TEAN CORLE 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 EDWIN CORLE 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 LOS ANGELE: 
 
 OF CALIFORN 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSI 
 
 THE LIBRARY
 
 THE 
 VERMILION BOX 
 
 E. V. LUCAS
 
 BY E. V. LUCAS 
 
 More Wanderings in London 
 
 Cloud and Silver 
 
 The Vermilion Box . 
 
 The Hausfrau Rampant 
 
 Landmarks 
 
 Listener's Lure 
 
 Mr. Ingleside 
 
 Over Bemerton's 
 
 Loiterer's Harvest 
 
 One Day and Another 
 
 Fireside and Sunshine 
 
 Character and Comedy 
 
 Old Lamps for New 
 
 The Hambledon Men 
 
 The Open Road 
 
 The Friendly Town 
 
 Her Infinite Variety 
 
 Good Company 
 
 The Gentlest Art 
 
 The Second Post 
 
 A Little of Everything 
 
 Harvest Home 
 
 Variety Lane 
 
 The Best of Lamb 
 
 The Life of Charles Lamb 
 
 A Swan and Her Friends 
 
 A Wanderer in Venice 
 
 A Wanderer in Paris 
 
 A Wanderer in London 
 
 A Wanderer in Holland 
 
 A Wanderer in Florence 
 
 Highways and Byways in Sussex 
 
 Anne's Terrible Good Nature 
 
 The Slowcoach 
 
 and 
 The Pocket Edition of the Works of 
 
 Charles Lamb: I. Miscellaneous Prose; 
 
 ii. Elia; in. Children's Books; iv. 
 
 Poems and Plays; v. and vi. Letters.
 
 THE 
 
 VERMILION 
 BOX 
 
 BY 
 
 E. V. LUCAS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 In memory of 
 P. D. L. 
 
 who was wounded at Fricourt 
 
 on July i, 1916, and died at 
 
 Abbeville on July 6 
 
 IS 
 

 
 TO THE READER 
 
 THE letters in this book, which throw some 
 light on social England under the war, were 
 written between the latter part of 1914 and 1916. 
 I have selected only the more significant ones for 
 publication. 
 
 Most of the correspondents are related to each 
 other. 
 
 Mr. Richard Haven, who writes oftenest, is to- 
 day (1916) a bachelor on the brink of fifty. He 
 has a share in a conveyancing practice in Bedford 
 Row and lives in that little creek at Knightsbridge 
 called Mills Buildings. 
 
 Old Mrs. Haven, his mother, lives at Ayles- 
 bury, with her granddaughter, Anne Wiston, as 
 companion. Mrs. Haven's four daughters, who 
 are all married, are Kate, Joan, Helen, and Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 Kate Haven married George Wiston, a coun- 
 [vii]
 
 TO THE READER 
 
 try brewer, much older than herself, who retired 
 in 1912. Their children are Anne, born in 1890, 
 and Olive, born in 1893. Olive became engaged 
 to her cousin, Dick Bernal, in June, 1914. The 
 Wistons live at Chislehurst. 
 
 George Wiston's sister Maude, now a widow, 
 married a barrister named Clayton-Mills. They 
 had a son, Archibald, born in 1884, who became 
 an artist. 
 
 The second Miss Haven, Joan, married Theo- 
 dore Lastways, of Pember & Lastways, stock- 
 brokers, who died in 1909, leaving her very com- 
 fortably off. They had one daughter, Violet, born 
 in 1892, and one son, John, bora in 1898. Mrs. 
 Lastways lives at Lancaster Gate. 
 
 Helen Haven married a soldier, now Lieut.- 
 Col. Sir Vincent Starr, who is on the Staff. They 
 had one son, Toby, born in 1895. Lady Starr 
 lives near Shoreham in Kent. 
 
 Margaret Haven married Digby Bernal of the 
 Record Office. Dick, their only son, was in the 
 regular Army when the war broke out. Nancy, 
 their only daughter, was born in 1894. They live 
 on Campden Hill. 
 
 Digby Bernal's sister Ruth married in 1904 a 
 [viii]
 
 TO THE READER 
 
 young cavalry officer named Terence Derrick. 
 They have two children, Bimbo and Teenie. 
 Their home is at Minchinhampton. 
 
 Of the other oeople who write or receive 
 letters 
 
 Dr. Sutherland is an old friend of Richard 
 Haven and is now a Unitarian minister in 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 Barclay Vaughan is another old friend of 
 Richard Haven and is now a Professor at 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 Mrs. Park-Stanmer, the wife of a commanding 
 officer stationed at Sandwich, was at school with 
 Lady Starr. 
 
 Miss Hermione Huntresse was at school with 
 Nancy Bernal. 
 
 Jerry Harding is the son of a Northumberland 
 J.P. and a friend of Toby Starr. 
 
 E. V. L. 
 
 [ix]
 
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 LADY STARR TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, This war will be a 
 great breaker-up of families. Mine has 
 gone already, for Vincent left for France, where 
 he has a staff appointment, yesterday, and Toby 
 succeeded in finding a recruiting doctor to pass 
 him to-day. I am really very proud of him, for 
 he has refused to be deterred. The first three doc- 
 tors all rejected him on account of his sight; but 
 he stuck to it, and to-day chanced, somewhere in 
 Westminster, on a less exacting official and got 
 through. He has not the big-game motive at all, 
 but really wants to do his duty by his country. 
 Oh dear! what a time is ahead for wives and 
 mothers. My only Toby too! As Vincent said 
 
 [13]
 
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 to me yesterday, "We should have had hundreds 
 of children, my dear." 
 
 So now I must fling myself into Belgians and 
 knitting and hope for the best. Your loving 
 
 HELEN 
 
 II 
 MRS. HAVEN TO HER GRANDSON, TOBY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR TOBY, I am greatly disappointed 
 not to have had a visit from you, but I suppose 
 you have had no time. I never thought to see a 
 grandson of mine killing his fellow-men, and I 
 think about it with grief day and night, but I am 
 not going to trouble you with my perplexities; 
 although I can't help saying that several Germans 
 that I have known were quite harmless people, and 
 Fraulein Schmidt, who taught your mother and 
 her sisters German, often volunteered of her own 
 free will to help with the flowers, etc., when we 
 had visitors. And Mendelssohn's music, too, so 
 sweet and serious! Why the Germans should 
 have changed so, I can't think; but nothing is as
 
 THE VERMILION BOX 
 
 it was, and it is more than time for us old folks 
 to die. 
 
 Having asked several persons what is the best 
 present for a young officer, and getting the same 
 reply from all, I am sending you a periscope ; and 
 I hope you will make a point of always shooting 
 through it. I also enclose a small cheque for 
 anything else you may be wanting. God bless 
 you, my dear boy. Your affectionate, puzzled 
 old 
 
 GRANNY 
 
 III 
 
 JOHN LASTWAYS, AT SCHOOL, TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, I am writing to say that 
 you simply must let me enlist. Several fellows 
 younger than me have not come back this term 
 but have gone into the Public Schools Battalion, 
 and I am bigger and look older than any of 
 them; and you should just see my moustaches 
 which I have been rubbing stuff on every night. 
 I was told about it by Crosbie and wrote for a 
 
 [15]
 
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 pot. It's called Depilator and makes the hair 
 grow like blazes. Another thing is that I am 
 stronger than Toby. One night I wrestled with 
 him and threw him twice. If you say yes I shall 
 go to the recruiting place at once and say I am 
 eighteen. I enclose a telegraph form for your 
 reply. Your loving son JOHN 
 
 IV 
 
 MRS. LAST WAYS TO JOHN LAST WAYS 
 
 [Telegram] 
 Certainly not. Writing. MOTHER 
 
 V 
 MRS. LASTWAYS TO JOHN LASTWAYS 
 
 MY DEAR JOHN, Your letter distressed me 
 extremely, for it shows not only that you did not 
 listen to the many things that I said to you on 
 this question, but also that you have a very wrong 
 
 [16]
 
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 idea of the importance of truth. War is very 
 terrible and wicked; but it would become more 
 so if we entered upon it with a falsehood; and 
 we English must be more than ever careful after 
 the way the Germans repudiated their treaty with 
 Belgium. I think also you might try and put 
 yourself in my place for a moment. You are my 
 only son; that is to say, the only man I have to 
 lean on. If you were old enough I should have 
 to let you go; but until you are old enough I 
 hope you will stand by me. We may, God 
 knows, need each other's comfort only too deeply. 
 Your loving MOTHER 
 
 VI 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO HER COUSIN, OLIVE 
 WISTON 
 
 DEAR OLIVE, It was very exciting here yes- 
 terday. Toby is staying with us before he g6es 
 into training, and yesterday his uniform came 
 home, and we all helped him to try it on. He 
 really looks very handsome in it, and when he 
 
 [17]
 
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 has learnt what to do with his hands he will be 
 quite natural. We wanted him to let us go out 
 with him, but he was too shy ; and so we watched 
 him through the blinds as he crossed the street 
 with his absurd stick. Some of them have dog 
 whips, but his is a cane. It would be a wicked 
 lie to say that he did not look self-conscious, poor 
 boy, but then how could he help it? 
 
 Tell me where Dick is, and also if you have 
 any plan of work during the war. I am medi- 
 tating nursing. We might do something together. 
 Yours, Vi. 
 
 VII 
 
 PETER RAGGETT TO His FRIEND, TOBY STARR 
 
 DEAR OLD SPORT, We had a little dinner last 
 night to drink your health. In barley water, I 
 don't think. Jack was there, and the Goat, and 
 old Hoskins, and Jumbo, and me ; and we thought 
 we should like to give you some old thing to 
 remind you of us and be a bit of use in helping 
 you both to save your own life and remove that 
 of as many Huns as Heaven may send your way. 
 
 [18]
 
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 Not that we are all so jolly flush don't think 
 that, I pray you. But you can tell that from the 
 article itself, which is not precisely a pair of 
 radium dumb-bells. Anyway it accompanies this 
 letter and is the best kind of periscope I could 
 find at the Stores; and we all wish you the best 
 of luck and a big bag of Fritzes and Carls, and 
 we wish we had your luck in getting a commis- 
 sion so soon. However, a time will come! So 
 long ! Yours, PETER 
 
 VIII 
 
 FROM THE PERSONAL COLUMN 
 
 LONELY SUBALTERN would much appreciate 
 correspondence. Box 06. 
 
 IX 
 
 FROM THE SAME COLUMN 
 
 SUBALTERN in uncongenial surroundings would 
 be grateful for letters. Box 27. 
 
 [19]
 
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 X 
 
 TOBY STARR TO His MOTHER, LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, If you see two advertise- 
 ments in the Times from lonely subs asking for 
 letters they belong to Jerry and me. We had a 
 little dinner at the Piccadilly Grill to celebrate 
 our commissions, and while we were talking he 
 had the idea that it would be a lark to put those 
 advertisements in just to see what kind of letters 
 one gets. Whichever of us gets most in ten days 
 after they appear troubles the other for a quid. 
 If anything very funny comes along I shall send 
 it to you. Your loving TOBY 
 
 XI 
 
 DIGBY BERNAL TO His NEPHEW, TOBY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR TOBY, I am glad you have your 
 
 commission, and wish I was young enough myself. 
 
 I do what I can in my old crock's way, and at 
 
 present have to stand for hours every day outside 
 
 [20]
 
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 a place where they make electric light, to guard 
 it from Germans in our midst, although I have 
 no notion how I could protect it if they came in 
 any force. You may of course never get into ac- 
 tion at all, for I can't think the war will last long. 
 England, France, and Russia are too strong, and 
 Bismarck always warned his country against tak- 
 ing on both France and Russia at once. By 
 Christmas we shall all be happy again, I feel sure, 
 or at any rate by next April. 
 
 Meanwhile, in case of accidents, I am sending 
 you a periscope for the trenches, should you ever 
 reach them. I have given one also to Dick. 
 Your affectionate uncle DIGBY BERNAL 
 
 XII 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO His NEPHEW, TOBY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR TOBY, I hear that you have become 
 an officer, and in so far as it shows that you have 
 pluck and patriotism, I am glad of it: but other- 
 wise I cannot pretend to much satisfaction, for I 
 am far from sanguine as to the task before us. 
 
 [21]
 
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 Not only are the Germans a great purposeful peo- 
 ple, with scientific order as their life-blood, but 
 they have been preparing for years, while we have 
 as consistently been neglecting warnings and re- 
 joicing in our fool's paradise, in spite of great men 
 like Lord Roberts. Personally I have done what 
 I could, but it was a voice in the wilderness. 
 France, of course, is effete, and I myself see very 
 little hope for England. The best that can be ex- 
 pected is some kind of a stalemate. 
 
 Still we must all be as cheerful as we can and 
 I must not discourage your enthusiasm, so it is 
 with real pleasure that I send you a periscope 
 for use in the trenches when you begin your work. 
 I am, yours cordially, GEORGE WISTON 
 
 XIII 
 
 LIEUT.-COL. SIR HECTOR RICARDO TO His GOD- 
 SON, TOBY STARR 
 
 DEAR TOBY, I am instructing Messrs. Booth- 
 royd of Bond Street to despatch to you, by pas- 
 senger train, carriage paid, the latest and best type 
 [22]
 
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 of periscope for use in the trenches, because I am 
 convinced that in the present kind of warfare, 
 very different from that to which I was accus- 
 tomed, no officer should be without one. If by 
 any chance you get it broken or it is mislaid, at 
 once let me know, and I will replace it. If you 
 are hit, hand it to one of your companions. 
 
 I wish I was not on the shelf; but although 
 the spirit is willing the flesh is woefully weak. I 
 am riddled with rheumatism and gout. I hold 
 that when one is too old one should admit it. 
 Some of the "dug-outs," however, think otherwise 
 and not to the country's advantage ! 
 
 If you would avoid my troubles when you are 
 my age, be wise now and never touch red beef, 
 take very little alcoholic stimulant, and give up 
 sugar. All these things make for uric acid and 
 unhappiness. Your sincere friend, 
 
 HECTOR RICARDO 
 
 P.S. When footsore it is a good plan to 
 change socks. Whisky poured in the boots is also 
 a help.
 
 THE VERMILION BOX 
 
 XIV 
 
 LADY STARR TO TOBY STARR 
 
 MY DEAREST TOBY, OFFICER AND GENTLE- 
 MAN, I don't know that I quite like your adver- 
 tisement joke. There are so many nice people in 
 the world ready, and especially just now, to do 
 kind things, that you may take some of them in. 
 Don't you see that you may get letters, written 
 with great care and possibly at the sacrifice of 
 time and even feeling to the writer, that might 
 have gone to comfort and sustain young soldiers 
 who really are lonely? Of course you couldn't 
 think of all that the other night over your jolly 
 little dinner; but if I were you I should not put 
 the advertisement in any more. 
 
 There, I don't often preach to you, do I*? You 
 must forgive your very fond and rather-proud-of- 
 her-son MOTHER 
 
 [24]
 
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 XV 
 
 Miss ANNE LIVESEY (His OLD NURSE) TO TOBY 
 STARR 
 
 DEAR MASTER TOBY, I can't bear to think 
 of you going off to the front at this time of year, 
 and you such a one to catch cold. I wish I could 
 come with you to take care of you and see that 
 you change your wet things, but that is not to be 
 thought of. I should have knitted you something 
 warm, only for the rheumatics in my hand, and 
 so I am sending you instead something which my 
 nephew, who is with the B.E.F., says that every 
 soldier ought to have, and which I got the Vicar 
 to get for me w,hen he went to London. I am 
 too old to understand such things, but they say 
 you can see through this over the top of a trench 
 without being seen yourself. Dear Master Toby, 
 I shall pray for you every day; and don't forget 
 to take plenty of camphor pillules with you for 
 when you are chilled. Yours respectfully 
 
 ANNE LIVESEY 
 
 05]
 
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 XVI 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 DEAR GRANNY, To-day I have been out with 
 Toby collecting salutes. He is now more or less 
 natural in his uniform and very proud of it. In 
 fact he won't change it for anything. Just think, 
 the particular Toby! It is most thrilling to see 
 him being saluted, and he acknowledges it so nicely 
 and not in the off-hand way that some of the offi- 
 cers do. It's such fun to see the men who are 
 coming along getting their arms ready, and some- 
 times the poor dears have to let go their girls to 
 do it. But now and then we met one who paid 
 no attention to Toby at all, and I was furious, 
 but Toby says it's not worth while doing anything 
 about it. And there are all kinds of penalties if 
 they are reported. Indeed I'm not sure that they 
 can't be shot, but that perhaps is too much. Still, 
 it's outrageous that they should be allowed to be 
 so rude. 
 
 Toby goes off to-morrow to somewhere near 
 Salisbury Plain. We shall miss him. 
 
 [26]
 
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 Poor John is furious because he is under age. 
 He went back to school like a thunder-cloud. It 
 was very comic, but also rather tragic, to see his 
 envy of Toby. Mother's point of view John 
 being her only son never enters his head at all; 
 but then of course he is very young and this is the 
 most exciting thing that has ever happened in 
 his life. 
 
 I am going to Paris very shortly to a hospital 
 there. It has suddenly been decided. Until I go 
 I am to spend two hours a day talking with a 
 funny old Mademoiselle to try and get my French 
 back. She is very puzzled by the English. "How 
 fond you are," she said yesterday, "of making 
 the wash of dirty clothes in public." Her father 
 fell in the Franco-Prussian War, and she feels 
 this new invasion doubly. It must be terrible to 
 have the enemy occupying miles of one's own, 
 country. Your loving Vi. 
 
 [27]
 
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 XVII 
 
 MRS. RICKARDS TO Box 06 
 
 YOU POOR DEAR LONELY BOY, 1 Want VCiy 
 
 much to write to you and to comfort you, but it is 
 very difficult unless one knows more. Send me 
 a line, however brief, to tell me who you are, 
 where you come from, where you were at school, 
 and what college at the University. I have three 
 sons of my own, one of whom is in the Army, one 
 in the Navy, and the other still at Eton. The 
 eldest, who is in the Buffs, is, I am told, very 
 popular and adored by his men. The second, on 
 the Indestructible, is the pet of the mess. I send 
 them illustrated papers every week, and would 
 send some to you if you like. They both dote 
 on "The Letters of Eve" in the Tatler. I wonder 
 if you do too. And those bewitching ladies by 
 Kirchner which used to be in La Vie Parisienne, 
 they love those too and always want more. 
 You are all naughty, you boys, I am afraid, but 
 I love you for your bravery. Let me have a 
 
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 line in reply, and I will write and cheer you 
 up again. Yours sincerely, 
 
 BLANCHE RICKARDS 
 
 XVIII 
 MRS. THOMAS BURSLEM TO Box 06 
 
 DEAR SIR, I have often found great comfort 
 during loneliness by guessing words. In the hope 
 that you may be similarly relieved I send the 
 
 following four words as a start : 
 
 
 
 SARCINETA 
 ROLLEBATE 
 THEREINN 
 ALTARBEY 
 
 If you care to have more I will send them. 
 Yours truly, SARAH BURSLEM 
 
 XIX 
 
 MESSRS. NOGRASS & UNDERFOOT TO Box 06 
 
 DEAR SIR, We beg to bring to your notice 
 the enclosed list of indoor games and pastimes, 
 
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 all of which are calculated to remove loneliness 
 and relieve ennui. We would particularly call 
 your attention to our miniature chess and draught 
 boards for the trenches, with the chess men and 
 draughts on little pegs to fit into sockets. We 
 would also draw your attention to the new puzzle 
 entitled "The Road to Potsdam," which has made 
 many a dull hour pass rapidly and with roars of 
 healthy laughter. 
 
 Postal orders or stamps must accompany all 
 orders, which will be executed with promptness 
 and dispatch. Yours faithfully, 
 
 NOGRASS & UNDERFOOT 
 
 XX 
 
 MESSRS. NOGRASS & UNDERFOOT TO Box 27 
 
 DEAR SIR, We beg to bring to your notice 
 the enclosed list of indoor games and pastimes, 
 all of which are calculated to remove loneliness 
 and relieve ennui. We would particularly call 
 your attention to our miniature chess and draught 
 boards for the trenches, with the chess men and 
 
 [30]
 
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 draughts on little pegs to fit into sockets. We 
 would also draw your attention to the new puzzle 
 entitled "The Road to Potsdam," which has 
 made many a dull hour pass rapidly and with 
 roars of healthy laughter. 
 
 Postal orders or stamps must accompany all 
 orders, which will be executed with promptness 
 and despatch. Yours faithfully. 
 
 NOGRASS & UNDERFOOT 
 
 XXI 
 
 MRS. PARK-STAN MER TO Box 27 
 
 DEAR Box 27, Such a lot of lonely subs, ad- 
 vertise for letters to-day that it is difficult which 
 to choose. I decided on you because the number 
 of your Box, 27, is the same as this house, where 
 I am lodging to be near my husband, who is in 
 command close by. I like to write to one lonely 
 sub. every day, however busy I am, because I 
 know how much it must mean to you, poor dears, 
 to get a letter. But I always make it a condition 
 
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 that you reply. Tell me everything and then we 
 shall get on famously. Yours sincerely, 
 
 AMABEL PARK-STANMER 
 
 XXII 
 
 MR. COURTENAY FOLJAMBE TO BOX 06 
 
 MR. COURTENAY FOLJAMBE presents his com- 
 pliments to the lonely subaltern whose letters are 
 to be addressed to Box 06, and begs to enclose a 
 copy of his latest poem on the war, in the hope 
 that it may both stimulate and please him. Cop- 
 ies may be had of the author at threepence each. 
 
 (Verses entitled "Come, let us shoulder guns," 
 dedicated by special permission to King Albert, 
 enclosed.) 
 
 XXIII 
 
 MR. COURTENAY FOLJAMBE TO Box 27 
 
 MR. COURTENAY FOLJAMBE presents his com- 
 pliments to the lonely subaltern whose letters are 
 
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 to be addressed to Box 27, and begs to enclose a 
 copy of his latest poem on the war, in the hope 
 that it may both stimulate and please him. Cop- 
 ies may be had of the author at threepence each. 
 (Verses entitled "Come, let us shoulder guns," 
 dedicated by special permission to King Albert, 
 enclosed.) 
 
