed oddly contented with the world as it was. A young navy officer got as red-necked as Mr Houghton when I proposed a world without any battleships in it.
露絲的情況再度發生。我有一些非常要好的朋友，過去支持我，現在仍在支持著我。但我的泛泛之交都帶著他們的女朋友離我遠去了。說也奇怪，年輕人似乎很滿足于當時的世界。當我提議應該建立一個沒有軍艦的世界時，以為年輕的海軍軍官竟然像霍頓先生一樣怒不可遏。
Had the game gone too far? In those prewar days, I stood to lose a great deal, for the sake of a hobby.
是不是我的想法太過火了？在戰前的那些日子里，就是因為我的這種愛好，使我失去了許多東西。
Now you are expecting me to describe how I saw the folly of my ways and came back to the warm nest, where prejudices are called loyalties, pointless actions are turned into customs by repetition, and we are content to say we think when all we do is feel.
現在你期盼我來描述一下我如何看待自己的愚蠢行為，并如何重新回到溫暖的大家庭中來，在這里偏見被稱為忠誠，毫無意義的行為被反復重復后變成了習俗；我們的所作所為都是跟著感覺走，可是我們還是愜意地宣稱我們思考了。
But you would be wrong. I dropped my hobby and turned professional.
不過，你們若是這樣想就大錯特錯了。我不再把思考當成一種愛好了，我成了專業的思考者了。
