I can bear to see no more ruins

[Image: An aerial view of the bombing of Dresden during World War II; photo via Wikipedia].

Toward the end of an article by H.G. Wells, discussed in the previous post here, Wells writes: "I can bear to see no more ruins" – and you're with him. You think exactly.
You read that Wells is "sad and weary with a succession of ruins" as he tours the Alpine battlefields of the Austro-Italian war, that "insane escapade" at high altitude, just one part of a larger "history of colossal stupidities" wherein war is a folly, a blunder, a disaster, and you think, of course, how could anyone bear to see yet more scenes of destruction.
But then you read the rest of the sentence.
"I can bear to see no more ruins," Wells writes, "unless they are the ruins of Dusseldorf, Cologne, Berlin..."
War always leads to yet more of itself later.
Here are Part One and Part Two of the Wells article, originally published in 1916 in The New York Times.