 XXIV 
 
 MRS. SlLVERTON TO BOX 2J 
 
 MY DEAR BOY, You must allow me to call 
 you that because you are young and I am old. 
 I know of course nothing about you not even 
 where you are, whether in England or abroad 
 but I want you to let me write to you just as if 
 you were my own son, who was killed very soon 
 after the war broke out. This will be a kind ac- 
 tion on your part. My boy was twenty-one and 
 he had just left Oxford and was about to enter 
 his father's office; but being a very keen Terri- 
 torial he was sent to France almost at once. In 
 the hope that some of the things I had said to 
 
 [33]
 
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 him may be of comfort and help to you and 
 from the fact that you say you are lonely, I feel 
 that you cannot have too many friends I am en- 
 closing the letter which I was writing to him at 
 the moment that the news of his death was 
 brought to us. Your sincere friend, 
 
 ANNE SILVERTON 
 
 P.S. If you would care to write to me, my 
 address is Laurel Lodge, Chertsey Lane, Wey- 
 bridge. 
 
 [Enclosure] 
 
 MY DEAREST SON, Your letter gave your 
 father and me much pleasure. I am glad that the 
 boots keep out the water so thoroughly. Be care- 
 ful what you drink out there. A little wine is 
 safer than much of the water, I am told; but you 
 know how unhappy we should be if you got into 
 the way of taking too much; nor would it be fair 
 either, for you belong now to your King, and he 
 wants the best and clearest of your brains and all 
 your strength, which he could not have if you 
 drank in excess. I could have wished with all my 
 heart that it had never been the business of my 
 
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 son to kill his fellow-men, but since force of arms 
 seems to be, in the present state of the world's 
 progress, the only way to right this terrible wrong 
 that has come upon civilisation, I am glad to 
 think that he laid aside all his private plans so 
 readily to do his share, and I shall always be 
 proud of him for it. And you were such a tender 
 little boy too, and would often carry a spider or 
 earwig to the window and throw it out rather 
 than stamp on it. I am so glad that French time 
 and English time are now the same, because I 
 am going to say a little prayer for you at 8 every 
 morning and 7 every evening, and if you are not 
 too busy you will perhaps do the same for me, for 
 we all need it. Your father is 
 
 XXV 
 
 TOBY STARR TO MRS. SILVERTON 
 
 DEAR MRS. SILVERTON, I want to apologise 
 to you for not being quite straight. That adver- 
 tisement of mine which brought your very kind 
 letter and enclosure (which I return as being quite 
 
 [35]
 
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 unworthy to keep it) was a kind of a joke, just 
 to see how many letters would come and what 
 kind of letters people wrote on these occasions. 
 But your reply has knocked all the joke out of it 
 and made me feel ashamed, and I have now done 
 what I can to stop it. 
 
 If after this confession you still would like to 
 write to me again, I wish you would; but to my 
 camp as below. But I cannot really hope for that. 
 Your son, I am sure, would never have done a 
 thing like this, and it makes me the less worthy 
 of your kindness. I am, yours sincerely, 
 
 T. STARR (2nd Lieut.) 
 
 XXVI 
 
 TOBY STARR TO His MOTHER 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, If you see an advertise- 
 ment in the Times calling the lonely sub. business 
 off you will know that it is mine. And I dare say 
 Jerry will put one in too. You were quite right : 
 one ought not to play such games. I ought to 
 have been more sensible; but one can't think of 
 
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 everything at once at least I can't although 
 one seems to think of everything in course of 
 time, which is no use. I know I hadn't read 
 two letters before I was jolly sick of the whole 
 thing and blushing like a tomato; but I haven't 
 any to send to you. 
 
 No more to-day, except very much love from 
 
 A. S. A. A. W. T. 
 
 P.S. Those initials mean a sadder and a 
 wiser Toby. I am at Mrs. Wickenden's, Ivy 
 Cottage, Amesbury. On velvet too, for there is 
 a bathroom next to my bedroom. There is a lot 
 of luck about billeting. Some fellows get only 
 a garret and others sumptuous mansions with 
 footmen. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, I am so much concerned by 
 the way things are going and the appalling cost 
 of the war that I am beginning to save and con- 
 
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 ceal actual cash. For where should we be if the 
 bank balances were called up 1 ? And they very 
 likely will be. I have made a hole in the shrub- 
 bery in which I have buried with great care an 
 iron box, and every day or so I add notes and 
 coins to it. I am convinced that this is a neces- 
 sary precaution. The country is heading straight 
 for financial ruin, but I shall do my very best not 
 to be brought down with it. Yours cordially, 
 
 GEORGE WISTON 
 
 XXVIII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO GEORGE WISTON 
 
 DEAR GEORGE, I think you make the mistake 
 of reading too many papers and hearing too much 
 talk. When there is war on men like you should 
 take to gardening and dig hard. Or do some re- 
 cruiting. I always said you retired from busi- 
 ness too soon. 
 
 The truth is that we are not a military nation 
 and not a suspicious nation. Had we been either, 
 or both, things would now be different, but also 
 
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 many of us would have emigrated to other coun- 
 tries long since. When a non-military nation is 
 suddenly attacked by a nation that has been 
 preparing for that war for generations, there are 
 bound to be initial blunders. But give us time 
 and we shall be all right. It is part of England's 
 genius to begin wrong. Also it is our habit to 
 win. Take my advice and throw yourself into 
 something active and give your club a wide berth. 
 Yours, R. H. 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, To-day's news seems to de- 
 press people, but it is only because they have not 
 enough knowledge to enable them to read be- 
 tween the lines. What I admit must look to the 
 uninitiated very like a reverse is really all part 
 of Joffre's strategy, which takes count of checks 
 as well as victories. By letting the enemy have 
 this apparent advantage he will be all the more 
 
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 fitted, when the time comes, to deal him a vital 
 blow. 
 
 By the way, I wonder if you have heard of this 
 steady progress -of Russian soldiers through Eng- 
 land to the western front 1 ? It is wonderful the 
 way we have managed it all so secretly and ef- 
 ficiently. It takes old England to accomplish 
 such feats as this. Some people still deny it, 
 but I happen to be in the secret, through an in- 
 fluential friend. The Russian soldiers, thousands 
 strong, have come from Archangel to Scotland, as 
 I know for a fact. Yours, D. B. 
 
 XXX 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO BARCLAY VAUGHAN 
 
 MY DEAR B., I must tell you about three 
 men I met yesterday, one at a club, one in the 
 street, and one in a train. All are between forty 
 and fifty; in fact, contemporaries of my own. 
 All are fairly well-to-do, or were before the War 
 started. To-day no one knows what he is worth. 
 And to-morrow ? 
 
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 The first was Donaldson. I forget whether you 
 have met him : a tall man with a grey moustache, 
 who went golf-mad after his wife died. He lives 
 near Aylesbury. He was walking along Cockspur 
 Street when I met him, or, to be more exact, when 
 he met me. He was in that dangerous mood when 
 a man says, "Which way are you going? I have 
 nothing much to do; I'll go along with you." 
 
 I said I was going to the Albany. 
 
 "You're just the man I wanted to see," he said. 
 "I want your advice. The fact is, the War is 
 gettin' on my nerves, and I really think I ought 
 to be doin' somethin'. Somethin' real, I mean. 
 I am too old to fight; even if I could scrape 
 through with a lie about my age. What do you 
 say"? Couldn't you suggest some organism' I 
 could do? I hate to praise myself, but I am cer- 
 tain that if there's one thing I can do, it's to 
 organise. Look at the things I have done in that 
 way. Look at our Golf Club. Works like a 
 clock. Look at my billiard-room lamps; my own 
 idea, and every one notices them. Ever since I 
 was at school I have been an organiser. I ran 
 all the various societies there. Now don't you 
 
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 think there ought to be a vacancy for me in one 
 of the departments'?" 
 
 I said I had an idea that they now prefer 
 trained men; amateurs can be a nuisance. 
 
 "I know that," he said. "But mine's a different 
 case. There's always room at the top and for 
 a real organiser a born administrator. Now do 
 promise to think of something for me. And let 
 me know." 
 
 I promised; it's the easiest thing to do. But 
 I haven't the faintest belief in the man's ability. 
 Besides, he's lazy. 
 
 Saunders came up to me in the club. 
 
 "Lunching alone*?" he asked. 
 
 I had to admit it. 
 
 "You don't mind if I join you?" he added. 
 
 I couldn't tell the truth; so downhe sat. 
 
 "I wanted to see you," he said. "You know 
 several Government people, I know. Well, I 
 have been talking it over with my missis, and we 
 are sure that with my gift of organisation there 
 must be some post I could fill just now, to help 
 old England. I'd fight if I could, but I'm too old. 
 But my brain's in perfect order and there's noth-
 
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 ing I can't do with underlings. I've proved it 
 again and again. You should see how I keep 
 my gardeners hopping about ; and, although I say 
 it as shouldn't, my clerks adore me. Now surely 
 there's some vacancy for me somewhere. Not 
 this week and not next, because we've got peo- 
 ple till then; but after that. Can't you think 
 of anything? Do what you can for me, won't 
 you?' 
 
 I said I would; knowing I could do nothing. 
 
 But why on earth am I supposed to be able to 
 help everybody"? 
 
 The third was Arthur Dodson, who married 
 that fat Shelley girl and took Parker's old house. 
 Dodson caught sight of me on the Underground 
 a second too soon. A second later and my 
 Westminster would have covered my face. 
 
 "Ah, that's right," he said. "I was hoping I 
 should find you. I've got something very im- 
 portant to tell you." 
 
 I laid aside the paper and prepared for the 
 worst. 
 
 "It's like this," he said. "All my friends tell 
 me Pve got very unusual abilities as an organiser, 
 
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 and upon my soul I believe they're right, though 
 it may sound like swanking to say so. My head's 
 all pigeon-holes, you know; all watertight com- 
 partments. I can keep things clear and distinct. 
 And I never forget a face. That's what they said 
 of King Edward one of his great secrets of 
 success. And it's true of me too. Well, up to 
 the present I've done nothing for the country in 
 its time of stress. When I say nothing, I don't 
 exactly mean that. A fagon de parley don't you 
 know? But nothing very practical. I've written 
 a cheque or two, of course, and housed some 
 Belgians, poor devils! But I've done nothing 
 with myself; I haven't put my own peculiar 
 talent into it. But now I feel that the time's 
 come; and with this organising gift of mine, of 
 which my friends speak so highly, I think I ought 
 really to be of great service to those in power. 
 Can't you suggest anything for a born organiser 
 to do? I don't mind whether it's at Downing 
 Street, or Pall Mall, or where it is. In fact, I 
 don't mind if it's in France so long as expenses 
 are paid. I think it's only right to ask for them, 
 don't you? A labourer and his hire, don't you 
 
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 know? And what costs nothing is too often 
 worth nothing, eh? But it must be sound or- 
 ganising work armaments, stirring up the coun- 
 try, registering the slackers, I don't mind what. 
 You'll try to think of something?" 
 
 I undertook to do so. 
 
 And now I know that whenever I see anybody 
 I am acquainted with approaching me I shall at 
 once say to him, long before he can speak, "You 
 want me to help you to a post as organiser of 
 some kind in connexion with the War, don't you? 
 Because organising has always been your long 
 suit. Munitions or something; it matters little 
 so long as your organising genius (and genius is 
 not too strong a word) can have play." 
 
 But it has had an effect on me. I shall never 
 refer to my own organising ability any more, as 
 I rather fear I may have done. Yours, R. H. 
 
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 XXXI 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 DEAR GRANNY, Toby ran up to town for the 
 day yesterday and called on us. He is now quite 
 natural in his uniform and has got all the stiff- 
 ness out of his cap, so that it looks a hundred 
 years old. All his nuttiness has gone. You re- 
 member how his hair used to be swept right back 
 from his forehead with lovely comb marks in it. 
 Well, now it is cut short and he has an absurd lit- 
 tle moustache coming a kind of toothbrush thing 
 which, if it were only black, would be like Charlie 
 Chaplin's. 
 
 Poor John has been bothering mother to let 
 him say he is old enough to enlist. It's rather 
 ripping of him, but mother won't hear of it. Of 
 course she is right, but I know I should feel just 
 as John does. He is awfully keen, and has a map 
 and little flags, and we send him Land and Water 
 every week. I am going to a London hospital as 
 a help next Monday, and after a while I move on 
 
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 to France. It's lucky I had attended all those 
 First Aid classes. Your loving Vi. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO TOBY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR TOBY, I hope you have good quar- 
 ters and that they won't send you out before you 
 are really ready. When you go, remember (in 
 the trenches) to keep your head down and your 
 heart up so far as you can. To an old bache- 
 lor like me there is something not too satisfac- 
 tory in the thought that we should, for our pro- 
 tection, resort to our youngest; but England has 
 been too much jumped by events to get the 
 anomaly put right. Some day, perhaps? Yet 
 what is the use of laws in warfare? No one will 
 ever respect them. The Hague at this moment, to 
 the inward eye, is more a ruin than Pompeii. 
 
 I am sending you a pocket flask. May it not 
 only help you against chills but stop the bullets 
 of the Hun ! Always your affectionate uncle, 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN 
 
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 XXXIII 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR HELEN, You would not have thought 
 that there was any one, save perhaps the Kaiser, 
 who could have been made happier by the destruc- 
 tion of Louvain; but there is. My clerk. Not 
 that he is cruel or bloodthirsty. Far from it. 
 But his good star chances to have lured him to 
 Belgium for his last holiday, and he spent three 
 days in Louvain with his camera. The harvest is 
 now his to the ultimate grain. He is never to be 
 seen without his album of photographs. He has 
 shown it to me ; he takes it out to lunch ; he hands 
 it to callers with a few well-chosen remarks; and 
 he is the shining light of his suburb. He has never 
 been a hero before, and it is doing him no harm. 
 But I suspect that he will overdo it. Indeed there 
 must be all over England informative individu- 
 als who, "by a strange coincidence," spent their 
 last holidays in Belgium, to whom their friends 
 are beginning to give the cold shoulder. 
 
 I wrote to Toby yesterday and sent him a 
 
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 pocket-flask. That he comes through safely is my 
 constant hope; not only for his sake and yours, 
 but mine (for I am greatly attached to him) and 
 England's. She will badly need every clean 
 young man when sanity revisits this unhappy 
 earth. Yours ever, R. 
 
 P.S. Here is an epigram for the moment: 
 
 Meeting a publicist, I bade him say 
 What is one's highest duty this grim day. 
 "One's highest duty," he replied, "is this: 
 To tell to others what their duty is." 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, I don't wish to depress you, 
 in your fool's paradise, but it seems to be an only 
 too well established fact that there are traitors in 
 the Cabinet. I hesitate to give names, but at 
 least three men are suspected, with reason, of be- 
 ing in German pay. It is awful to think of what 
 the power of money can be. You may ask why 
 
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 tfiey are not exposed, removed, and punished 
 and the extreme penalty would be too merciful 
 but that argues ignorance of all the wheels within 
 wheels that govern political life. And so the 
 ghastly business goes on and England is sacrificed. 
 
 I have written a letter on this subject signed 
 "A Patriot," which you will probably find in to- 
 morrow's papers. I sent it to all, but some, of 
 course, are venal too. The canker is very deep. 
 
 Being a little run down I am motoring to Wales 
 for a few days; but it is a sad heart that I shall 
 take with me. Yours cordially, 
 
 GEORGE WISTON 
 
 XXXV 
 
 LADY STARR TO HER SISTER, MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAREST JOAN, I cannot help feeling how 
 fortunate you are in having a son who is well 
 under age. It is awful to have both one's men in 
 this grisly business. Vincent, of course, being 
 chiefly engaged in organisation, is not exposed to 
 much danger, although one never knows what an 
 
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 aeroplane bomb will do; but Toby is certain to 
 get to the front, I fear. I say fear, and I mean it, 
 but also I should be disappointed if he did not 
 get there. I want him to do something fine, and 
 I dread the anxiety too! But everything is a 
 mixture. However, until the time comes I shall 
 keep as cheerful as I can, for that is clearly the 
 first job for us women. 
 
 Here we are knitting-mad, and at the rate at 
 which we turn out socks you would think that 
 every British Tommy was a centipede. 
 
 That is our work; our pastime is to discuss 
 refugees. Where once we used to meet to play 
 Bridge we now meet to compare Belgians. We 
 call them mine or ours and set them off against 
 those of our friends, claiming either that they are 
 better or worse, with equal pride. No, not equal 
 pride, for what one wishes is to have the 
 worst. This is the sort of thing that we say to 
 each other: "I must tell you what that little 
 terror, Jamais Delavie, did yesterday. She went 
 into Jack's dressing-room, took his diamond pin 
 from the cushion there, and wrote: 'A bas Guil- 
 laume!' and worse things dreadful things, only 
 
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 mercifully in French on every window. She is 
 only a child, of course, and the sentiment was 
 perfect: but we shall have to have new glass." 
 And then the others counter with something like 
 this: "Yes, dear, aren't they wonderful 1 ? There's 
 my old Madame La Sale well, we simply can't 
 get her out of the bathroom. What she does 
 there, no one can guess; but she has complete 
 possession of it every day for two or three hours. 
 And that it's not for the ordinary purpose of a 
 bathroom we are only too conscious." 
 
 The funniest case in our district, which is full 
 of them, is Monsieur Punaise the artist. Lots of 
 them are artists, you know. Indeed, one wonders 
 sometimes if the Belgians did not subsist by buy- 
 ing each other's drawings. Monsieur Punaise is 
 quartered on Lady Trenchard, who not only is 
 the head and front of teetotalism hereabouts and 
 has consented to the importation of claret from 
 the grocer only because Monsieur is a foreigner 
 and therefore does not matter so much, all for- 
 eigners being sinners, but is also the soul of moral 
 rectitude and ecclesiasticism. And Monsieur 
 
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 Punaise's only means of livelihood is to make 
 comic hand-painted post cards. 
 
 Now you know what a comic post card is on 
 the Continent all high spirits, nudity, and curves 
 and poor Lady Trenchard is in despair to have 
 her spotless sanctuary turned into a factory for 
 such things. But such is her sense of duty over 
 the war and her feeling with regard to the poor 
 Belgians, that she utters no protest. It's all very 
 comic, but it's really rather splendid too, for I'm 
 sure the poor old thing is really outraged and 
 has to make a much bigger fight to keep amiable 
 than any one would suspect. 
 
 I believe that Monsieur Punaise is to be ex- 
 changed for a penniless but devout Comtesse from 
 the neighbourhood of Malines very shortly. The 
 only trouble then will be that a Papist atmos- 
 phere will endanger the purity of the home. If 
 ever the Comtesse is ill and one thinks of Com- 
 tesses as either very naughty or very fragile, and 
 this one of course isn't naughty it will mean a 
 visit from a priest. And just think of Lady 
 Trenchard, who is a Vice-President of more than 
 one Protestant League, with a priest under her 
 
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 ropf ! Again I say it is splendid, and it shows 
 what is being done against the grain for the war. 
 Yours ever, HELEN 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 MRS. HAVEN TO VIOLET LASTWAYS 
 
 MY DEAR VIOLET, I am greatly interested in 
 all you say about Toby, but one thing in your 
 letter puzzles us. Who is Charlie Chaplin? I 
 have heard of most of your friends, I believe, 
 but I can't remember a Mr. Chaplin. Please 
 tell me. 
 
 Poor John, I sympathise with him. It is ex- 
 traordinary to me, that, since war is upon us, 
 any one should not want to fight for England 
 against these terrible Germans, especially now 
 that we know what cruelties and injustice they 
 can be guilty of in a conquered country. But 
 such conduct is all so strange to me. Your 
 grandfather and I had such a happy time in Dres- 
 den many years ago. We met a number of very 
 nice people. I remember a Dr. Pfeiffer and his 
 
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 wife who were most kind, although they had an 
 odd way of cutting up their food. And now to 
 think of the wicked things that Germans can do! 
 It is all most bewildering. 
 
 In our village, I regret to say, there is no feel- 
 ing about it. I asked the young man who brings 
 the milk if he were not going to enlist, and he 
 replied that he had never been much of a one to 
 fight. But the Belgians! I said. Wasn't that 
 dreadful 1 ? Ought we not to crush such a foe as 
 Germany*? He replied that that was what our 
 army and navy were for, and he didn't see there 
 was any call for more soldiers. 
 
 I am glad you are preparing to be a nurse. 
 That is what I should like to do if I were young 
 and active. All I can do now is to knit and 
 subscribe a little to the chafities. 
 
 What are we to do about poor Kaiser*? It is 
 bad enough for him to be a dachshund, for the 
 boys throw stones at him and he has not been 
 out for a walk for weeks; but there is no doubt 
 that we shall have to change his name. It is very 
 hard for a dog who has answered to one name for 
 years and years to have to begin another. Anne 
 
 [55]
 
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 ha,s had the clever idea that if we call him Hi, Sir ! 
 it will be so near the old name in sound that he 
 won't know the difference. Poor dog, I hope he 
 won't. We are going to try it, anyway, although 
 it is ridiculous to call a dog Sir; but, of course, 
 we can't put anything so foolish on his collar. I 
 am sure the poor darling knows that something 
 is wrong. Your affectionate GRANNY 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 DEAREST AND MOST IGNORANT OF GRAND- 
 MOTHERS, How your letter has made me laugh! 
 Charlie Chaplin is not a friend of mine ; he is the 
 great funny man on the cinema films. It just 
 shows how far away you live, you poor benighted 
 thing! Charlie Chaplin is said to make thousands 
 and thousands of pounds by his flat feet and 
 grotesque walk. I know that he always makes 
 me scream. When next you come to London 
 you will see cardboard figures of him outside Pic- 
 ture Palaces. 
 
