More World War 2 posters with sound advice here.On the other hand, we should be grateful that Louis MacNeice paid no attention to these conventional wisdoms. Coming out of his house to watch a bombardment at 4am one morning, he found his neighbour already spectating with 'a connoisseur's detachment'. This is the scene which MacNeice describes:
'There was a violent crackling and hissing from the fire downhill, and a rich autumn smell of burning wood. And beyond my house the sky was a backcloth for opera or ballet, a sumptuous Oriental orange-print mottled with bursts of black and rolling like water so as sometimes to bury the moon — a half-moon that looked very clean and metallic in this welter of colour.'
MacNeice concludes that the fire is 'very beautiful', 'infinite' in its variety, and capable of 'subtleties never attained by any Impressionist painter.' No wonder people stood and stared.
Update: For the benefit of those of you who have arrived here looking for W. H. Davies's 'Leisure', here it is.