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 I told Uncle Richard about your milkman. He 
 said he was not the first to belong to the Blue 
 Water School. Your loving Vi. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 Miss PORTIA GREY TO Box 27 
 
 DEAR LONELY SUB., It would be delightful 
 if I could bring a little unloneliness into your life 
 by writing to you; but I find it very difficult to 
 know how to begin. Indeed I have been trying 
 for a fortnight. It is so long indeed that perhaps 
 you are not lonely any more. I expect there were 
 plenty of answers to your advertisement without 
 mine. 
 
 The best thing, I am sure, is to tell you about 
 myself, and then if you like the sound of me per- 
 haps you will tell me about yourself. I may say 
 that you are the first Lonely Sub. I have written 
 to, although I have wanted to before, but could 
 not get enough courage. But I am sure you are 
 really in need of letters, and also are nice, because 
 you say you would be grateful. I don't want you 
 
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 to be grateful to me, but so few people ever are 
 grateful for anything. 
 
 I am eighteen and have just left school. It 
 was a very jolly school, near Datchet, and I shall 
 miss it. I don't quite know yet what I am going 
 to do, but father wants me to. do something and 
 so do I. He has an idea I might make a good 
 gardener, and he wants me to be outdoors. I had 
 thought about being a doctor, because then one 
 does more for other people; but he wants me to 
 be near him (you see, my mother is dead and 
 there are only us two), and there is an excellent 
 place close to us where lady-gardeners are taught 
 we live at Ashford and he needs me to live 
 near him, or otherwise I should of course have 
 become a Red Cross nurse or something useful 
 long ago. 
 
 I wonder if you agree with me that one's father 
 is more important to be cared for even than 
 wounded soldiers'? I have great arguments about 
 it with my friends, and nearly all say that nothing 
 matters now but soldiers, and that everything 
 should be done for them; but I think it would be 
 very unfair to leave father just when I am ready 
 
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 to be his companion at last. I should like to 
 know what you yourself, as a soldier, think. 
 Please be honest about it. As you don't know 
 me, you can so easily be, and then we should 
 begin right. 
 
 But I have written enough for a first letter. 
 Yours truly, PORTIA GREY 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR HELEN, You remember the clergy- 
 man you met here one night? Mr. Lavington. 
 Well, to every one's surprise and the admiration 
 of a few, he has enlisted. Not as a chaplain in a 
 dog collar under his khaki, and a Picture Palace 
 cane, as I have seen them now and then in the 
 streets, . but as a soldier. He has a lieutenancy 
 and goes into camp at once. But what odd crea- 
 tures these parsons can be! He came himself to 
 tell me, and I congratulated him on having sev- 
 ered his connexion with professional religion. 
 
 "But I haven't," he said. 
 
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 "Surely," I replied, "you can't contemplate re- 
 suming your clerical duties after the war*?" 
 
 "Of course," he said. 
 
 This is the type of mind that paralyses my 
 own. 
 
 "Then," I said at last, "you are still a believer 
 in the gospel of Christ?" 
 
 "Most emphatically," he said, with those large 
 blue eyes dilating. 
 
 "All I can say," I replied at last, "is that I 
 envy you. I wish I could have things both ways 
 like that. Did not Christ preach and profess 
 peace to all men 1 ? Don't you repeat to your con- 
 gregation again and again the text about the other 
 cheek"? And bid them forgive their enemies'? 
 And tell them to pray for them that despitefully 
 use them? Either it all means something or it 
 does not. Either you believe in it or you do 
 not. If you believe in it, you cease to be as com- 
 plete a Christian as we look to our clergy to be. 
 and you certainly have no right to bear arms for 
 the purpose of destroying your fellowmen." 
 
 Mind, if Lavington were resigning Orders for 
 ever I should not have said a word of this to him. 
 
 [60]
 
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 It was his intention of resuming sheep's clothing 
 after this bloody vulpine interlude that amazed 
 me. 
 
 Then he began. He had thought it all out. 
 This was a righteous war; the Allies stand for 
 light against darkness. (Never before would he 
 have discerned light among the free-thinking 
 French, but let that pass.) We must approach 
 Christ's dicta with great care. Some were meant 
 to be taken literally no doubt; others were not. 
 Did I hold, for example, that one should pluck 
 out an offending eye? Certainly not. That was 
 figurative, symbolic, and no doubt the remark 
 about the other cheek also was. And so on. 
 
 Well, I could only shake hands with him and 
 wish him good luck, and again fall to wondering 
 why it is that so often a nicer form of conscience 
 seems to go with secularism than with orthodoxy. 
 But is it any marvel that abroad the English have 
 got a name for casuistry"? 
 
 I spent part of a wakeful night in composing 
 a copy of verses for Lavington, and for those other 
 professional religionists, far below him in public 
 duty, who not only keep in the running now by 
 
 [61]
 
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 their lenient attitude to fighting, but, looking cun- 
 ningly ahead, realise that they must pave the way 
 for their credit in peace too. But I did not send 
 them. Lavington I do not want to hurt; and the 
 others know too well how to disregard criticism. 
 
 Instead, it amused me to present Lavington 
 with a revolver. I asked him if he would per- 
 mit me to do so, and he said yes quite simply. 
 
 Here are the verses, for your own reading: 
 
 Christ did not wish that men might be like Him 
 That is an error springing who knows where? 
 
 Christ's purpose was that, in the distance dim, 
 A grand ideal planet-like might flare: 
 
 Subject for praise, or theme on which to preach, 
 
 But never meant to come within our reach. 
 
 The very essence of ideals is 
 
 That they should hover ever overhead. 
 
 To be translated to realities 
 
 Immediately kills them. They are dead; 
 
 And what so hapless, sad, and tempest-tossed 
 
 As human beings with ideals lost? 
 
 Christ was au fond (to those that read aright) 
 A warrior who thirsted for the fray, 
 
 Provided that, of course, the call to fight 
 Was eminently righteous (as to-day). 
 
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 Not literally should His words be taken, 
 But over them the salt-box must be shaken. 
 
 The "other cheek" ! 'Neath policy so quaint 
 What empire could endure a moment's space? 
 
 For Galilean or sequestered saint, 
 
 Possible, yes but not our Island Race. 
 
 Times change, and compromise is ever rife, 
 
 And modern life is well, is modern life. 
 
 The nearest we can get to what He willed 
 Compatible with reason that should be 
 
 Our aim by day and night until fulfilled, 
 Pursued with unremitting industry. 
 
 The Master (as we read Him) would not ask 
 
 His children to perform a sterner task. 
 
 So then upon the future let us strive 
 
 To fix our thoughts, nor on the present dwell. 
 
 A day will dawn (for those still left alive) 
 
 When peace will come and all once more be well, 
 
 And Christianity (less suspect then) 
 
 Again dispense its precious balm to men. 
 
 Three or four men to whom I have shown these 
 verses have complimented me on the effort which 
 they make to get at the truth. But none of these 
 men would sign a document calling for a close 
 time for the creeds until the war is over, or sug- 
 
 [63]
 
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 gesting that our Archbishops were not at the mo- 
 ment earning their not inconsiderable salaries. 
 That is one of the odd things about England 
 that private conscience and the public conscience 
 are so different. In France a typical private indi- 
 vidual's view of things is, when multiplied in- 
 definitely, also the view of the State. Not so 
 here, where as individuals we practise or subscribe 
 to many liberties which would "not be good for 
 the general public." 
 
 Oh well, of course it doesn't matter. Nothing 
 matters now, but getting this war won and over. 
 But how I should like to see a close time for all 
 creeds, and self-reliance set in their place. How I 
 should like to see all intellects now busied about 
 the next world forced to concentrate on the bet- 
 terment of this ! 
 
 This, however, will not happen in my time ; or 
 in Toby's; or in Toby's great-great-great-grand- 
 son's. The professional religionists will be too 
 strong for us. None the less I give them warn- 
 ing. Some lean years are coming! Yours, 
 
 R. 
 
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 XL 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 DEAR Miss GREY, Before I answer your very 
 kind and very interesting letter, which I may say 
 I want to answer very much, I must tell you 
 something rather horrid. Especially as you tell 
 me to be honest, although you don't mean it quite 
 in this way. The fact is, that advertisement of 
 mine was not genuine. Two of us put it in the 
 Times, one each, as a joke, and (I may as well 
 tell you everything) there was a beastly bet on 
 it as to which of us got most replies. 
 
 I should prefer not to tell you all this, but I 
 feel I must. 
 
 Well, almost the first letter I got was from an 
 old lady whose son had been killed, and who sent 
 me her last unfinished letter which she had been 
 writing when the news came instead of to him, 
 do you see*? and that just did for me, and I 
 stopped the whole business. But you seem to have 
 missed my second advertisement, and I am glad 
 you did because I like your letter so much.
 
 THE VERMILION BOX 
 
 Please tell me if I may write again now that 
 you know all. Yours truly, 
 
 TOBY STARR (2nd Lieut.) 
 
 Care of Mrs. Wickenden, Ivy Cottage, Ames- 
 bury. 
 
 XLI 
 
 . PORTIA GREY TO TOBY STARR 
 
 DEAR MR. STARR, Thank you for your frank 
 letter. Please answer mine. Yours truly, 
 
 PORTIA GREY 
 
 XLII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR HELEN, It seems that the Thirty- 
 nine Articles take full cognisance of war and that 
 the clergy are thereby authorised to fight in a 
 just cause. No. 37 not only exonerates them but 
 makes it necessary if they are called for. So 
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 their lordships, the Bishops our modern Gali- 
 leans sitting for the illustrated papers in full 
 khaki uniform, are not such deplorable anomalies 
 as I have been thinking them, and Lavington's 
 case is to some extent altered or would be, if he 
 had pleaded such sanction ; which he did not. In 
 fact, I don't think he had realised it. But it does 
 not eliminate the element of irony. 
 
 My feeling now is, since the volte face is so 
 lawful, that all parsons of military age should at 
 once join up and fight, and so become indeed the 
 "black dragoons" that John Sterling called them. 
 If one here and there, why not all? I feel sure 
 we shall want every one in time, for I believe 
 in Kitchener and his three years. In Germany 
 there is already public talk of a new Christianity 
 which shall walk openly side by side with martial 
 aggrandisement as it does now, and not in Ger- 
 many alone. The readjustment of our Church's 
 position may not be the least of the Kaiser's un- 
 intentional benefits to mankind. 
 
 Moreover, if all the parsons of military age 
 went off it would rid myriad country livings of 
 idle, vigorous young men with almost nothing to 
 
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 dp. Such sinecures should be kept as rewards for 
 older and real workers in cities, anyway. 
 
 I heard this morning of the death at the front 
 of two of my oldest friends Jack Cazalet, who 
 was at school with me, and Sandford Thrale, 
 whom I knew at Oxford. Both went straight into 
 the army, but we had kept up. Thrale leaves a 
 widow and practically nothing for her to live 
 on, for he has had nothing but his army pay 
 all his life. Cazalet was just engaged to a very 
 nice woman. All the best men are being killed. 
 The horrible thought is that the new England is 
 to be populated by a cautious middling-class lot. 
 It will always be a splendid thought that the 
 aristocrats, who are supposed to be keenest on 
 the good things of life, never hesitated for a mo- 
 ment. Yours, R. H. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 DICK BERNAL TO His COUSIN AND FIANCEE, 
 OLIVE WISTON 
 
 MY DARLINGEST, I have had a most brilliant 
 idea which came to me this morning while I was 
 [68]
 
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 shaving. Why shouldn't we be married at once"? 
 I am sure I should fight much better if I was 
 fighting for a wife than merely for my country. 
 I have got to fight for my country whatever 
 happens, because that's my business; but to fight 
 for you as well would make such a difference! 
 My sword would be twice as sharp then and my 
 aim twice as good. I only wish officers were 
 allowed bayonets, because that is when fighting 
 for any one must really tell jabbing is so much 
 more satisfactory than slashing or pulling a trig- 
 ger. 
 
 I'm sure my people would like me to be mar- 
 ried quickly, and Aunt Kate too; but I am a lit- 
 tle doubtful about Uncle George. Tell me what 
 you think, my sweetest. DICK 
 
 DEAR Miss GREY, What a brick you are ! 
 I absolutely agree with you about staying with 
 your father. There are such lots of things to be 
 
 [69]
 
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 dqne for soldiers too, at home, without becoming 
 a nurse, and I expect you are doing some of them. 
 
 I am a year older than you. I was at Win- 
 chester, and have been at Oxford for a year, but 
 left it to join the army. My father is a staff 
 officer in France, but he did not much want me 
 to be a soldier. All the same he is now glad 
 that I am. So is my mother, although I am her 
 only child. 
 
 Our home is near Newbury. My mother is all 
 alone there, but as she practically runs the village 
 she is all right. Please don't think because of my 
 last letter that I am in no need of correspondence. 
 I am. Life is fairly dull here, but, thank Heaven, 
 one gets fearfully tired, or I don't know how the 
 evenings would be got through. 
 
 I think Portia is a ripping name. Yours truly, 
 
 TOBY STARR 
 
 P.S. A cousin of mine was at a girls' school 
 near Datchet. Her name is Violet Lastways. I 
 wonder whether it's the same place. 
 
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 XLV 
 
 TOBY STARR TO VIOLET LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAR Vi, I wish you would tell me whether 
 there was a girl at your school named Portia Grey, 
 and if so, what she was like. Yours, TOBY 
 
 XLVI 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO DIGBY BERNAL 
 
 DEAR DIGBY, From what I hear from men 
 of high standing and inner knowledge we shall 
 never win this war unless the authorities have the 
 courage to scrap three generals in every four. But 
 we have always been criminally tolerant and 
 good-natured and have fostered the practice of 
 protecting the inept, and now the chickens come 
 home to roost. I heard a story, which I have 
 every reason to believe is true, illustrating this, 
 only yesterday. A German sniper who was taken 
 prisoner was asked if they had any reward for 
 good shots, and he replied that they had, and then 
 
 [71]
 
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 gave the scale. Ten marks if you killed an Eng- 
 lish private; twenty for a sergeant; thirty for a 
 lieutenant; and forty for a captain. But if you 
 killed a commanding officer you were punished, 
 he said, because they are so useful to the Ger- 
 mans! So there you are. 
 
 If only we had a firm and capable man at the 
 head of affairs instead of all these invertebrates, 
 or scheming lawyers, we should never have been 
 in this mess. Some one like Dizzy. But those 
 great days are past. 
 
 I am sending a letter to this effect to all the 
 more open-minded and critical papers for to-mor- 
 row's issue. I have entitled it, "Remember 
 Byng," and it is signed "Dracon." Please look 
 out for it. Yours cordially, 
 
 GEORGE WISTON 
 
 XLVII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO SIR VINCENT STARR 
 
 DEAR VINCENT, These are bad times for vig- 
 orous men over military age. I never pretended 
 
 [72]
 
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 to be much of an athlete; but even I feel as if 
 I could do more than the War Office believes. 
 Still I am old enough also to trust the authorities. 
 
 To-day I met your friend Stirling Mowatt and 
 found him horribly hipped. This is more or less 
 what happened. 
 
 "What is it?' I asked. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I'm done for, useless. I'm 
 forty-six, and that's the devil just now. I'm as 
 fit as I ever was in my life, but the War Office 
 won't look at me. Forty-six is impossible ! 'But 
 I can walk thirty miles a day,' I tell them. 'Not 
 with all the accoutrements,' they say. 'I'm a 
 member of the Alpine Club,' I tell them. 'You're 
 over age,' they say. 'I'm stronger than any of 
 your twenty-year-old recruits,' I tell them. 
 'You're forty-six,' they say. And it's true !" 
 
 "Then the new regiment of Sportsmen came 
 along," he continued, "and I tried them. No 
 good. Forty-five is their maximum. So there it 
 is! I'm done useless. No one wanted to help 
 more than I did, and I can do absolutely noth- 
 ing." 
 
 [73]
 
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 "I'll bet you've done a lot," I said, "if you 
 would only confess." 
 
 "I tell you I've done absolutely nothing," he 
 repeated testily. "I'm no use." 
 
 "But surely you're on a dozen committees?" I 
 said. 
 
 "No," he said, "not one." 
 
 "Then you have started a Fund? Some minor 
 fund guaranteed not to divert any money from the 
 big ones'?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "But of course you've written to the papers'?" 
 I went on. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Not about anything? Not to make the Gov- 
 ernment buck up about blankets, or squashing Ger- 
 man lies, or allowing correspondents at the front, 
 or anything like that?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "But surely you have views as to the better 
 management of things? The Press Bureau, for 
 instance. Haven't you pitched into that?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Not even clamoured for all Germans in this 
 
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 country, even the naturalised ones, to be shot? 
 Surely you've harried the Home Office a bit*?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, you must at least have published a 
 scheme for the partition of Europe after the 
 war?' 
 
 "No; I never wrote to the papers in my life." 
 
 I shook his hand. 
 
 "Good heavens!" I said, "and this is the man 
 who grumbles 'because he has done nothing for 
 his country." 
 
 I wish old George would follow his example. 
 
 I saw Toby when he was in town on a flying 
 visit to have his hair cut last week or that is 
 what I accused him of. He and his mother al- 
 lowed me to give them lunch. He looks in splen- 
 did form. 
 
 I suppose, being a Red Tab, you are by now 
 inured to sarcasm. George says that there is not 
 a man on the Staff who knows his job! 
 
 The Charity appeal business is being a little 
 overdone; but that of course is English. We al- 
 ways overdo everything. The results, however, 
 show what a lot of money there is in the country 
 
 [75]
 
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 and how much generosity. I am a little doubtful 
 as to the cigarettes, for when I was younger and 
 went into training for anything, smoking was the 
 first thing that was knocked off. A stranger would 
 almost think that this war was being run in the 
 interests of the tobacco trade. Do you all really 
 smoke all day *? Yours, R. H. 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 OLIVE WISTON TO DICK BERNAL 
 
 MY DARLING DICK, Father won't hear of it. 
 I needn't go into all his objections, but he is firm 
 as a rock, and though I don't agree, and mother 
 doesn't agree, still I am his daughter and feel that 
 whether he knows best or not he has the right to 
 dictate. We must wait till the war is over, he 
 says; which means, if his view of the war is a 
 true one, for you know how gloomy he is, we 
 shall be drawn to the altar in bath-chairs. O my 
 dear, I am so sorry, but we must be brave about 
 it. I saw poor Ruth yesterday. Terence's regi- 
 ment is in action and she is in a terrible state of 
 
 [76]
 
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 nerves; but she does her best to keep up. The 
 only hopeful news I can give is that mother is 
 going to do what she can in our interest with 
 Uncle Richard. Your adoring OLIVE 
 
 XLIX 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR HELEN, I think I got in a good thrust 
 last night. Among the people staying here is a 
 knut. He must be almost the last of the tribe; 
 but here he is, just as knutty as though the Algies 
 and Berties were still ruling the roast, and not 
 Mars at all. Why he has not volunteered no one 
 seems to know, and it is hardly a question that 
 I, with my fantastic respect for other people's 
 right to do as they like, should ask him. None 
 the less, on discovering that he is perfectly sound 
 in mind and limb, I permitted myself a sidelong 
 remark or two on the subject of youth, vigour, 
 and armaments, and was so successful that he 
 fitted the cap on himself and suddenly turned to 
 me, red with anger, asking if I meant to insult 
 
 [77]
 
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 him. Then came one of those inspirations which 
 are rarer than angels' visits: I mean rarer at the 
 exact moment when one wants them, for I get 
 them often enough on the escalier. "I wish I 
 could," I said, "but it evidently needs a greater 
 power than I, since the Germans haven't suc- 
 ceeded.'* 
 
 I am always on the look out for war anecdotes 
 for you; but very few are really good, and those 
 quickly become too familiar. Meanwhile I spare 
 you the absolutely true story of the governess who 
 was a spy (which succeeded the mythical Rus- 
 sians), because as it has happened to a personal 
 friend of every one you must have heard it. 
 
 I used very much to resent Kipling's line in 
 which he calls soldiering "the lordliest life on 
 earth," but I am beginning to feel that (as usual) 
 here too he knows more than I do, for there is 
 not one of all the young men and older men that 
 I know who have joined the army or returned to 
 it who is not already twice the fellow he was. 
 I was enormously struck by Toby's maturity and 
 fitness the other day. Bless him ! Yours ever, 
 
 R. 
 [78]
 
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 P.S. I left this letter behind me this morn- 
 ing and am not sorry, for it enables me to add 
 to it. 
 
 As to my score off that young knut, I have 
 quite ceased to be proud of it. Thinking on the 
 matter during the day, it seems to me that old 
 people like myself ought to be very sure of our- 
 selves before we taunt the young with backward- 
 ness. To begin with, it cannot seem to them to 
 be so natural a thought, as it is to us, that the 
 young and inexperienced are the bulwark of the 
 country in times of danger. We take it for 
 granted; but why should they? And there is 
 something really offensive in the safe forties and 
 fifties pushing the twenties towards the firing 
 line the ardent, thoughtless twenties, for whom, 
 only yesterday, life was going to be such a lark! 
 We have not perhaps thought enough of what 
 these boys are giving up, most of them without 
 a murmur. No, I have retired definitely from 
 the recruiting business at any rate with the lever 
 of scorn to assist me. 
 
 All the same, that knut was rather a poisonous 
 little beast. 
 
 [79]
 
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 ANNE WISTON TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR UNCLE RICHARD, Granny says won't 
 you come and see her soon"? She wants to talk 
 about money and see what she can spare for the 
 Prince of Wales' Fund and other things. Do 
 come. I want to see you too and discuss another 
 matter Olive's marriage to Dick. As you per- 
 haps know, Dick's regiment may have to go out 
 very soon now and he wants to marry first. There 
 are things to be said on both sides, of course. 
 
 Poor Granny cannot understand the war at all. 
 She goes about wondering how the world can be 
 so wicked, and why it is not all stopped. I asked 
 her who was to stop it, but she could not say; 
 but at the back of her mind is, of course, the 
 thought that God ought to. It seems to me that 
 more than ever will the simple have to find com- 
 fort, if they can, in the text about babes and 
 sucklings. Your loving niece, ANNE 
 
 [80]
 
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 LI 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO TOBY STARR 
 
 DEAR TOBY, Portia Grey was a darling. She 
 is fairly tall, with very dark hair and very red 
 lips. Her father, I believe, is an artist and rather 
 an invalid too. She bowled horribly fast and 
 won all our matches for us. Yours, Vi. 
 
 LII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO DR. SUTHERLAND 
 
 DEAR SUTHERLAND, You are missing a lot by 
 being away from England now. You would be 
 intensely interested in studying us, even if you 
 were saddened too. We really are a very odd 
 people. Under ordinary circumstances one is 
 dimly conscious of it. Under war it is blazingly 
 evident. Our tendency, which seems to be sec- 
 ond nature, to belittle and depreciate our picked 
 men the men we ourselves have picked is most 
 striking and would be alarming if one was not 
 
 [81]
 
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 certain that so much of it is only words, and that 
 our best brains, the brains that lie deepest and 
 serve as our ultimate court of appeal, are not mo- 
 mentarily in alliance with our tongues. When the 
 war is over some of us ought to remember our 
 attitude during its more critical periods with 
 shame, but we shall not, because it's part of the 
 British heritage to remember nothing: least of 
 all our own shortcomings and the injuries done 
 to us by our enemies. Our delight in forgiving 
 is exceeded only by our facility in forgetting. 
 
 Countries can be too free and especially does 
 one feel this when one realises that there can 
 never be any such thing as a free country. Had 
 I been autocrat I should have stopped every news- 
 paper instantly and issued the necessary news in 
 a Government gazette, for that the press also can 
 be too free we now know only too well. My 
 experience of journalists is that, much as I like 
 them, very few are to be trusted with liberty. 
 One reason is that they so rarely have any real 
 feelings or convictions. I have known many 
 journalists, but hardly one who was not either a 
 cynic or an axe-grinder, or both ; and all, of course, 
 
 [82]
 
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 are, by the nature of their calling, middlemen 
 and busybodies. 
 
 These appalling casualty lists make one think, 
 don't they? Here are men dying by thousands, 
 all justifiably slaughtered, and no one to be called 
 to order for the killing, but rather to receive deco- 
 rations and glory. And then one remembers the 
 hue and cry after Dr. Crippen a few months ago; 
 two hemispheres in pursuit of one little myopic 
 sensualist who had merely "done in" a superflu- 
 ous wife! Yours, R. H. 
 
 LIII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, I will come down very 
 shortly next week for certain, probably on 
 Thursday. Don't trouble your dear old head over 
 the why and wherefore of the war. Only re- 
 member that this planet will be a slightly better 
 place after it: because there's no doubt of that. 
 Just at the moment it has gone mad. Your lov- 
 ing R. 
 
 [83]
 
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 LIV 
 
 MRS. WISTON TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR RICHARD, I want your advice. 
 Olive, as you know, has been engaged to Dick 
 since June, and now Dick's regiment is going to 
 France. The question is, should they marry at 
 once, as they want to, or wait till after the war? 
 I wish I knew what to think. George is firm 
 about postponement. As he says, very justly, if 
 Dick is killed, Olive will be a widow, and proba- 
 bly will remain a widow for ever, for after the 
 war there will be too few men. You know 
 George's hard don't-dare-to-contradict-me style. 
 He also says that since Dick will be away righting, 
 they may just as well wait, because they would 
 see nothing of each other. He will not realise 
 that both would be happier if they were married. 
 As for the future, I feel, as I never felt before, 
 that that must take care of itself. 
 
 Do tell me what your view is. 
 
 How fortunate you must think yourself to be a 
 
 [84]
 
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 bachelor in these times! I know many parents 
 who suffer agonies daily. Your loving 
 
 KATE 
 
 LV 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO MRS. WISTON 
 
 MY DEAREST KATE, My advice is all in fa- 
 vour of Dick and Olive marrying at once, as so 
 many other soldiers are doing. Not only would 
 they be happier, as you say, but, to put the mat- 
 ter bluntly, England is going to be in great need 
 of children. 
 
 Not so much of your felicitations to me on be- 
 ing alone and childless! Marriage and children 
 are not for all, but there are times when even 
 the most resolute single beings can feel wistful and 
 parental. The other day in a restaurant I 
 watched a father and son together, and I have 
 not forgotten it yet. The father was about fifty 
 (or my age) ; the son, obviously a young officer, 
 although in civilian clothes, about twenty-six. It 
 was charming to see the solicitude with which the 
 
 [85]
 
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 father pressed the son to eat, and the little fur- 
 tive affectionate touches of his hand on the young 
 man's arm and shoulder. They had half a 
 grilled chicken, and it was the son who ate the 
 wing and breast. Afterwards the waiter brought 
 cigars in a number of boxes of different kinds, 
 and the son took a small one. The father gave 
 it back and insisted on a corona taking its place, 
 but he himself smoked only a cigarette. It was 
 all very pretty, and I think it needed the war 
 to bring it out. Without the war there would 
 have been as much pride and affection, may be, 
 but the father would have been at once less con- 
 scious of it and more ashamed of it. The war 
 emphasised it, made it all more articulate and 
 much more poignant. Well, I hope that young 
 fellow may come safely through, for both their 
 sakes. 
 
 The odd thing is that this is the first time I 
 have really wanted a son. But even with such 
 pain and dread in his heart, I sat there and en- 
 vied that father. Envied him not only his trem- 
 ors, but his opportunity of giving a son to his 
 [86]
 
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 flag. So you see that the war is making me a 
 sentimentalist too! Your affectionate brother, 
 
 RICHARD 
 
 LVI 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR HELEN, Of course you have heard 
 the story of the soldier and the angels at Mons. 
 If not, I will tell it to you; and if you have, I 
 will (like our old friend Livesey, who cannot be 
 deterred once he has wound himself up to be 
 anecdotal) tell it you none the less. "Do I be- 
 lieve in the angels at Mons 1 ?", the soldier replied, 
 "Of course I do. Why, I was so near them that 
 I distinctly recognised my aunt." 
 
 One hears a great deal about the change in 
 character which experiences at the front are to 
 effect in our men. But I doubt if there will be 
 much of it. Most men, I imagine, will bring 
 back almost exactly what they took out; war will 
 be only skin deep. That at any rate is true of 
 most of those that I have met and talked with. 
 
 [87]
 
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 But, of course, a young man wounded and in- 
 valided home after the first engagement might 
 carry the traces longer. Custom would not have 
 blunted things for him. 
 
 One effect of the war at home is to emphasise 
 any natural tendency to satire or scorn that one 
 may possess, don't you find 1 ? I expect you do, for 
 you and I are very much alike. First there is the 
 monstrous folly of the whole thing the failure 
 of mankind to get any wiser, the failure of Chris- 
 tianity to modify and control elemental cruelties 
 and rapacities. And then there are the particular 
 disenchantments the muddle, the jealousies, the 
 littlenesses. And England is peculiarly adapted 
 for the exhibition, even exploitation, of these last, 
 for we have an unbridled press into which any 
 petty person may pour his grievances and cen- 
 sures. If one were oneself able to fight or bt 
 active in some large way, no doubt one would 
 forget. Affairs would absorb one's mind. And to 
 be that most deadly of all ages, forty-eight, and 
 feel only thirty-five : that is an aggravation of the 
 disease. No wonder that cynics multiply. 
 Yours, R. 
 
 [88]
 
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 P.S. Here is a mite for your collection. A 
 soldier's letter (official) : 
 
 "DEAR MOTHER, This comes hoping it finds 
 you as it leaves me at present. I have a broken 
 leg and a bullet in my left arm. Your affect, son, 
 
 TOM SMITH" 
 
 LVII 
 
 LADY STARR TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR RICHARD, I dare say you are right 
 about our soldiers even the New Army ones 
 not being much changed in character by the war ; 
 although, of course, many of them, I mean in 
 particular the indoor types, will get a broadening 
 that will make desk routine very irksome after- 
 wards and perhaps will drive them back to the 
 land or to the Colonies. But that, of course, is 
 superficial : broadening rather than deepening. 
 
 But I am quite sure that changes are going on 
 in our characters at home. I notice much more 
 fatalism among the people here, and also more 
 
 [89]
 
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 courage. For example, there is a great diminution 
 of ailment talk. Even happy valetudinarians like 
 Sir Rowland Oliver, who used to delight in new 
 maladies, have given it up, feeling, I suppose, that 
 with men dying in such numbers, and suffering 
 such wounds and mutilations for their country, 
 every day, it is indecent to mention little personal 
 ailments. Not a bad thing. My cook under the 
 same influence is now quite silent about her rheu- 
 matism. I mentioned to her that she seemed to 
 have lost it; but that was an error of tact on my 
 part. Oh no, she said, she hadn't lost it. Far 
 from it. Far from it indeed. She was just the 
 martyr she had always been. But she couldn't 
 mention such a trifle when our brave lads were 
 suffering in the trenches. Your loving 
 
 HELEN 
 
 LVIII 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 DEAR Miss GREY, There is one thing you 
 don't tell me in your letter about yourself, and 
 
 [90]
 
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 that is that you are fond of cricket. So am I. 
 Indeed there was quite a chance, I was told, that 
 I might have got my Blue next season, and now 
 no one knows when there will be a next season. 
 I'm so glad the cricketers knocked off so quickly. 
 Very different from some of the other so-called 
 sportsmen. 
 
 If there is ever county cricket again will you 
 let me take you to Lord's"? That would be some- 
 thing to look forward to. 
 
 I am very busy from early in the morning till 
 dinner-time, and after dinner I ought to be busy 
 too, reading tactics, but I am too dog-tired. I 
 had no idea before that war was so fascinating. 
 I had thought of it almost wholly as firing can- 
 non and rifles and charging; but it's all so hu- 
 man too, like a magnificent glorified chess: full 
 of problems and the necessity of thinking about 
 what the other fellow may be thinking about. I 
 am beginning to get a quite new notion of gen- 
 erals. And what a terrific swell Napoleon was! 
 I can see that now. 
 
 It makes me wish so that we had had a mili- 
 tary class at school and Oxford strategy, you 
 
 [91] '
 
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 know, and all that sort of thing, with maps like 
 Belloc's to make it plain so that we could all 
 be readier for it now. Perhaps in the future they 
 will. 
 
 Please tell me what kind of things your father 
 paints. I have asked one or two men here who 
 reckon to be nuts on art if they know his work, 
 but they seem only to know a man named Raphael 
 Kirchner, who they all swear by. I don't know 
 anything about art, but I know what I like. Some 
 of the new men who call themselves Cubists and 
 what not give me the stomachache. Pictures 
 ought to be either beautiful or jolly, I think. 
 
 I hope you will find time to answer this. 
 Yours sincerely, TOBY STARR 
 
 P.S. What kind of dogs have you got? 
 
 DEAR AUNT HELEN, Mother is in the seventh 
 heaven to-day, for she has at last got a promise 
 
 [92]
 
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 from some one with a title, who has got a prom- 
 ise from some one still higher up, that the Queen 
 will visit our hospital supply depot and not the 
 other. There has been tremendous competition, 
 but mother's lot having won, the rival place will 
 have to put up with a Princess. 
 
 Mother is wonderful there. You know how she 
 hates any kind of needlework at home; but there 
 she will sit, in a white head-dress like an abbess, 
 making swabs and bandages and quilting pneu- 
 monia jackets by the hour. And often there's a 
 Duchess on one side of her and an Honourable 
 on the other. She has never had such luck before. 
 
 The excitement here is whether Dick, who may 
 have to go to France any day, shall marry Olive 
 before he goes, practically instantly, or wait. 
 Dick is all for marrying right away; but the 
 Wistons seem to be divided. I want him to 
 marry at once too, because then he might be put 
 on to some job of training recruits here on ac- 
 count of being married ; but I know that this view 
 is selfish. 
 
 I am now busy at a canteen at Charing Cross 
 for part of every day ; and I should really like it 
 
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 if it were not for the draughts. My latest theory- 
 is that all colds begin at railway stations. 
 
 The soldiers are so funny in their politeness. 
 They would, I am sure, be much happier if we 
 were real barmaids, and for their sakes I wish we 
 were. They take such pains, some of them, to 
 eat nicely, and they have such terrible difficulty 
 in remembering where they are and leaving out 
 adjectives. It's very hard on a man with a good 
 story to tell, just as if he was in a bar, having all 
 of a sudden to spoil it because of us. They're 
 so grateful too, some of them; but that really 
 hurts. Fancy being grateful for a cup of coffee 
 and a bun when they've been risking their lives 
 for us and England! In future it is ingratitude 
 that I shan't mind the War has taught me that. 
 Your loving NANCY 
 
 LX 
 
 MRS. WISTON TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, I wish I could get George 
 to agree; but he has become very difficult since 
 
 [94]
 
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 the war broke out, and takes no interest in any- 
 thing but his country's deplorable plight, as he 
 views it. I am sure he goes too much to the club, 
 where there seems always to be some one who 
 knows that the worst is in store for us. 
 
 I should like Olive and Dick to marry, for their 
 happiness as well as the reason which you give 
 which makes it all so utilitarian and physiological. 
 I am sure he would not be a worse soldier for 
 knowing that he had a sweet young wife waiting 
 for him at home. 
 
 I wonder if you would mind very much coming 
 soon for the night and talking to George about 
 it? He rarely sleeps in town now, but catches 
 the 6.15. Your loving KATE 
 
 LXI 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO GEORGE WISTON 
 
 DEAR GEORGE, About these young people. 
 Since you have given your consent to the mar- 
 riage, why object to an immediate wedding? If 
 Dick never comes back, there may still be an-
 
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 other English citizen, and its parents will have 
 been happy. If he does come back, all will be as 
 it would have been. If you take my advice you 
 will say yes and hurry the thing along, for every 
 one's sake. Yours, R. H. 
 
 LXII 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, If you viewed the war as I 
 do you would write differently. But you have 
 not my opportunities for getting at the truth; I 
 meet regularly a number of specially informed 
 men. The odds against Dick's return to England 
 are enormous, such is the terrible toll that will be 
 exacted of our trifling force. We shall be used 
 up in no time, if only as a shield for the French, 
 for Joffre means to save every Frenchman he can. 
 Naturally I do not view with any particular 
 pleasure the idea of Olive as a widow permanently 
 on my hands; for there won't be enough husbands 
 to go round for the single girls, let alone widows, 
 when (if ever) this war is over; and Digby is not 
 
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 in a position to do anything for his daughter-in- 
 law. Surely you see my point of view. Yours 
 cordially, GEORGE WISTON 
 
 LXIII 
 
 PORTIA GREY TO TOBY STARR 
 
 DEAR MR. STARR, Father is what is called 
 an archaeological painter. He would like to paint 
 landscape, but not being equal to travelling about 
 he has to do everything in the studio. I don't 
 suppose you would care very much for his pictures, 
 which are usually classical in subject and are 
 absolutely exact in their details. I like the land- 
 scapes he used to do better, and so, I think, does 
 he. It is very hard when artists who so love this 
 beautiful world should be unable to see scenery; 
 but he is always very brave about it, and says he 
 saw too much when he was younger and stronger, 
 and we have wonderful sunsets here. 
 
 Our dogs are spaniels black cockers. I don't 
 think I could live without them, and that is why 
 I expect never to live in London, because, of 
 
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 course, it isn't fair to keep black cockers there. 
 They are named "Ebony" and "Nox," which are 
 both rather good words to call out. 
 
 Father has a Pekinese called "Trody," an ab- 
 breviation of "Trop de nez," which indicates 
 what her fault is. I mean, of course, from the 
 point of view of a judge at a Show. She has no 
 faults really. Yours sincerely, 
 
 PORTIA GREY 
 
 LXIV 
 
 NANCY BERNAL TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR AUNT HELEN, Some of mother's co- 
 helpers are too wonderful. There is one lady 
 who arrives only to leave again. There is another 
 who is showing her friends over the place almost 
 all day long. There is another who is continually 
 being wanted on the telephone, and sometimes 
 sends messages like this: "Please" (this to the 
 already overworked secretary's assistant) "it 
 would be so very kind of you if you would answer 
 it for me. Would you mind telling her? it's 
 
 [98]
 
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 my maid who is speaking; she is French, but if 
 you speak very slowly, she can understand or 
 perhaps you can speak French"? No 1 ? What a 
 pity! You would so enjoy some of their books. 
 So witty and so charming. But speaking very 
 slowly will be all right. Would you be so very 
 kind as to tell her to tell the chauffeur to be here 
 at four sharp, and to tell the nurse that Miss 
 Diana had better not go out to-day, as it's colder 
 than I thought, but there is no harm in Master 
 Vivian going out with the under-nurse so long as 
 he doesn't sit down 4 ? And oh, will she tell cook 
 that we shall be eight this evening, and not ten? 
 That would be so sweet of you. I'd come myself, 
 only I oughtn't to leave this work. Thanks so 
 much." Mother imitates her wonderfully. 
 Your loving NANCY 
 
 LXV 
 
 MRS. CLAYTON-MILLS TO HER SISTER-IN-LAW, 
 MRS. WISTON 
 
 MY DEAR JOAN, Archibald, who has been 
 very restless and unsettled for a long while and 
 
 [99]
 
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 quite unable to sleep after seven in the morning, 
 hurried to town yesterday to consult a doctor as 
 to whether or not he was fit to enlist. He went 
 in the highest of hopes and spirits, but returned in 
 the lowest. The doctor found him quite unsuited, 
 and has told him he must wear glasses, or his 
 sight will steadily go. 
 
 The poor boy is very unhappy, but has prom- 
 ised to take a week at Brighton and rest. If you 
 can think of anything to cheer him up, I wish you 
 would let me know. Your affectionate 
 
 MAUDE 
 
 LXVI 
 
 DR. SUTHERLAND TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR HAVEN, As an instance of the far- 
 reaching effect of the war, I am enclosing a letter 
 from Hawaii giving an account of a very engaging 
 zealot for humanity out there. 
 
 [Enclosure] 
 
 "A little dried-up old man of not above five 
 feet in height, with a skin like parchment and a 
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 voice like a decrepit old melodeon, was once a 
 clerk in a stationery store here. He was so 
 crabbed and odd and disagreeable withal that the 
 store let him go, and he -has kept body and soul 
 by clerking in a plantation store away in the 
 country. Our one bond of sympathy is kept alive 
 because he borrows books on socialism out of my 
 library, and burns with such zeal when he returns 
 them, dreaming of the time when the revolution 
 shall come. . . . Two weeks ago he lost his po- 
 sition in the country store. Even that place could 
 not stand for him. He came to my house on Sun- 
 day afternoon and said that he had read of what 
 we were doing for the Belgians, and that now he 
 is out of a position he intended to devote himself 
 to relief work, and he wanted to lay his plan 
 before me. 
 
 "It was this: In his youth he had learnt to 
 'speak pieces,' if you know what that means. So 
 now he intended to go out to some of the Planta- 
 tion headquarters in the country, borrow or rent 
 a warehouse, and announce an evening's entertain- 
 ment which would consist entirely of his recita- 
 tions. When he assured me that he was a good 
 
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 elocutionist, I did not have the heart to refuse to 
 give him an opportunity to try it on me. The 
 piece was 'Curfew shall not ring to-night.* It was 
 awful. But it was his offering to the cause and 
 as such was not to be scorned. He then showed 
 me a brown wrapping-paper on which he had 
 written an announcement, stating the time and 
 place of his entertainment and the cause to which 
 the proceeds were to be given. I attempted to 
 dissuade him, giving him a plausible reason why 
 this was not the time, but he held to his purpose, 
 and the next morning I saw him, a little old man 
 of fifty, on a deplorable bicycle to which he had 
 tied an umbrella, a change of clothing, and a few 
 bananas for his lunch, starting for the lower end 
 of the island. 
 
 "The following Sunday he returned cheerful as 
 ever, and I hardly dared ask him to tell me of the 
 failure which I knew was in store for him. He 
 went at it his own way, however, and drawing a 
 note-book from his pocket, showed me that the 
 net result of his work for the suffering civilians 
 of Europe was $266. On the following Monday 
 he came to say good-bye with his same equipment, 
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 even to the bananas for lunch. By the mail of 
 yesterday, he sends me a memorandum of a grand 
 total of $500, which he has got pledged up to the 
 present time. He will go round the island, and 
 then will go to the island of Maui, and then prob- 
 ably to the islands in the north of the group. At 
 every place he goes and gives an entertainment, 
 he asks the people to name a treasurer, and to 
 submit to him their donations. Each person desig- 
 nates the object to which his money shall go, and 
 the funds come to me for final distribution. He 
 does not touch one cent of money on his trip, and 
 his small travelling expenses are paid out of his 
 scanty stock of money saved from years of labour. 
 I would not be surprised to find him turning in 
 a grand total of $1000 for this island. When he 
 set out I would have said that $20 would have 
 been the outside figure." 
 
 It's fine to see the confines of the earth coming 
 in like this ! 
 
 Here in New York the progress of affairs is 
 being watched very vigilantly. The President 
 very naturally does not want war. How could 
 
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 he*?. And war would be a very serious thing, 
 there being so many Germans and German sym- 
 pathisers scattered about the country. That 
 would mean every kind of outrage and internal 
 strife, I fear. 
 
 On the other hand, I believe Wilson to be a 
 friend of right, and if he thought it was needful 
 he would run these internal risks, as he is being 
 urged to do, coute qui coute, and strike. But I 
 pray the need will not arise. Yours, T. S. 
 
 LXVII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO GEORGE WISTON 
 
 DEAR GEORGE, If you did not hear from 
 me at once it is because the older I grow the 
 more convinced I am that letters should not be 
 answered till the day after. One merciful night 
 should, whenever possible, intervene. That is to L 
 large extent what nights are for. 
 
 You look too far ahead and expect too much 
 that is bad. Now, I make a suggestion. Olive 
 has always been a great favourite of mine, as you 
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 know. If Dick is killed or disabled, I will myself 
 allow her 150 a year, on the condition that she 
 is now allowed to marry instantly. Is it a bet? 
 Yours, R. H. 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, I agree, on the further con- 
 dition that you do not mention the terms to any- 
 one. Yours cordially, GEORGE WISTON 
 
 Of course not. HAVEN 
 
 LXX 
 
 MRS. CLAYTON-MILLS TO MRS. WISTON 
 
 DEAR JOAN, Just a line to say chat Archi- 
 bald writes me from Brighton that he is taking 
 
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 lessons in motor driving with the idea of assisting 
 with the Red Cross in France. Isn't it fine of 
 him ? Yours, M. 
 
 LXXI 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK TO His WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST, We draw nearer to the real 
 thing every day. Don't worry about me. I 
 don't feel anxious, but naturally one must take 
 precautions, and I have written to Haven to make 
 everything all right, although I had of course gone 
 into such matters before I left. English soldiers' 
 wives are beginning to feel the strain of this call- 
 ing for the first time for many years, and you for 
 the first time of all. 
 
 If I am hit I don't want you to come over. 
 Stick to the children, who have become the most 
 important thing in che world and will be even 
 more so. The next generation! It is terrible to 
 see some of the fine young fellows out here who 
 will now never have children of their own. 
 
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 Rightly, of course, old men should fight, and those 
 who already are fathers. 
 
 There is something desperately fine about 
 France. I don't want to live there I wouldn't 
 swap miles of it for an inch of England but it's 
 fine. The French are centuries behind the times 
 in sanitation and all that kind of thing; they have 
 dull drinks and no breakfast; they call bacon 
 "lard," and when you get it it isn't bacon; their 
 clothes are poor and their boots a disgrace; their 
 billiard tables are ridiculous and their country 
 houses impossible, without lawns or comfort or 
 anything jolly like ours; they know nothing about 
 so many things that we think necessary. But 
 they're splendid and resolute, and one believes in 
 them. It's partly, I think, because they believe in 
 themselves; they're so much in earnest; they're 
 not ashamed of their clothes or their gestures or 
 their great stomachs. But even more, it's because 
 one is so sorry for them in having this war thrust 
 upon them. For the French, I am certain, want 
 to invade no one. They want to be let alone to 
 be happy, and they want no one to be unhappy. 
 
 There is a unity about them too. One can 
 
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 thihk of France as one cruelly injured resolute 
 person, whereas one can never at least I can't 
 think of England as a single figure. That is rather 
 odd, isn't it? But the French are so much more 
 of their country than we are. 
 
 Kiss the Prillils for me, my dear love. 
 
 TERENCE 
 
 LXXII 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 MY DEAR Miss GREY, I believe I should 
 like your father's pictures very much. I am quite 
 keen on archeology, and last summer I rubbed 
 heaps of brasses for a friend of ours. I also walk 
 to Stonehenge quite often. It is not far from 
 here and is a ripping place. One evening I 
 counted twenty-three hares on the way there and 
 back. Your father would make a fine picture of 
 the Druids worshipping there. But I like other 
 pictures too, and I always go to the Academy, at 
 least once, with the mater, and then we go a 
 buster and have lunch at the Ritz, close by, and 
 
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 to a matinee after. I wonder if your father sends 
 his things to the Academy. I shall know what 
 to look for if he does. The mater paints a bit 
 herself, but only in water colours. Landscapes 
 really rather jolly. 
 
 It's awful being without a dog, but I can't have 
 one here as my movements are too uncertain. 
 
 I am getting a great dab at throwing hand 
 grenades. That's where cricket comes in. Yours 
 sincerely, TOBY STARR 
 
 LXXIII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO BARCLAY VAUGHAN 
 
 DEAR B., Have the new Tuppenies reached 
 Edinburgh, I wonder. I went into a bookshop 
 yesterday and found a table covered with pam- 
 phlets at this modest figure, all proceeding from 
 Oxford. What, you will ask, has Oxford and 
 more particularly the cloistered conversationalists 
 of All Souls to do with war? Well, I can tell 
 you that Oxford has behaved nobly, and I spent 
 a long and stimulating evening in appreciating 
 
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 that fact. If you want the clearest idea of the 
 war from the ethical and historical points of view 
 you must down with your Tuppences. Deny your- 
 self a few baps (don't you call them?). But in 
 particular get Walter Raleigh on Might and 
 Right. This is the end of it : 
 
 "It would be vain for Germany to take the 
 world; she could not keep it; nor, though she 
 can make a vast of people miserable for a long 
 time, could she ever hope to make all the in- 
 habitants of the world miserable for all time. She 
 has a giant's power, and does not think it in- 
 famous to use it like a giant. She can make 
 a winter hideous, but she cannot prohibit the re- 
 turn of spring, or annul the cleansing power of 
 water. Sanity is not only better than insanity; 
 it is much stronger, and Might is Right. 
 
 "Meantime, it is a delight and a consolation to 
 Englishmen that England is herself again. She 
 has a cause that it is good to fight for, whether it 
 succeed or fail. The hope that uplifts her is the 
 hope of a better world, which our children shall 
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 see. She has wonderful friends. From what self- 
 governing nations of the world can Germany hear 
 such messages as came to England from the 
 Dominions over sea 1 ? 'When England is at war, 
 Canada is at war.' 'To the last man and the 
 last shilling, Australia will support the cause of 
 the Empire.' These are simple words and suffi- 
 cient; having said them, Canada and Australia 
 said no more. In the company of such friends, 
 and for the creed that she holds, England might 
 be proud to die; but surely her time is not yet." 
 
 Having gone to the trouble of copying all that, 
 I now enclose a copy of the pamphlet itself, so 
 that you can have the whole fine argument. 
 
 Day after day I look in vain for the god who 
 should already have emerged from the infernal 
 machine War. It is customary for national 
 crises to produce national giants; but so far, in 
 the biggest crisis of modern times, no one has 
 appeared. In no single walk of life has the stress 
 under which we are labouring evolved a big new 
 man. Certain of our politicians may have im-
 
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 proved their stock, but only slightly; many of 
 them have merely revealed new depths of paltri- 
 ness. Nor have the arts risen to the occasion. As 
 for the journalists, the yapping ones, they make 
 me sad indeed. At a time when all those in au- 
 thority have needed trust and encouragement, 
 they have been suspicious and hostile. It is an 
 extraordinary phenomenon. Of all varieties of 
 government that seem to me disastrous, I should 
 put government by newspapers first, and that is 
 what we are threatened with. 
 
 No doubt things will get better. We move 
 slowly in England and are not ashamed to allow 
 our processes of thought and the changings of 
 our mind to be visible. And thank goodness the 
 Press does not represent the country. The coun- 
 try is sound underneath, but it takes a long time to 
 alter old habits of irresponsibility. We have been 
 far too long prosperous and well protected, I sup- 
 pose. Yours, R. H. 
 
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 LXXIV 
 MRS. PARK-STAN MER TO LADY STARR 
 
 O MY DEAR, I must tell you about a poor boy 
 here who has just been jilted such a nice creature 
 and so pathetic. What he would do without my 
 sympathy I can't think. He's a cousin of Lord 
 Bonchurch, and a second lieutenant in Horace's 
 regiment. The girl and he were brought up to- 
 gether, and their marriage was an understood 
 thing, but she has suddenly taken up with a boy 
 in the Flying Corps, and poor Gerald (that's his 
 name) is heartbroken. He showed me her letter 
 a most cold-blooded statement of fact. What 
 there is in these aviators I have not yet gathered, 
 but they leave the other men nowhere. 
 
 Gerald comes round to see me every afternoon, 
 and I am gradually healing his poor sore feelings. 
 He has given me a lovely gold cigarette-case as 
 what he calls my fee for attendance. Isn't that 
 charming of him? You should see the gratitude 
 in his eyes when he looks at me. It is very de- 
 
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 lightful to realise that one has this power of 
 help. Your devoted AMABEL 
 
 LXXV 
 
 JOHN LASTWAYS TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAR MOTHER, Excuse me opening the sub- 
 ject again, but I have found the enclosed para- 
 graph in a paper. Please read it. It seems to me 
 to spike your guns very thoroughly. Now please 
 say that you withdraw your objections, which I 
 and all my friends here think are, using the word 
 in its best sense, footling. If this boy of sixteen 
 can do things like that, surely you would be proud 
 to see me doing the same. I quite see that you 
 don't want to lose me, and that there ought to be 
 a man at the head of a family, but there are 
 occasions when country comes first. Be a Spar- 
 tan ! Your loving son, JOHN 
 
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 [Enclosure] 
 "A HERO OF SIXTEEN 
 
 "A young private of the King's Own Royal 
 Lancaster Regiment, who through his being only 
 sixteen years of age was going to be sent back to 
 England, has proved that bravery does not depend 
 on birthdays. During a recent German attack he 
 volunteered to carry a message when the wires 
 had been broken, and succeeded in reaching the 
 headquarters of the brigade. The artillery then 
 saved the situation by their curtain of fire, and 
 the infantry, who had been rapid-firing, were glad 
 to hear their colonel say, 'They are beaten again.' 
 The Brigadier complimented the young private on 
 his pluck, and took his name." 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 MRS. LASTWAYS TO JOHN LASTWAYS 
 
 MY DEAR BOY, Please do not re-open this 
 question. So long as you are under military age
 
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 arid at school you must do as I and your school- 
 masters tell you. I quite understand that you 
 want to be a soldier and go to France, and I 
 am proud of you for feeling like that, but we can- 
 not do all that we want to in this world, and it 
 would be very bad for us if we could. Also I 
 want you to ask yourself if you are quite sure 
 that it is wholly love of country that is making 
 you so restless, and not the desire for change 
 and excitement 1 ? Directly the holidays come 
 we will talk about it; letters are not much good. 
 Your loving MOTHER 
 
 LXXVII 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK TO His WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST, We are now in the thick of it, 
 and I have not had my clothes off till to-day for 
 nearly a week. This is a very hot corner, and we 
 take and lose and re-take trenches continually. 
 So far I have had wonderful luck, and what be- 
 gan by being a taste of hell is now normal life. 
 One learns very quickly to pick the dangerous 
 
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 sounds out of all the shattering turmoil and be- 
 have accordingly. But one makes no plans: the 
 future ceases to exist. In ordinary life one never 
 can hug the present quite sufficiently close, but 
 here the present is all. 
 
 I have lost some of my finest men, and that 
 is very distressing men who would have done 
 anything for me. 
 
 The difference between the French soldiers and 
 ours is extraordinary. Our men can be sullen 
 enough, but there are always some who are jolly 
 in a mechanical kind of way not perhaps really 
 being funny, but repeating funny things they've 
 heard Graves or Robey or Harry Tate say. 
 Even under fire, even when the gas is seen coming 
 along, they say these things or use phrases from 
 the London streets, such as "Higher up, there!" 
 like a 'bus conductor, or from football or cricket. 
 A man just missed by a shell or bomb explosion 
 says, "How's that, umpire?" for example: "Not 
 out." 
 
 There's a kind of unwritten law that the men 
 have got to be jocular about everything. But the 
 French aren't like that at all. They are not 
 
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 fuhny, they are apathetic or sardonic. Perhaps 
 it's the difference between conscription and an 
 army so largely amateur and out for adventure. 
 Perhaps it's the difference between being on your 
 own invaded soil and visiting it on a great semi- 
 sporting expedition. 
 
 Here is an example of what the Boches can do. 
 Good warfare, no doubt, but fairly beastly too. 
 I had to sit in a trench for a certain fixed time 
 and then climb out and lead an attack on the 
 nearest German trench, which meanwhile was 
 being shelled over our heads. There I sat, star- 
 ing at my wrist-watch, and waiting for the mo- 
 ment. "Makes you believe in God, doesn't it 1 ?" 
 my sergeant said to me; but whether he was 
 ironical or serious, I don't know. When the mo- 
 ment came I scraped together a kind of cheer, 
 and we scrambled out and rushed across the 
 open. Now and then one of my men was hit, 
 and I remember thinking how like shot rabbits 
 they were as they spun round. When we reached 
 the trench it was of course empty. They nearly 
 always are. Nothing in it but a few helmets. 
 Now there is nothing our men value so much as 
 
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 helmets, as souvenirs, and there was a rush for 
 these. It passed through my mind to warn them, 
 but there was no time; and I had the pleasure of 
 seeing them blown to pieces before my eyes 
 for in each helmet was a bomb, carefully placed 
 there. That's Prussia! 
 
 Now for my first bath for what the men call 
 "Donkey's ears," meaning years and years. 
 
 Kiss the littluns. Your loving 
 
 TERENCE 
 
 LXXVIII 
 
 LADY STARR TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, I have only good news from 
 Toby, who is working very hard and as his com- 
 manding officer tells me privately is going to be 
 a very good soldier. How serious he is you may 
 gather from the fact that when I asked him what 
 I could send him he said he wanted only histories 
 of great campaigns. 
 
 Of the future I dare not think; but I hope that 
 I shall bear bravely and decently whatever ill 
 
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 may come. The daily casualty lists are too dis- 
 tressing. Our poor vicar has just lost his only 
 son a nice boy of twenty, who looked to me, 
 when I saw him just before he went out, as ut- 
 terly doomed as any one can be. It is odd that 
 one has this feeling sometimes. 
 
 The war widows in the village now number 
 three. Not the least part of their grief (poor 
 simple dears) comes from the circumstance that 
 there can be no funeral. A funeral helps. 
 
 We never thought of two at any rate of these 
 three husbands as models, or as greatly beloved by 
 their wives, but now that they are no more the 
 wives speak of them as though their lives had 
 been all thoughtful devotion and self-sacrifice. 
 
 This posthumous pride is a very pretty human 
 trait, even if it provokes a smile. 
 
 The war makes no changes in some people. I 
 have a frivolous friend, Mrs. Park-Stanmer, the 
 wife of an officer stationed at Sandwich, who 
 writes me now and then. She is just the same 
 self-centred flirt that she always was; except 
 rather more so, for the war has multiplied oppor- 
 tunities. The kind of woman who, going to the 
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 National Gallery, would see only the reflection of 
 herself in the glass of the pictures and prefer the 
 darker ones in consequence. Yours, 
 
 HELEN 
 
 LXXIX 
 
 JOHN LAST WAYS TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR AUNT HELEN, Won't you use your in- 
 fluence with mother and get her to let me enlist"? 
 Toby is a soldier, and he is very little older than 
 me and not so tall. Mother always thinks such 
 a lot of what you say to her. Your affectionate 
 nephew, JOHN LAST WAYS 
 
 LXXX 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR HELEN, I keep on asking people 
 for war stories for you. Here is the latest that I 
 have come across I mean latest worth sending: 
 there are too many indifferent ones. Mrs. Car- 
 
 [121]
 
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 stairs, who lives near us, asked a woman the 
 other day if her husband was at the front yet. 
 "Oh yes, and I hope he'll serve the Germans the 
 same as he used to do me." 
 
 I should like to know more of what it feels 
 like to be a naturalised Briton of German birth 
 and education in England at this moment. To 
 what extent are they against their old country or 
 for ours 1 ? Can one wholly denationalise himself 
 and be any real good*? Such willingly expatri- 
 ated Englishmen as I have met abroad have al- 
 ways seemed to have some lack, some blemish. 
 It is not natural for a man to change countries. 
 Letters in the papers from anglicised Germans 
 expressing their disgust with Germany do not 
 strike me as very admirable documents. Even 
 while glad to have their support, one is a little 
 ashamed of it or of them (so complex are we!) 
 for offering it. Perhaps the better way is to do 
 as some of the richer ones do and head all the 
 war subscriptions. All wise men insure, how- 
 ever great the premium. 
 
 Here is a little poem that was published just 
 before the war broke out: 
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 THE MOURNER 
 
 I met the mother of my friend who died, 
 And kind and tender were the words she said ; 
 
 But this was what her poor eyes could not hide : 
 What right have you to live and he be dead? 
 
 How often do I say that last line over to myself 
 nowadays, when bereaved mothers are so often 
 met! R. 
 
 LXXXI 
 
 FROM A DAILY PAPER 
 [MARRIAGE] 
 
 BERN A L WISTON. On the 3rd inst., at St. 
 Peter's Church, Chislehurst, very quietly, by the 
 Rev. Canon Fodder, M.A., Richard, only son of 
 Digby Bernal and Mrs. Bernal of 73 Bedford 
 Gardens, W., to Olive, second daughter of George 
 Wiston and Mrs. Wiston of Chislehurst. 
 
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 LXXXII 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 MY DEAR Miss GREY, I thought about you 
 an awful lot yesterday, for I went to the wed- 
 ding of my cousins, Dick Bernal and Olive Wis- 
 ton. He is in the regular army and goes to the 
 front next week, and they were married in a 
 great hurry in consequence. 
 
 After the wedding there was a great crush of 
 people at the house, and do you know, I as near 
 as a touch bolted and got into a train for Ash- 
 ford it's on the same line, you know but some- 
 how I funked it. Besides, I had the mater to 
 look after. 
 
 Weddings are rum things, aren't they? I sup- 
 pose it's women who like all the ceremony and 
 new clothes. I wonder if you do. This was 
 rather a miserable kind of wedding, because every 
 one looked at poor old Dick as though he were 
 certain to be killed, and really one got to think 
 of it rather as an execution than a wedding. 
 
 They have gone to Brighton for just four days' 
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 honeymoon, and then Olive returns home again. 
 Not my idea of things at all. Yours sincerely, 
 
 TOBY STARR 
 
 LXXXIII 
 
 NANCY BERNAL TO JERRY HARDING 
 
 MY DEAREST JERRY, All the time the wed- 
 ding was going on I was thinking how easily 
 it might have been ours. I wonder if you did too. 
 
 Now that the ice is broken and father and 
 mother are accustomed to weddings, don't you 
 think we had better break the news and marry at 
 once"? Pretty nearly the same people will come, 
 and as they've all got their clothes that would 
 save expense, which we ought to do in war-time. 
 That's one thing. Another thing is that, though 
 you may not think it, I want to be Mrs. Jerry 
 Harding ! 
 
 A third thing is that I am not really wanted 
 here at all, for mother is never in from morning 
 to night, she has so many committees, etc.; and 
 father is never in either, and when he is he does
 
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 nothing but read war books or Land and Water. 
 So I shan't be missed. 
 
 Then, if you were hurt, I should have the right 
 to come out to you. But something tells me that 
 you are not going to be hurt. 
 
 Dear Jerry, do agree to this. Your true love, 
 
 NAN 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 MRS. BERNAL TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 DEAREST MOTHER, You did right not to 
 come to the wedding, which was very fatiguing. 
 Dick seems doubly lost to me; but Olive is a 
 dear girl, although I could wish she was not a 
 first cousin. Still, I don't intend to worry in 
 advance. In these days there is nothing for one 
 but activity and fatalism. 
 
 Fortunately I have certain interests in con- 
 nexion with the war which keep me fairly busy. 
 I am on five committees and have undertaken to 
 get 500 for a new hospital within a month. 
 Please send me something, and tell Mary I want
 
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 something from her too. And would not the 
 maids like to contribute a mite each? Every lit- 
 tle helps, you know. 
 
 Fortunately we still have Nancy, who will not, 
 I hope, become engaged for a long time yet. She 
 shows no sign of it at present. Your loving 
 daughter, MARGARET 
 
 P.S. We have got two Belgians coming. 
 
 LXXXV 
 
 LADY STARR TO JOHN LASTWAYS 
 
 MY DEAR JOHN, I sympathise with your wish 
 to enlist and think it is very sporting of you; 
 but I am not going to say anything to your 
 mother about it, because I feel that she knows 
 best. And I've got a little plan which will help 
 you towards being useful when the time does 
 come. You know our Renault car*? Well, there 
 is no one to drive it, now that your uncle is in 
 France and Toby is in camp and we have let 
 Jarvis go. So what I suggest is, that, as every
 
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 one ought to be able to run a car, I shall give 
 you the money to be taught directly the holidays 
 begin, and lend you the car to practise with. Do 
 you agree*? But of course you won't go on 
 worrying your mother about enlisting 1 ? Your af- 
 fectionate AUNT HELEN 
 
 LXXXVI 
 
 JERRY HARDING TO NANCY BERNAL 
 
 DEAREST SWEETEST, I have your wonderful 
 letter and I don't know what to do. I want you 
 so much, but I don't think it's fair to marry you 
 like that. You see I might get killed directly 
 after, or I might be frightfully knocked about and 
 even blinded, and that wasn't a bit what you 
 bargained for when you said Yes on that gor- 
 geous evening on the river. Do agree with me 
 that it is best to wait till after the war. Don't 
 think it is because I don't love you that I write 
 like this. It is because I love you so much. 
 Your devoted and worshipping J. 
 
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 LXXXVII 
 
 MRS HAVEN TO HER SISTER IN NEW ZEALAND, 
 MRS. GLAZEBROOK 
 
 MY DEAR EMMIE, Once again I take pen in 
 hand to write my annual letter. Little did I 
 think last year that I should write it thus, under 
 such unhappy conditions, with Europe a great 
 battle-field. But we cannot anticipate the future. 
 Next year I may not be alive to write at all, or 
 you to read; while even this letter may never 
 reach you, but the ship that carries it be sunk by 
 a torpedo. Such dreadful things happen now, 
 all owing to the ambition of the Kaiser. What 
 has come over Germany I can't think. The Ger- 
 mans that Henry and I used to know were so 
 different. Rather stuffy, it is true, and bald and 
 shortsighted, but not cruel and grasping, I am 
 sure. And you remember our Fraulein, what a 
 willing little thing she was. But now even the 
 German governesses are spies, they say. 
 
 Most of our family are busy over the war. 
 
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 Indeed all England is, and I dare say New Zea- 
 land too. 
 
 Helen has her husband, Vincent, on the Staff 
 in France, and her boy Toby, who is a fine young 
 fellow, left Oxford to enlist, and is now train- 
 ing as an officer on Salisbury Plain and expecting 
 to go out any day. Helen herself looks after 
 her village, knits, and is generally very efficient, 
 as she always was even as a small girl. You re- 
 member how she cooked that supper for us on 
 the Sunday night that the cook was inebriated*? 
 and she only twelve at the time. 
 
 Joan's daughter Violet is rubbing up her French 
 and doing probationer's work in order to be ready 
 to take up a post at a hospital in Paris, where 
 she has friends. Poor John, who is still at school 
 and is only sixteen, is perpetually worrying his 
 mother to let him enlist. He is big for his age 
 and it seems that there have been a number of 
 cases of boys joining the Army through pretend- 
 ing to be older than they are. But she remains 
 firm. 
 
 Kate, I imagine, has her hands fairly full with 
 George, for having now no business to occupy his 
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 mind he devotes himself to criticising every one 
 in authority. He gets hold of all the rumours 
 and spreads them and is confident that the Allies 
 haven't a chance. He is at his club all day and 
 returns in the evening to terrify the life out of 
 poor Kate and his household. You know how 
 fond some English people always are of running 
 their own country down. Well, there are plenty 
 of them about just now, and George is worse 
 than any. The letters he sends to Anne, if they 
 were true, would keep us in utter dejection day 
 and night; but Anne very sensibly disregards 
 them. "Poor father!" is all she says; "he would 
 be miserable if there was nothing to find fault 
 with." 
 
 Last week Anne went home for two or three 
 days to help with Olive's wedding to Richard, 
 Margaret's boy. I don't like cousins marrying, 
 at any rate, first cousins, but we must hope for 
 the best. Richard had to return to his soldier- 
 ing after only a few days. How different from 
 Henry's and my honeymoon, which lasted for six 
 weeks! These hurried marriages are now very 
 common in England and probably in France and
 
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 Germany too. It is very hard on the brides to 
 have to be so hustled and it probably means fewer 
 presents too. Poor dears! Richard and Olive 
 went to Brighton. I gave them cutlery and silver. 
 Dear things, I hope they'll sit opposite each other 
 at their own table and use them, but who can 
 say? 
 
 Digby is just the reverse of George. Nothing 
 can damp his belief in England and France and 
 especially Russia, and he sees victories every- 
 where. This is more cheerful, although it is not, 
 I am afraid, much nearer the actual truth. Still, 
 it is better to live with. Digby is wiser than 
 George in making himself busy. He is doing 
 something for the war all day long and a good 
 part of the night, and so is Maragret, who is on 
 a number of Committees and never still for a 
 moment. You know her restless managing way. 
 
 Digby' s sister Ruth, perhaps you don't know, 
 married an officer who is now at the front, and 
 she is terribly anxious. They have two children. 
 
 All our kith and kin interests, you see, are with 
 the Army. None with the Navy at all. But my 
 medical man here has two sons with the Grand
 
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 Fleet, and Sir Arthur Lynne, who lives next to 
 us, has one son who is a lieutenant and who 
 writes very interesting letters, which Lady Lynne 
 brings in to read. So I keep in touch with both 
 Services. 
 
 Here we knit, there being an endless supply of 
 warm scarves, socks, etc., needed by the men in 
 France and Flanders, where the cold and wet 
 have been terrible. Anne is the manager of our 
 local knitting industry and buys and distributes 
 the wool and so forth, and forwards the things 
 we have made to the right quarter. She is a dear 
 good girl and I am fortunate in being able to 
 retain her; but what the men are about not to 
 snap her up I can't think. Still, there are now 
 very few men with any time to make love, and 
 Richard tells me that there will soon be fewer, 
 for conscription is sure to come in. Of course 
 there are elderly men, but I don't want to see our 
 dear Anne married to a man much older than 
 herself. It may work all right for a few years, 
 but then he would get older and she younger 
 or at any rate not older at the same rate, not 
 indeed old at all and trouble would begin. 
 
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 Fifty-five and twenty-five are not impossible, but 
 add ten years and where are you? Sixty-five 
 and thirty-five don't do at all. 
 
 In addition to our knitting we tried two Bel- 
 gians, but they were not a success. A man and 
 his wife. The trouble was that there was a 
 prejudice against his doing any work, for fear it 
 would be depriving some Englishman of bread, 
 and that made him idle, and being idle, the poor 
 fellow got a little too fond of the bottle. No 
 doubt he was no teetotaller in his own country, 
 which I visited with Henry on our honeymoon, 
 and I still have a piece of lace that he bought 
 for me (he was always so generous) at Malines, 
 and a glass paper-weight with a view of Brussels. 
 It was from Brussels that we went to Germany, 
 and met quite a number of people whom I thought 
 nice and friendly then, but who perhaps were 
 only wolves in sheep's clothing after all. Mon- 
 sieur Blanc, our Belgian, may not have been a tee- 
 totaller in his own country, but he had not been 
 used to our strong spirits, and they were too much 
 for him, and in course of time we had to get rid 
 both of him and his wife. They had, as Anne 
 
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 said, ceased to be refugees, and become Belgians 
 again. 
 
 Beyond a few contributions to charities, which 
 are likely to be added to, I think, this is all I can 
 be said to be doing for the war. I wish it was 
 more. 
 
 My rheumatism does not get any better, but 
 it is all I have to complain of, except old age. 
 Thank God, I can still see and hear. 
 
 I hope you are well, dear Emmie. Your lov- 
 ing sister, VICTORIA 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR HELEN, So many people having 
 told me that no wise man would let another day 
 go by without a passport, I have taken the first 
 step to obtain one. Because I might 'have to go 
 to France, and nothing is so certain as that with- 
 out a passport I could not do so. Not all the 
 millions of Henry Ford could get me there lack- 
 ing that piece of paper. And that reminds me 
 
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 you had better gets yours too, because Toby may 
 have to go out at any time, and if he was hit, and 
 you wanted to hurry over to see him, you could 
 not do so without it. 
 
 Getting a passport nowadays requires two 
 things, neither of them very popular with me : pa- 
 tience and a mirror. The patience is to enable 
 you to support all the delays to which the new 
 regulations lead; the mirror is to enable you to 
 fill up the form. 
 
 The form begins with age. Not difficult, even 
 if unpalatable to fill up. Next, profession. This, 
 too, is moderately easy. Tinker, barrister, what 
 you will. Height is a question of fact which can 
 be ascertained, although the ascertainment is not 
 simple. It usually means being surrounded by a 
 crowd at a railway station while you measure 
 yourself, or, for more privacy, a Turkish bath, 
 and that is costly and takes time. Next comes 
 a really hard one forehead. Even a mirror is 
 difficult here. How to describe one's forehead*? 
 What kind of word*? Sir Oliver Lodge and Mr. 
 Hall Caine would do it simply enough : lofty and 
 bulging. Bill Sikes would do it simply enough:
 
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 low and receding. But ordinary people"? Hon- 
 estly I have no notion what my forehead is or 
 how to convey its character to the authorities. 
 Perhaps the best word, although cowardly, is 
 medium. Next come the eyes; and here the 
 quicksilver assists. My eyes, after careful and 
 not unpleasing investigation, I discover to be a 
 mixture of blue, grey, and green. I, therefore, 
 fill in the space with the words blue, grey, and 
 green, omitting as too subtle minutiae the little 
 brown spots which, I learn, are also to be seen 
 fitfully there. 
 
 Now for the index of the face, the nose. This 
 being the first thing about a countenance which 
 most observers see and the last that they retain 
 in mind, I must be careful. It would be horrid 
 to be kept waiting at Boulogne pier all day, and 
 worse, to be sent back by the next boat, because 
 my description was inaccurate. Here one needs 
 the threefold mirror which I find at the hatter's, 
 for the profile view is valuable. In default of 
 that I hazard "large and Roman." Next, the 
 mouth. I have no more words for my mouth 
 than for my forehead. My mouth is probably 
 
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 not repulsive, but the sleuth-hounds gathered at 
 Boulogne want something more definite than that. 
 I examine it with care. Is it large 1 ? No. Is it 
 small? No. Is it well cut 1 ? Of course, but 
 that doesn't matter. Finally I fall back on the 
 assistance of our old friend "medium." Then 
 comes chin. Here, alas ! my path is only too clear, 
 and I sadly place a solitary numeral against it 
 and pass on : 2. Then colour of hair : dark brown. 
 The complexion. At first I wrote "ruddy," but 
 recalling old stories in the pink papers where this 
 adjective does such noble service as a synonym 
 for another adjective with no tendency to an- 
 semia, I withdrew it and substituted "healthy." 
 And now comes the most stubborn question of 
 all face. How can one answer such a query? 
 Face? I have no notion what the authorities ex- 
 pect. Obviously I have a face, because I have 
 just been analysing it for them. The gluttons! 
 having been told all about my face, piece by 
 piece, they still want to know what my face is 
 like. I subject its reflection to the minutest study. 
 Is it abnormal in any way? Certainly not. Is it 
 excessive? No. Is it pretty? No. Is it 
 
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 symmetrical"? No. Is it handsome? That is 
 not for me to say, nor would what I should say 
 be evidence. Is it why yes, of course, it is 
 clean-shaved. That, at any rate, is distinctive. 
 So I simply say "clean shaved." One more ques- 
 tion and we are at the end. "Any special pe- 
 culiarities'?" Ah! There are of course several. 
 Very remarkable air of intelligence. Lights up 
 with fascinating radiance. Has a sui-generisity 
 not to be put in words. Any or all of these re- 
 plies I could have put. Instead, I left it blank. 
 And so, the great task was done. 
 
 But don't think to be much nearer France be- 
 cause these awkward questions have been an- 
 swered. Much more yet lies before the intrepid 
 traveller. To begin with, he must be photo- 
 graphed always to me a painful process, and 
 one that I have not indulged in for many years. 
 But new regulations change old habits, and off 
 I went to a photographer. Not an artist oh 
 dear, no. Not a refined manipulator of lights and 
 shades and lenses, who can make even a dentist 
 poetical and a real poet like a map of the moon, 
 and charge accordingly; but a practical while- 
 
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 you-wait man over a shop in the Strand, who 
 asks only half a crown and gives you wrinkles 
 and "valises" rather than removes them. The 
 whole thing did not take more than ten minutes, 
 and I came away the richer by two alleged like- 
 nesses of myself, so awful that if I really accepted 
 them as veracious I either would cut my throat 
 or some other person's; and thus armed I set out 
 on the search for a magistrate or barrister or doc- 
 tor who would sign my papers, and have enough 
 hardihood or credulity to state, on the back of 
 one of the photographs, that it represented me 
 and no one else. And here my path became easy, 
 for barristers are, to me, as common as German 
 victories, in Germany. 
 
 So that is done. But I don't get a passport 
 for some days, and then maybe I shall never use it. 
 
 And I now repeat that you, with a husband in 
 France and a son soon to be there, ought to go 
 through a similar ordeal. Digby is going to. 
 Yours, R. 
 
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 LXXXIX 
 
 JOHN LAST WAYS TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR AUNT HELEN, You are absolutely a 
 top-hole aunt. It is a grand idea, and Crosbie, 
 one of the fellows here, says that a fiver is all that 
 is necessary, and there's a place at Chelsea. 
 Thank you ever so much. We break up on De- 
 cember 21. Your affectionate nephew, 
 
 JOHN LAST WAYS 
 
 XC 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK TO His WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST, English women those who 
 are serious, I mean are thorough enough in their 
 work for the war, but from what I hear from a 
 French officer with whom I have struck up a 
 friendship, the French women are even more so, 
 for over here there is that wonderful institution 
 the marraine. A marraine is literally a god- 
 mother. Her special duty is to take charge of, 
 and be responsible for, a poilu both in action and
 
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 on leave. The soldiers, of course, come from all 
 parts of France, but many of them, when they get 
 leave, as they do far less often than our men, get 
 it only for Paris, where possibly they have no 
 friends. It is then that the marraine comes in. 
 She meets him at the station, finds a lodging, 
 provides pocket-money, takes him to the cinema, 
 and so forth. When the soldier is at the front 
 she sends him parcels of food and clothes and 
 cheers him with letters. In England, no doubt, 
 all this is done too, but not on such a scale. The 
 comic papers, of course, have taken it up and made 
 play with its obviously frivolous side ; but the 
 marraine is a serious and splendid fact all the 
 same. 
 
 I keep fit. 
 
 Love to the Infinitesimals. T. 
 
 XCI 
 MRS. CLAYTON-MILLS TO MRS. WISTON 
 
 DEAR JOAN, Poor Archibald has again failed. 
 He was driving a car alone for the first time, 
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 along the Madeira Road, when he ran into a 
 boat which had been placed there because of a 
 high tide, and he was severely shaken. Of course 
 boats ought not to be on roads. They are the 
 last thing that a motorist expects to have to avoid, 
 and I feel very much for him. As Archibald 
 said, he had not been taught not to avoid boats. 
 The worst of it is that in addition to the cost 
 of repairing both the boat and the car and I am 
 sure the Corporation should really pay for both 
 the poor boy's nerve has temporarily gone. After 
 a few weeks' rest he means, however, to try as a 
 stretcher-bearer somewhere. Anything, he says, 
 that will help to relieve suffering. Meanwhile 
 he is bracing himself with a good tonic at Crow- 
 borough, where there is still a little golf. Your 
 loving MAUDE 
 
 XCII 
 
 NANCY BERNAL TO JERRY HARDING 
 
 MY DARLING JERRY, I have your sweet letter, 
 but what you don't see is that I should love you 
 
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 twice as much if you were wounded and needed 
 looking after. That's the point of marriage "in 
 sickness or in health!" 
 
 My suggestion is that we make a compromise. 
 Let us be married by special licence directly you 
 come back on leave. I will find out all about it 
 and do everything, even to getting the ring. All 
 you have to do is to telegraph when you are 
 coming. You will see then how fitted I am to 
 be a soldier's wife. Do write agreeing to this. 
 
 I shall not tell mother just yet. Father is sure 
 to be on my side whatever happens. Your loving 
 and ever more loving NAN. 
 
 . XCIII 
 MRS. HAVEN TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR RICHARD, As usual I want your ad- 
 vice. With so much talk as to the need for 
 economy, I feel that I ought to be doing more 
 than I have done. Already I have changed our 
 tea, and instead of the Invalid Blend of China 
 which I used to take, and which you always liked 
 
 [144]
 
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 so much, at 35. 40!., I now have one at 2s. 8d. 
 A cheaper coffee too and chicory with it. Then 
 I have stopped the Sphere and the Guardian; but 
 the Church Times I cannot give up, especially as 
 I pass it on afterwards, and Punch, which I al- 
 ways send to New Zealand to your Aunt Emmie. 
 It is hard to give up the Sphere, but the servants 
 take the Daily Sketch, and I can see the war pic- 
 tures there whenever I want to. "C.K.S.'s" valu- 
 able guide to literary thought is, of course, a 
 loss, but one must try to bear it. Country Life 
 I have given up too, and so we can no longer 
 play at choosing a new home as we used to. In- 
 stead of four books a week from the Library, 
 we now are to have only two, and I am continu- 
 ally turning down the gas and removing lumps 
 of coal from the fires, while we never have fish 
 and meat any more, but either one or the other. 
 So you see I have tried. 
 
 But all the same I feel that there is still much 
 that ought to be done, and I am now writing to 
 ask you if you think I ought to part with Ellen*? 
 It is, I know, a small house for three maids, and 
 yet they always seem to have enough to do. 
 
 [145]
 
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 Anne and I -have talked it over and have decided 
 that we would try to assist Sarah and Julia suf- 
 ficiently to make up the deficiency if Ellen goes. 
 What do you advise ? Her wages are 26 a year, 
 and her food and washing come, I suppose, to 
 12s. a week more, at least. 
 
 Those are the principal things. There are also 
 lots of little domestic problems. For example, a 
 new dress. One can of course do without new 
 dresses. It is impossible to say truthfully that a 
 dress is ever really worn out. Ought one to have 
 a new one*? But I am most concerned about 
 Ellen. Your loving MOTHER 
 
 XCIV 
 
 LADY STARR TO A PRISONER IN GERMANY 
 
 DEAR SIR, I have drawn your name as that 
 of a British prisoner in Germany; but now that I 
 sit down to write to you I find I have nothing to 
 say, not knowing what the censor does with such 
 correspondence. I am therefore, instead of writ- 
 ing letters to you, ordering three or four papers
 
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 to be sent to you every week. If you would pre- 
 fer others let me know. Your sincere friend, 
 
 HELEN STARR 
 
 xcv 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, Before I can advise as to 
 Ellen, please answer two questions: 
 
 1. What are you going to do with the money 
 you save by dismissing Ellen"? 
 
 2. What is Ellen going to do when she is dis- 
 missed*? 
 
 I am not sure but that we must give the Kaiser 
 a statue, after all, as the man who rendered pov- 
 erty no disgrace. For that is what is going to 
 happen in England: people who hitherto have 
 been terrified of displaying the true paucity of 
 their means will be able to do so without shame. 
 In fact, I foresee a time when we shall compete 
 in economy as we now do in ostentation, to the 
 great joy of the naturally parsimonious. Some 
 day England under penury may even become so 
 
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 sensible as to force its shopkeepers to sell those 
 small portions of housekeeping material which the 
 French understand but which until now we have 
 been too snobbish for. 
 
 My own principal economy, so far, is the giv- 
 ing up of wine. This I hate, but I feel it is right 
 to do so. Life for the moment is hardly worth 
 living; but I shall get used to water in time and 
 then, I suppose, wonder how I ever cared so much 
 for those other costly fluids. Your loving son, 
 
 RICHARD 
 
 XCVI 
 MRS. HAVEN TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR RICHARD, As to your two ques- 
 tions, I really don't know exactly what I should 
 do with the money saved by dismissing Ellen. 
 To be quite frank, I am very stupid about money 
 altogether, and have not yet realised what is to 
 become of any of the money saved from the 
 things that we have cut down; but we felt that 
 we must cut down or not be patriotic. All I know 
 
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 is that the new tea is not at all nice, and that 
 we get through two books so quickly that for 
 half the week there is now nothing to read; but 
 I suppose such privations are good for us, and 
 certainly I don't complain. Indeed, when I think 
 of the sacrifices our men are making in France, 
 there is nothing in self-denial that I don't want to 
 try, and Anne too. 
 
 Would not , Ellen's wages, etc., go to make 
 shells? That is, of course, if I knew where to 
 send it. Or ought I to put it by for a rainy day*? 
 
 I had not given any thought to your second 
 question. Poor Ellen, I should not like her to be 
 homeless. Your loving MOTHER 
 
 XCVII 
 
 MRS. BERNAL TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR HELEN, Our Belgians get more and 
 more difficult. Monsieur goes out every morning 
 to look for work, but who wants portraits painted 
 nowadays? He comes back to lunch punctually 
 enough and is then off again, usually borrowing 
 
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 a few shillings from Digby, to be repaid when the 
 war is over. He gives receipts for the money 
 with so much dignified ceremony that one cannot 
 doubt the honesty of his intentions, but we can't 
 think of him as anything but needy in Belgium 
 too. Digby has enough I.O.U.'s, as he says, to 
 paper the hall. I tell him it is a folly to go on 
 without making inquiries, but he won't be hard 
 enough or sensible enough to do so. My own 
 troubles, apart from having to listen to Madame's 
 interminable mournful chatter, begin at dinner, 
 when Monsieur, after a glass or so of wine, tells 
 perfectly awful stories such as are usually kept 
 till the ladies leave the room. The result is that 
 I have not let Nancy dine at home for quite a 
 long time. Poor Digby 's French is so simple and 
 restaurant-like that he doesn't understand enough 
 to stop 'him, even if he could be so firm. Yours, 
 
 MARGARET 
 
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 XCVIII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAREST MOTHER, The idea of economy 
 is to have more money in the country for the 
 Government to call on if the war lasts a long 
 time. It is now costing some millions a day and 
 this money must be found somehow. The less 
 wt spend now, the more there will be later; and 
 the thing to do is to keep on putting a little into 
 the War Loan. 
 
 But I think you would be acting wrongly if 
 you got rid of Ellen except to pass her on at 
 once to a richer employer than yourself. From 
 what I know of your investments they are fairly 
 safe, and you are less in need of pinching than 
 many of us. 
 
 Since becoming a teetotaller I am horrified to 
 observe how much other people drink. It is 
 probably not really much no more than I used 
 to take myself but from this new eminence of 
 rectitude it looks enormous.
 
 THE VERMILION BOX 
 
 ^ Take care of your precious self in this treacher- 
 ous weather. Your loving R. 
 
 XCIX 
 
 LADY STARR TO VIOLET WISTON 
 
 MY DEAR Vi, I want to tell you that at a 
 Christmas week party at the Souths, with great 
 presence of mind I invented a new game. You 
 know my reputation for being so quick and clever ! 
 Well, Mrs. South challenged me to do so, and I 
 was equal to the occasion. Even as she spoke, by 
 some bewildering miracle an idea suddenly en- 
 tered my head. "Why not play at 'Sister Susie' ?" 
 I said. 
 
 "You don't mean more sewing 4 ?" Mrs. South 
 replied in terror. 
 
 "No, no," I explained, seeing daylight as I 
 talked. "First we want twenty-six little bits of 
 paper. Will some one tear them up*? Then on 
 these we write the letters of the alphabet. Then 
 they are put in a hat and shaken up, and we take 
 out one each in turn. As there are twelve of us
 
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 we shall have two each, and two of us will have 
 three each, to make the twenty-six. Is that all 
 clear?" 
 
 They said it was as clear as mud, and I went 
 through it again with the crystal clarity of a 
 teacher of one of those advertised systems which 
 impart a perfect knowledge of Russian in three 
 lessons. 
 
 "Then," I said, "you take a sheet of paper and 
 fill up a line for each of your two (or it may be 
 three) letters, in the manner of the famous Sister 
 Susie line which I am told is sung wherever the 
 sun never sets: 
 
 'Sister Susie's sewing shirts for soldiers,' 
 
 that is to say," I added, absolutely aghast at my 
 own ability and aptitude, "that supposing you had 
 A you might write: 
 
 'Auntie Ann is asking aid for Asquith,' 
 or if B: 
 
 'Bertha's boiling bully beef for Belgians.' 
 
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 It must be alliterative ; it must be as much in the 
 metre of the Sister Susie line as possible; and it 
 must have reference to the war." 
 
 The company having intimated that this also 
 was as clear as mud, I repeated it. 
 
 "But what about X*?" a rather pretty girl 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes, and Z*?" asked some one else. 
 
 "I felt sure there would be some defect in the 
 game," I replied. "We are only feeling our way, 
 you see. We had better leave them out." 
 
 "Oh no," said Mrs. South's Aunt Eliza, "let's 
 have them." 
 
 This old lady, it seems, spends quite half of 
 her life in guessing acrostics and anagrams, and 
 doing all kinds of competitions in the papers in 
 order to win 500, and the difficulties of writing- 
 games are food and drink to her. 
 
 Then the inevitable happened. 
 
 "Oh, but I can't play this," said one guest who 
 had just begun to grasp its character. You know 
 how there is always some one who shies at any 
 game with a pencil in it. 
 
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 "I'm sure I can't," somebody else said. "I'm 
 hopelessly stupid." 
 
 Ten minutes having passed in fighting to retain 
 them, during which time a third and fourth lost 
 courage and fell out too, we settled down to the 
 hat with only eight players. That is to say, we 
 were each to have three letters, and Aunt Eliza 
 and I, being the most gifted, were to share X 
 and Z. 
 
 We were just beginning when the rather pretty 
 girl wanted to know how we were to manage 
 about relationships. " 'Sister Susie' is all right," 
 she said, "and 'Aunt Alice' and 'Cousin Connie/ 
 but there aren't any more unless we say 'Father 
 Freddy' and 'Mother Molly' and 'Brother Bertie' 
 and 'Uncle Ulrich.' " 
 
 "We couldn't have Ulrich, because that would 
 be trading with the enemy!" I brightly said. 
 
 It was therefore decided to cut out relation- 
 ships and begin with the girls' names right away. 
 
 And so we started, five minutes being allowed. 
 I saw at once that Z was useless. Zoe and Zu- 
 leika could be found easily enough, but there 
 was nothing to set them to do. No verbs. I 
 
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 therefore concentrated on my other letters, which 
 were U and J, and with infinite agonies pro- 
 duced : 
 
 "Jessie's jams and jellies go to Jellicoe," 
 and 
 
 "Ursula's unpacking urns for Uskub." 
 
 Mrs. South came out strong with C: 
 "Connie's cooking Coldstream captain's curry," 
 
 and Molly's G was very passable: 
 
 "Gertie's growing goosegogs for the Ghurkas." 
 
 Y, which fell to Bertie South, was ingenious : 
 "Yolande's yoking yaks for yelling yeomen." 
 
 I need hardly say that Aunt Eliza played it 
 best. Aunts always do play this kind of game 
 best. Her three letters were P, S, and X. The 
 first two she rendered thus: 
 
 "Pamela pots poisoned prunes for Potsdam,"
 
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 and 
 
 "Sally's singing Saint-Saens' songs to Serbians." 
 
 "But what about X*?" we demanded. 
 
 "X isn't really possible," she said. "Xantippe 
 is the only name, and there are no verbs for her. 
 So 
 
 'X X-pounds X-rays to X-lieutenants' 
 
 is all I can do." 
 
 There that's enough of this frivolous stuff. 
 
 It would be a very poor war out of which the 
 shopkeepers could make nothing. I walked up 
 Bond Street yesterday thinking of Christmas 
 presents, and really it is wonderful to see the gilt- 
 edged things with which to tempt officers, or, 
 more properly, to tempt the friends of officers 
 wishing to give them things. Of course, smok- 
 ing equipments come first. Everything is in 
 either gold or silver; which shows what a lot of 
 money there still is in the country. Then there 
 are the elaborate wrist watches, more like those 
 of actresses than warriors; and the cases contain- 
 ing knives and forks and so forth, in the most 
 
 [157]
 
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 lovely leather. And the wonderful safety razors 
 also in gold and silver. It all reminded me of 
 the campaign accessories belonging to Napoleon 
 which you see at the Invalides and the Carnavalet. 
 But then he was Napoleon! Your affectionate 
 
 AUNT HELEN 
 
 C 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK TO His WIFE 
 
 [ Telegram ] 
 
 HAVE been hit. Nothing much. Don't worry. 
 Writing. DERRICK 
 
 CI 
 
 PORTIA GREY TO TOBY STARR 
 
 DEAR MR. STARR, or perhaps I ought to call 
 you Lieutenant? You see you are the only sol- 
 dier that I know, except a wounded man here, 
 to whom I read the paper every day. But he is 
 
 [158]
 
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 not an officer. He lives near us, with his mother, 
 and having had his eyes injured he cannot read. 
 His favourite paper is the Mirror, and he wants 
 it all, and I even have to describe the pictures of 
 W. K. Haselden. I had no idea it was so diffi- 
 cult to pass on the fun of a picture to one who 
 can't see; and even now I don't know if I do it 
 successfully, for he is so polite that he would 
 laugh anyway. He loves those paragraphs about 
 actresses in swagger restaurants, and he is revel- 
 ling in the serial story more than I am. I liter- 
 ally begin at the beginning of the paper and go 
 right through; and when it comes to the racing 
 I have to read the names of the horses first and 
 then he guesses the winners, and afterwards he 
 guesses "what price" they were. I expect you, 
 being a man, know what this means. I didn't. 
 His knowledge of horses seems to me wonderful, 
 and he can tell me the owners' and trainers' names 
 of nearly every one. 
 
 I offered him lots of books, but he likes papers 
 best. 
 
 I had a funny experience the other day. I 
 came down in the train with a whole carriageful 
 
 [159]
 
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 of bluejackets. There were just two of us in the 
 carriage at Charing Cross, a woman and I, and 
 then all these men crowded in at the last minute. 
 The woman gave a little scream and hurried out, 
 and I was left alone with them. They were so 
 nice and jolly. I think they 'had all had a drop, 
 but they couldn't have been more courteous. 
 Every one of them was either being courteous or 
 pitching into the others for not being so for 
 talking too freely or doing something to incom- 
 mode the young lady. And then they passed 
 round a bottle, and it had just begun its round 
 when one of them, an Irishman, asked how they 
 could be so rude as not to offer it first to me. 
 So although I said I didn't want any, the owner 
 of the bottle took out a new handkerchief and 
 wiped it with the greatest care, and begged me 
 to take a little refreshment. I hated to hurt them 
 by refusing, but I couldn't bear the smell of it. 
 There was a little sailor next to me who said 
 his ship was going out to the Persian Gulf, and 
 he would send me some pearls and lace if I would 
 give him my address, and I promised to send him 
 a paper every week. 
 
 [160]
 
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 What a difference there is between sailors and 
 soldiers! I have often been on the platform 
 when a train full of soldiers came in, and they 
 have made me so uncomfortable with their re- 
 marks. It's only their excitement, I know, but 
 it isn't any the less uncomfortable for that. But 
 these sailors were so thoughtful and respectful, 
 as though I were made of china or all over bloom. 
 Perhaps it's the sea makes them simpler and more 
 tender. Please don't think I don't admire sol- 
 diers. I do. I admire them immensely. But 
 somehow I should feel happier being alone with 
 sailors. Soldiers seem to be getting into such a 
 bold, possessive way, as though women had only 
 to be whistled to. Yours sincerely, 
 
 PORTIA GREY 
 
 CII 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK TO His WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST, I dictate this to my nurse, who 
 is a peach. I am at Boulogne and absolutely on 
 velvet. Some shrapnel smashed my left arm:
 
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 nothing more serious than that, and every one 'is 
 hopeful that it may be saved. I don't want you 
 to come over. Wait for me; I shall be back in 
 a little while for a nice long holiday. Thank 
 Heaven it's the left arm, because I shall be able 
 to fish. Also, in a day or so, to write to you. 
 
 Kiss the Minutiae for me and tell them to send 
 me a line. TERENCE 
 
 cm 
 
 Miss HERMIONE HUNTRESSE TO HER OLD 
 SCHOOLFELLOW, NANCY BERNAL 
 
 DARLING NANCY, I want you to be a dear 
 and promise to cut anything that you have, in 
 order to go with me to the Bayswater Barracks 
 on Sunday evening. There is to be a perform- 
 ance for the Tommies, and we are one short in 
 the chorus for a song that Gertie Millar is going 
 to do. I have promised to find some one, and 
 naturally want you. There's no need to be able 
 to sing or anything: you just have to wear a 
 pretty frock and show all your 32 pearlies. The 
 
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 frocks are being made at Davidoff's. I'll call for 
 you any time you like and take you there : I have 
 learned to drive, and I have the duckiest little 
 two-seater you ever saw. 
 
 It will be great fun, because there's to be sup- 
 per afterwards, and you shall sit near George 
 Graves, who always makes me die. 
 
 Say you'll come, there's a pet. Yours everly, 
 
 HERMIONE 
 
 P.S. By the way, I wish you'd give me Toby's 
 address. He seems to have passed off the map. 
 
 CIV 
 
 LADY STARR TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAREST JOAN, The great joke here is Mrs. 
 Bonsor, who before the war had always posed as 
 a great cosmopolitan and had been to Trouville 
 or Etretat every summer, and to Le Touquet for 
 golf every spring, and to Aix or Homburg every 
 autumn, and to Nice or Mentone or even Monte 
 Carlo (Monty she calls it) every winter, and had 
 
 [163]
 
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 us to suppose that she could speak French 
 like a native. Well, it now turns out that the 
 only native whose fluency resembles hers is an 
 oyster, for on the arrival of her elderly Belgian 
 couple an old gentleman and his wife, very be- 
 wildered she had to send for me in despair to 
 help her out. The dear creatures, she explained, 
 used a patois, and that was beyond her. What 
 they wanted she could not grasp, but it was evi- 
 dently something very important. To me their 
 words sounded just like French. The whole 
 trouble was simply this that Mrs. Bonsor had 
 given them a room witfi two little beds, and the 
 poor old things wanted one big one. Nothing 
 else. They had slept together for nearly half a 
 century and wished to continue to do so. Well, 
 they are happy now. 
 
 But I don't envy them in that house. Why 
 can't people be more honest? Why pretend to 
 know French if they don't? Retribution is bound 
 to follow. Perhaps the war will knock some of 
 such foolishness to pieces. I hope so. Yours, 
 
 H. 
 
 [164]
 
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 cv 
 
 MRS. HAVEN TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR RICHARD, Thank you very much 
 for your wise advice, but I am happy to say that 
 it came too late to be needed. We are over- 
 joyed, for what do you think 1 ? Sarah, Julia, 
 and Ellen all came up to me together last night, 
 and said that they each wished to take 10 a 
 year less wages during the war. And they had 
 no idea either that I had been thinking of dis- 
 missing Ellen! It was wonderful, quite like an 
 answer to prayer. At first I refused, but they 
 were very firm about it and really wanted to "do 
 their bit," as they said, and so it is arranged 
 now that they each take 8 less. 
 
 War prisoners in Germany and Holland have 
 now been distributed among us, to write to. I 
 have one, Anne has another, and Ellen has in- 
 duced me to let her have one too. I should not 
 be surprised if she wrote the best letters of the 
 lot. Your loving MOTHER
 
 THE VERMILION BOX 
 
 CVI 
 
 Miss HERMIONE HUNTRESSE TO NANCY BERNAL 
 
 MY DARLING NANCY, Don't be absurd. Of 
 course it won't cost as much as that, because we're 
 all economising, but we must do what we can 
 for the Tommies, and it would be very rough on 
 them if we all looked dowds and frumps. I prom- 
 ise you that everything all told shan't come to 
 more than twelve guineas, and you can, of course, 
 use them again and again. I shall be awfully 
 disappointed if you say no. Yours everly, 
 
 HERMIONE 
 
 CVII 
 
 TOBY STARR TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR UNCLE RICHARD, I can't say 'how soon 
 we shall have to go. It may be at once ; and really 
 I hope so, for hanging about is nervous work 
 and I want to know the worst. 
 
 I make as brave a show as I can, and when I
 
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 get to town swagger about and look in the shops, 
 but I can't for more than a few minutes at a time 
 get rid of the feeling that there is some awful 
 doom awaiting me. It is just like the old dread 
 of the dentist, only much worse. I wake up in 
 the night and shiver. There is, I suppose, no 
 other word for it than funk, and yet I don't be- 
 lieve it is exactly funk either, because I never have 
 any doubt about going through with it. Or if it 
 is funk, it is just the funk that every one must 
 have in thinking of the possibility of death. The 
 rum thing is that I had never thought of death 
 before, except of other people's, and then very 
 casually. But when one reads the lists and then 
 realises that in a few hours one may be in the 
 midst of it all, why then I sweat ice. I wonder 
 if all the other men I see are the same. I dare 
 say that when once I get out there in the thick 
 of it, and my blood is up, I shan't bother. There 
 ought to be a drug for waiting subs to take! 
 
 Our men have got a song which they sing in 
 unison whenever the time hangs heavy. It is to 
 one of those dreary tunes an old hymn tune, as 
 a matter of fact that they all like best, and it
 
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 wpuld make the hair of the ordinary excited per- 
 son who thinks of every soldier as just spoiling 
 to get at the enemy, curl. 
 This is one verse: 
 
 When I put civilian clothes on 
 
 Oh, how happy I shall be! 
 When this bloody war is over 
 
 No more soldiering for me! 
 
 However long I live I shall hear this being 
 sung. People say that "Tipperary" is the Na- 
 tional Anthem of the Army. But it isn't. This 
 hymn is. Your affectionate TOBY 
 
 CVIII 
 
 MRS. HAVEN TO AN UNKNOWN BRITISH PRIS- 
 ONER IN GERMANY 
 
 MY DEAR BRAVE FRIEND, I am sending you 
 a box of things which I hope will be useful to 
 you if you ever get them. But we are told so 
 much about parcels not reaching prisoners that I 
 have serious doubts. If you can, I hope you will 
 
 [168]
 
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 let me know, and tell me also if there is any- 
 thing you would rather have than the things I 
 have put in. The Golden Treasury is in case you 
 have nothing to read and like poetry. It is a 
 book that I have found it possible to read again 
 and again, but of course it may be tedious to 
 you, since tastes differ and I don't know anything 
 about yours. No doubt some one else might like 
 it if you don't. But if you do like it I will send 
 the second part, although it is not so good as the 
 first. If you would rather have stories, say so, 
 and I will send you some long ones like Monte 
 Cristo. The puzzles are to help to pass the time. 
 The bits of string and safety-pins will probably 
 be useful. 
 
 I don't send any cake because it would go bad, 
 but I have sent shortbread instead, because that 
 keeps a long time and can be made fresh by 
 warming. I send some tea too, and a patent spoon 
 which makes a cup at a time and does not waste. 
 I want you particularly to tell me whether or 
 not you get these things, because there are stories 
 here of the Germans intercepting all food and 
 
 [169]
 
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 eating it themselves. I always thought of them 
 as a greedy, even gluttonous people, with very un- 
 pleasant table manners, although I must also be 
 fair and say that my late husband and I had 
 some friends among them. That, however, was 
 a long time ago, and most things have changed 
 for the worse since then. 
 
 I do not write more to-day because I have no 
 notion what you are like, except that you are 
 one of our brave soldiers. You see, a number of 
 us were asked if we would write to prisoners and 
 you fell to me. But if you answer this letter I 
 shall know more, and then writing will be easier. 
 Believe me, your sincere well-wisher, 
 
 (Mrs.) VICTORIA HAVEN 
 
 DEAR DIGBY, The conspiracy of silence under 
 which we now live is monstrous. The truth can 
 always be faced: it is these half-truths and eva- 
 sions and downright lies that are sapping the 
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 country's strength. A well-informed man in the 
 club to-day told me that there is nothing but 
 disaffection among our men at the front, and 
 often open mutiny. The Staff does nothing but 
 play cards and philander. This was not a mere 
 idle rumour-bearer either a type that I deplore 
 but one with friends of behind-the-scenes 
 knowledge. What will become of us? I can 
 see no hope unless some clear-sighted, vigorous, 
 independent man, such, say, as Lord Northcliffe, 
 is put at the head of affairs. 
 
 If you see a letter in the papers to-morrow to- 
 this effect, signed "True Patriot," you will know 
 who wrote it. Yours cordially, 
 
 GEORGE WISTON 
 
 CX 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK TO His WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST, Excuse pencil. 
 Your letters are a great joy. 
 I am getting along all right, but there's a fear 
 that my arm may have to be operated on. It's
 
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 too much cut about to be healthy. I will keep 
 you informed. 
 
 This is a topping hospital, and my day nurse 
 is an angel. Why she is a nurse at all I can't 
 imagine, for she's desperately pretty and ought 
 long ago to have been snapped up and by now 
 be a mother. She'd make a jolly one. But there 
 is a kind of pretty girl that doesn't marry, and 
 perhaps she's one of them. She has pretty hands 
 too, and they're never so pretty as when she is 
 holding up the thermometer to read it, or meas- 
 uring medicine. I started to say something of 
 this kind to her the other day, but then, realising 
 that every patient must have done it before, I 
 stopped. Anyway, I guess she knew that her 
 hands were seen to advantage then even before 
 any one mentioned it. 
 
 I wouldn't mind a few books. The Irish R.M. 
 series I should love to read again. Your loving 
 
 TERENCE
 
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 CXI 
 
 ELLEN FRISBY, PARLOUR-MAID TO MRS. HAVEN, 
 TO A PRISONER IN HOLLAND 
 
 DEAR SIR, The lady I live with has permitted 
 me to open up correspondence with one of our 
 brave lads in prison, and I therefore write to you 
 in the hope that a letter may cheer you up. Please 
 answer it if it does, and then I will write again. 
 
 Every one in England is singing "Keep the 
 home fires burning," and that is what we are all 
 trying to do for you. It is a lovely melody, and I 
 wonder if you have it over there. Another very 
 nice new song is called "A little bit of Heaven," 
 and another, "I couldn't believe it." If you are 
 fond of music you will like these when you come 
 back. Or perhaps you have a gramophone. I 
 am sure I have read bits in the papers about 
 gramophones in prison camps. 
 
 Living at Aylesbury I don't often get a chance 
 to see a play, but I went to my married sister's at 
 Hither Green last month, and one night we saw 
 "Mr. Wu." It is very terrible, all about a wicked 
 
 [173]
 
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 Chinaman who gets an Englishwoman into his 
 power. I hope I shall never go to China, but 
 that is not likely. 
 
 We have the pictures here, of course, and I go 
 there regularly on my night out. Charlie was 
 there last week. He is funny. It was in a piece 
 called "Charlie at the Bank," where he saves the 
 bank from thieves and marries the beautiful lady 
 clerk; but it is all a dream, and really the cashier 
 marries her. I am not sure that I like these haves 
 very much, but this one was so comic I couldn't 
 help laughing. This week we had a film with 
 Hazel Dawn in it. She is a sweet creature. But 
 cook says that Mary Pickford is the real one, and 
 my brother Bert says so too. But she hasn't been 
 to Aylesbury yet. I wonder if you have seen her. 
 
 The house where I am parlour-maid belongs to 
 Mrs. Haven, an old lady. I am very fond of her. 
 Your well-wisher, ELLEN FRISBY 
 
 [174]
 
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 CXII 
 
 LADY STARR TO MRS. PARK-STAN MER 
 
 [Telegram] 
 
 WILL meet you Friday, Marshall's, one. 
 
 HELEN 
 
 CXIII 
 MRS. PARK-STANMER TO MAJOR THISTLETON 
 
 DEAR MAJOR THISTLETON, I have an en- 
 gagement for lunch in town on Friday, but as 
 that is your only day I will break it. Expect 
 me at the Carl ton at 1.15. Yours sincerely, 
 AMABEL PARK-STANMER 
 
 CXIV 
 
 MRS. PARK-STANMER TO LADY STARR 
 
 [Telegram] 
 
 VERY sorry impossible meet you to-morrow 
 after all. Writing. AMABEL 
 
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 cxv 
 
 MRS. PARK-STAN MER TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR, I was heart-broken to have to 
 telegraph putting you off, but Reggie suddenly 
 developed a temperature and I dared not leave 
 him. He is much better to-day, you will be glad 
 to know. Life is a dreary business here just 
 the same old round. Your disappointed 
 
 AMABEL 
 
 CXVI 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK TO HIS WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST, Don't worry; but there's no 
 hope for it, my arm has got to come off; indeed, 
 by the time you get this the operation will be 
 over, and you will be a soldier's wife in earnest. 
 Dear old girl, I am so sorry. The great thing is 
 that it's only the left. My strong right arm and 
 it will probably be all the stronger now is still 
 at your service. 
 
 [176]
 
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 Tell Bimbo. I should like to know how it 
 affects him. Your maimed but devoted 
 
 TERENCE 
 
 CXVII 
 
 PRIVATE ERNEST BANKS (IN GERMANY) TO 
 LADY STARR 
 
 YOUR LADYSHIP, DEAR MADAM, I hope as 
 I address you right, but I never wrote to a Lady 
 before and never expected to. I think you hit 
 on a fine notion in sending papers instead of 
 letters, for letters can't mean much unless they 
 have home news in them. My mother writes 
 regularly, and so does a brother of mine at Wigan, 
 who would be fighting only he has tuberkuloses, 
 and they tell me what I want to know, unless 
 it is about the war, when it is all blacked out. I 
 would take it as a favour, while thanking you, My 
 Lady, all the same, if you would send me Rey- 
 nold s's instead of the Weekly Times , and one or 
 two comics instead of Punch. A mate of mine 
 who hasn't any friends would like John Bull, if 
 
 [177]
 
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 that is not making too bold. Wishing you God's 
 blessing, I remain, yours respectfully, 
 
 ERNEST BANKS 
 
 CXVIII 
 
 MRS. RICHARD BERNAL TO HER HUSBAND 
 
 MY DEAREST DICK, The most wonderful 
 thing has happened, and now it is more important 
 than ever that you keep your dear head down in 
 the trenches and come back safe and sound. 
 
 One of his names must be Richard, both after 
 you and Uncle Richard. The other we can think 
 out together. I feel perfectly fit, and am your 
 adoring wife, OLIVE 
 
 CXIX 
 
 Miss HERMIONE HUNTRESSE TO NANCY BERNAI, 
 
 DARLING NANCY, You were very foolish not 
 to come to our show. Our song was topping, and 
 we were encored again and again. Every one was 
 there except the Tommies. It seems that there 
 
 [178]
 
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 had been some case of insubordination or some- 
 thing, and the Colonel stopped them; but as the 
 performers had made all their plans, and the 
 supper was ordered, and so forth, we just went 
 through with it for the officers and their and our 
 friends. The Tommies are more fun, of course, 
 because they shout out such weird things. I had 
 frightfully good luck, for I sat at supper between 
 George Graves and Nelson Keys, and they both 
 said that no professional could make up more 
 cleverly than I did. Really it must be great fun 
 to be on the stage, they're all so jolly; and it's so 
 splendid of them to wear themselves out like this 
 for the Tommies. 
 
 I shall count on you for next time. There are 
 some tableaux in the offing. Yours everly, 
 
 HERMIONE 
 
 cxx 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO BARCLAY VAUGHAN 
 
 DEAR B., Having half an hour to kill while 
 waiting for a train, I examined a picture post card 
 
 [179]
 
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 stoop close to the station and was interested by 
 the change in them and their general tone. The 
 comic cards have taken on a new breadth since 
 the war and now and then throw back to Rowland- 
 son and Gilray. A rather rough-and-ready type 
 of man being at the moment, to us, the most 
 important creature on earth, everything is being 
 done for him, and that is the kind of humour he 
 is supposed to like. This is natural enough and 
 there is no great harm in it, but it is not pretty, 
 and it lowers women just at a time when they are 
 rising, in all directions, above mere playthings and 
 chattel ry. 
 
 Of course anti-German jokes are very promi- 
 nent. An ingenious one is a post card, all over 
 stamps and post marks, addressed 
 
 "H.M. THE KAISER, 
 Hotel d'Angleterre, 
 Calais." 
 
 This address is crossed through and "Not found, 
 Try Constantinople," "Left years ago, Try Ber- 
 lin," and "Away, address uncertain, Try St. 
 Helena," is scrawled over it. That American 
 
 [180]
 
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 satire against the Kaiser, "Meinzelf und Gott," 
 which appeared some years ago, has also been re- 
 vived. Much of it is out of date, but the English 
 in their search for laughter have never minded 
 that. It begins : 
 
 Der Kaiser of dis Vaterlandt 
 Und gott on high, all dings command; 
 Ve two ach! Doan't you underschtand ? 
 Meinzelf und gott. 
 
 Vile some men zing der power divine, 
 Mein soldiers zing "Der Wacht am Rhein" 
 Und drink der healt in German vine 
 Of Me und gott. 
 
 Another card prints "A Certain Cure for the 
 German Measles," which runs thus: 
 
 "Mix some Woolwich Powders with Tinct. of 
 Iron or Essence of Lead, and administer in pills 
 (or shells). Have ready a little British Army 
 (a little goes a long way), some Brussels Sprouts, 
 and French Mustard. Add a little 'Canadian 
 Cheese and Australian Lamb and season with the 
 best Indian Curry. Set it on a Kitchener and 
 keep stirring until quite hot. 
 
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 *"If this does not make the Patient perspire 
 freely, rub the best Russian Bear's Grease on his 
 chest and wrap in Berlin Wool. 
 
 "DR. CANNON'S PRESCRIPTION. 
 
 "P.. ;The Patient must on no account have 
 any Peace-Soup until the swelling in the head has 
 quite disappeared." 
 
 Here is another : 
 
 Special War News!! 
 
 RECIPE 
 
 HOW TO COOK A GERMAN SAUSAGE 
 
 Cook on a British Kitchener, use a Japan enamelled 
 saucepan, Greece well with Russian tallow, flavour with 
 a little Jellicoe; Servia up (Help!) with little French 
 capers and Brussels scouts. 
 
 There are also comic histories of the Zeppelin 
 scares, and so forth. I suppose that Berlin is 
 similarly satirical and boastful as regards our- 
 selves. It does not, I confess, impart much of a 
 thrill to see a knot of young men laughing at this 
 
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 braggart stuff. But if Kitchener was right, as I 
 believe he will turn out to be, they will all have 
 to do more than exchange comic post cards before 
 the end is gained. 
 
 Among the non-physical jokes is a card bearing 
 a facsimile of a ten-shilling note and these words: 
 
 Don't trouble to send me a post card, 
 Don't bother to drop me a line, 
 
 Just send me this in an envelope 
 And I shall get on jolly fine. 
 
 That should be popular. 
 
 When it comes to the final tussle, however, 
 humour, I take it, never wins. Sentiment is 
 always first, and the sentimental cards are many. 
 There is a whole series, intensely popular, of a 
 young soldier kissing his girl good-bye photo- 
 graphed from life with such quatrains as this: 
 
 For a little while we must be parted, 
 Duty calls, dear I must do my share. 
 
 Thoughts of home will gladden days of absence, 
 And I know you're thinking of me there. 
 
 This is said by the warrior with his lips full on 
 hers. I see that card being sent not only by
 
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 thpse soldiers who have won the right to such 
 intimacy, but by those who wish for it and not 
 to one girl only either. 
 
 And then there is also this, on a deeper note: 
 
 MY SON 
 
 To my dear son from whom I parted, 
 Son of Empire, lion-hearted, 
 Father's blessings I am sending 
 Knowing war has but one ending, 
 Darkness MUST give way to LIGHT, 
 TRUTH and RIGHT are always MIGHT. 
 
 Yours, R. H. 
 
 CXXI 
 
 NANCY BERNAL TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR AUNT HELEN, You ask for the 
 latest news of all of us. Well, father goes on as 
 usual, quite sure that everything will be all right 
 and doing all kinds of "bits" for the war. He 
 began, as you know, by being a Special Constable. 
 Then he was a G.R., which some people call the 
 Gorgeous Recks, as I expect you have heard. 
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 Others say that the letters stand for "Got Rheu- 
 matism"; and this was only too true in father's 
 case, so he had to give it up and take to car- 
 pentry. He now spends all his odd time at a 
 Hospital Supply Depot making bed tables and 
 crutches. 
 
 Our Belgians have at last gone, and this has at 
 once united the family again and given it more 
 time to be out. 
 
 As for mother, she is absolutely in her element, 
 for she has got a new Fund Committee, with 
 several really swagger people on it too. This 
 makes her fourteenth, so you may guess we don't 
 see much of her. The new Fund is to provide 
 cigarette cases in which our brave boys may keep 
 the cigarettes that are sent them, and some day, 
 father says, there will be a further fund to provide 
 bigger cases in which to keep those. But nothing 
 shakes mother's purposefulness, and really we all 
 ought to be delighted, for she is so busy that she 
 never thinks of her health at all any more, except 
 on Sundays. 
 
 I am afraid I am the only lazy one, although I 
 still visit the canteens and am often selling things
 
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 at bazaars or performances and even in the streets. 
 Last week, for example, I sold Montenegrin flags 
 on what was called "The Montenegro Flag Day." 
 One old lady who bought one said that it would 
 be much more effective if a few Montenegroes 
 could process through London so that people could 
 see the brave black fellows in the flesh. I ought 
 to have my photograph in every number of the 
 Sketch and Tatler as "interested in war charities" ; 
 but not being titled I don't. Your loving niece, 
 
 NANCY 
 
 P.S. Soon I may have some real news for 
 vou. I hope so. 
 
 CXXII 
 
 REGINALD BROOKES TO His FORMER SCHOOL- 
 FELLOW, JOHN LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAR LOBSTER, I am having no end of a time 
 here, and yesterday I took a machine up alone 
 and was flying for half an hour. There's nothing 
 like it, I tell you; motoring isn't in it. You don't
 
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 want to do anything in the world but get off it, 
 and be flying and flying. Eating and sleeping 
 are just a bore. In fact, I can't sleep any more. 
 I lie awake and wait for the dawn so as to be out 
 again and get through my trials quickly, so that 
 I can go to the front and do some real work, 
 either at scouting or doing in the horrible Hun. 
 
 You really ought to come. No one made any 
 bones about it when I said I was nineteen, but of 
 course I look older than you. Still they're too 
 keen on real tryers to worry much. If only you 
 could square your mater! If you're not quick 
 you won't find me here, because the very first 
 moment I'm off to drop a few bombs on Little 
 Willie or whoever comes my way. Yours ever, 
 
 SNARKIE 
 
 CXXIII 
 
 LADY STARR TO NANCY BERNAL 
 
 y 
 
 MY DEAR NANCY, Your postscript is very 
 interesting. Tell me his name and all about him. 
 Your loving AUNT HELEN 
 
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 CXXIV 
 
 NANCY BERNAL TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAREST AUNT HELEN, How horribly 
 penetrating you are ! It is Jerry Harding, Toby's 
 friend. We have been engaged for an eternity 
 ever since last May but no one knows yet 
 except one or two. No one in the family except 
 Uncle Richard, who has told me all about 
 special licences. 
 
 Jerry is in France now, and I want to be 
 married on his first leave; but he has an absurd 
 idea that we ought to wait till the war is over. 
 Dick and Olive didn't, so why should we*? 
 Anyhow, Uncle Richard is going to help us. He 
 says there can't be too many marriages. Isn't 
 that a lovely doctrine*? Yours devotedly, 
 
 NANCY 
 
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 cxxv 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR HELEN, I had an experience 
 yesterday which has made me think. I found 
 myself in a third class carriage with a Canadian 
 soldier on his way to London. As a rule I 
 have found that the soldier who sits opposite one 
 on railway journeys is an innutritious person, 
 whether he has been at the front or not; and the 
 truly cautious will avoid his eye, because too often 
 his only desire is to talk. He is neither Ortheris 
 nor Learoyd, and far indeed from that other of 
 the great triumvirate, but for whom we should 
 not, I suppose, expect even what we do from 
 such travelling companions. The deception of 
 literature once more! 
 
 Nor was this man food for the novelist, but he 
 had a certain big simplicity and before we reached 
 Charing Cross he was actually on my hands. To 
 begin with, he was, as the slang phrase has it, 
 "oiled" ; which is a condition of alcoholic comfort 
 well on this side of inebriety but conducive to an 
 
 [189]
 
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 eay decline to that state. He was carrying 
 on with the aid of two bottles of beer, one on 
 each side, like John Gilpin, and the second so 
 very "up" that when he opened it it made the 
 carriage for a moment or two look like a snow- 
 storm. Having finished what remained, after 
 honourably inviting me to share it, he began to 
 talk, but not being able to hear him I asked him 
 to come over to my, the drier, end of the com- 
 partment. 
 
 "That's good," he said. "You can't hear me, 
 and I can't see you" He had a Scotch accent 
 with the least touch of France in it. 
 
 "How's that*?" I asked, feeling that I already 
 knew the answer, for I thought he was humor- 
 ously referring to the effect of his potations. But 
 he astonished and shocked me by replying in 
 the one word "Gassed!" and I then noticed for 
 the first time how wrong his poor eyes were. 
 
 He was a huge, powerful man, with a bronzed 
 good-humoured face in which those stricken 
 watery orbs were quite lost. He was also a mass 
 of fheumatism from long exposure in the trenches 
 up to his waist in mud; but he took it all 
 [190]
 
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 philosophically. The doctor had told him he' 
 might recover his sight, but unfortunately he was 
 a little on the old side. Fifty-one. He came 
 from Canada, where he had left a farm and a wife. 
 He had volunteered as thirty-nine. When such 
 a scrap was on, how could he be out of it*? He 
 was to return to Shornclifle the next day with 
 his kit, which he was now on his way to town 
 to fetch. It was at a house somewhere near 
 Victoria, and he had no notion how to get there. 
 Could I direct him? 
 
 Of the war he had little to say, except that 
 things happened in war that were more horrible 
 than the stay-at-home people would ever believe; 
 and that to use gas wasn't playing the game. 
 But the Germans, thank God, were getting very 
 short of food, and very tired of fighting, and the 
 end could not be far. 
 
 I need hardly say that he had lost his ticket, 
 because that is the first thing a soldier does, 
 even without the assistance of gas or oil. We 
 spent the time between London Bridge and 
 Charing Cross and you know how long that can 
 be in hunting for it. His fingers being all 
 
 [191]
 
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 thumbs and his clothes so tight on him that to 
 get them into his pockets at all was a difficulty, I 
 went through them for him. This shows either 
 that I must suggest honesty or that he was 
 abnormally trustful. 
 
 His pockets contained practically everything 
 the rubbish of months except the ticket. Inci- 
 dentally they contained a good deal of money 
 numbers of dirty pound notes in wads of half a 
 dozen or so and I warned him to separate them 
 and be careful of them, and I also undertook to 
 take him in a taxi to his address, an offer which 
 he received with no enthusiasm whatever. 
 
 Having arranged matters at Charing Cross as 
 regards the lost ticket (and there the British 
 Army's indifference to scraps of pasteboard is so 
 notorious that the collector was immediately ready 
 with note-book and pencil), I steered him to a 
 taxi, and asked for the Victoria address. But 
 here he began to assert himself. A Canadian of 
 fifty-one who called himself thirty-nine in order 
 to be in the fun across the water was hardly the 
 man to pass tamely through London from one 
 [192]
 
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 terminus to another without any halt for refresh- 
 ment by the way. We must first have a drink. 
 I must name my poison anything I liked, even 
 champagne, although all that he craved was 
 enough beer. 
 
 "But it can't be done," I told him. 'There 
 are regulations against it." 
 
 A look of inexpressible cunning came into his 
 dazed and watery eyes. "I'm telling you it can 
 be done," he said. "Listen. I'll give you the 
 money outside. . . ." 
 
 I did what I could with him, but nothing 
 would keep him in the cab. "I must have a 
 drink," he said, "a long one. Beer," and he 
 leaned out of the window and insisted on stopping 
 at the next public-house. 
 
 It was useless to fight him further, and in a 
 moment he would have been through the window ; 
 so I stopped at a flaming bar. But I made one 
 more effort to help him. I would not come in, 
 I said, but I would be back in ten minutes, 
 
 if* 
 
 and he must come along then. He affected to 
 agree. 
 
 [193J
 
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 On returning, I found him established among 
 a band of admirers to whom he was handing 
 shillings, and nothing would move him; so with 
 the feeling that at any rate I had done my best, I 
 abandoned him to his fate. 
 
 One can hardly expect the army to find care- 
 takers for every one of these childish creatures; 
 but it is depressing to thing of predatory London 
 lying in wait for such natural prey. I had better, 
 I thought, have picked his pockets of most of his 
 money, as I could easily have done beneath the 
 poor blind eyes and fuddled brain, and posted it 
 to him at ShornclifTe the next day. But this 
 brilliant thought, like so many of its kind, came 
 too late. Yours, R. H. 
 
 CXXVI 
 
 PRIVATE ARTHUR COLEMAN TO Miss ELLEN 
 FRISBY 
 
 DEAR Miss, Your letter came very welcome, 
 for I have not had one for a long time, and that 
 was to say my young lady as was had married a 
 
 [194]
 
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 munition worker. Fickleness, I said, thy name is 
 woman, but I don't somehow think that you are 
 like that. There is something about your letter 
 to me which seems to say that you would be true 
 of heart. 
 
 What you say about the new songs is interest- 
 ing. I love music. We have a gramophone here, 
 as you guessed, but the records are very old and 
 worn. I love the pictures too. 
 
 I can assure you, Miss Ellen, that we could do 
 with the sight of a kind female face over here, 
 where there are nothing but men, and they are 
 Dutch. It would not matter so much if we had 
 something to do, but often we go for days without 
 a job. 
 
 Your address tickles me, because I once ate 
 Aylesbury duck at a restaurant in London and 
 that seems to bring you nearer. I wonder what 
 you are like. If you are so kind as to write again, 
 please tell me what you are like. How tall you 
 are, what colour are your eyes, what colour is 
 your hair. You might enclose your photo. 
 Yours respectfully, ARTHUR COLEMAN
 
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 * P.S. And how old you are? I know ladies 
 don't like telling this, but perhaps you'll make an 
 exception for a poor prisoner. 
 
 P.S. 2. And if you have any one to walk out 
 with. 
 
 CXXVII 
 
 BIMBO DERRICK (AGED 8) TO HIS FATHER, 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK 
 
 MY DEAR DAD, I am so sorry you will have 
 only one arm, but I shall like helping you to do 
 things. Please have an iron hook like Captain 
 Hook in Peter Pan. He says every one ought to 
 have one. 
 
 I had such a lot of presents on my birthday. 
 Uncle Digby gave me a whole suit of Karky. 
 Mr. Trower gave me a ripping cannon. Aunt 
 Margaret gave me a box of soldiers. Cousin 
 Nancy gave me a badge of your regiment. 
 Nurse gave me a helmet. Mother gave me the 
 Pilgrim's Progress. I have made myself a mask 
 
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 for gas. Teenie gave me a photograph frame 
 and I have out General Joff in it. Your loving 
 son, BIMBO 
 
 CXXVIII 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK TO His WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST, Now that the operation is over 
 and I am really getting better, I can't pretend to 
 be anything but rather, happy. God knows I 
 would like another cut in at the Boches, and it is 
 pretty ghastly to know that that is impossible, 
 ever again, with only one arm; but on the other 
 hand that's a joke, I see now, but I didn't mean 
 it for one I must confess to rather a blessed 
 feeling of relief that all those horrors I have been 
 through are behind me the noise and shells, the 
 filth, the blood, the mud, the gas, and the suffer- 
 ings which one hadn't time or opportunity to do 
 anything for. I shall never forget it, and the 
 nurses tell me that even now I am fighting half 
 the night; but it's behind me all the same. 
 
 Being one-armed will be a bore, but not much 
 
 [197]
 
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 more than a bore. At any rate, that's how I 
 think of it when I get a visit from a poor devil 
 upstairs who is led here at tea-time most days 
 a tall handsome young captain, full of money, 
 who will never see again. The bullet took him 
 sideways and went through both eyes. A big 
 powerful fellow, with a very gentle expression, 
 but whether he always had that, or whether it has 
 come with blindness, as it so often seems to do, I 
 don't know. 
 
 He comes in to tea and we compare notes. 
 He's learning Braille as hard as he can, so as to 
 be ready for the black life in front of him. My 
 God, I wouldn't like to be blind! 
 
 Bimbo was very funny about Captain Hook. 
 I'm not sure he isn't right. A hook would be 
 useful. We must consider this. 
 
 Do all wounded men, I wonder, feel like falling 
 in love with their nurses? I know I could, and I 
 know equally that all her smiles and tendernesses 
 in return would mean nothing more than a sweet 
 professional kindness. Indeed, part of the pain 
 of illness is the bitter knowledge that nothing can 
 
 [198]
 
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 really touch these adored angelic mechanisms of 
 mercy. 
 
 I shall soon be back now, my own. 
 
 Kisses to the whitebait. TERENCE 
 
 CXXIX 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 [Telegram} 
 
 JOHN safe at Devizes, returning with me. 
 Writing. RICHARD 
 
 cxxx 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 DEAR Miss GREY, Our lot have got marching 
 orders at last. We cross on Tuesday, I believe, 
 but shall not be in the firing line for a bit. Wish 
 me good luck. Directly we get to France I am 
 going to ask you a favour, but not before. Yours 
 sincerely, TOBY STARR
 
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 CXXXI 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO MRS. LAST WAYS 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, I hope my telegram com- 
 forted you. But there is nothing to be alarmed 
 about. I have the impulsive warrior safely in hand. 
 He had been inflamed by an old schoolfellow who 
 had falsified his age and joined the flying corps, 
 and John naturally wished to do the same. I 
 don't blame him: do you? Still, as an elder, 
 and his uncle, and your brother, I have delivered 
 a lecture (in which I only faintly believe) on his 
 conduct; but it was not exactly choked with con- 
 vincing arguments, for the deceit of which he has 
 been guilty is of the whitest, and any penitence 
 that he might have felt disappeared this morning 
 when he found in a paper a photograph of the 
 Queen in smiling tolerance by the bedside of a 
 wounded boy who had similarly overstated his age. 
 Your claims upon him for a year or so longer he 
 cannot begin to understand, being in a state of 
 excitement that puts motherland before mother 
 [200]
 
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 particularly as motherland needs aviators and 
 mother doesn't. 
 
 All the same he is coming back prepared to 
 resume his studies, if the schoolmaster will have 
 him. As he is not at Radley, possibly he will. 
 
 Don't be too hard on him. It is of such stuff 
 that heroes are made. Yours, R. H. 
 
 CXXXII 
 
 PORTIA GREY TO TOBY STARR 
 
 DEAR MR. STARR, I hope this will catch you 
 before you sail. It is just to say that I shall 
 think of you continually and hope for you to 
 come back safe and sound, and to ask you to 
 telegraph an address as soon as you can. Father 
 says that he hopes, when you get your leave, that 
 you will give us a call at Ashford. 
 
 I can't imagine what the favour can be. Yours 
 sincerely, PORTIA GREY 
 
 [201]
 
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 CXXXIII 
 
 LADY STARR TO HER SISTER-IN-LAW, MRS. DAU- 
 
 BENEY, IN INDIA 
 
 DEAR HILDA, I have been making a collec- 
 tion of odd advertisements in the Personal Column 
 of the Times ever since the war broke out. A com- 
 plete reissue of the most striking ones at the end 
 of the war would throw a curious light on England 
 under the struggle, and not always too admirable 
 either, for the beggars have come out far too 
 strong. So also has that class of person who is 
 too much concerned with the good behaviour of 
 other people. I copy for you a few of the 
 stranger ones in my album: 
 
 This was very early, when some of the Nuts 
 were supposed to be holding back: 
 
 "ENGLISHWOMAN undertakes to FORM a REGI- 
 MENT of WOMEN for the FIRING LINE if lawn 
 tennis and cricketing young men will agree to 
 act as Red Cross nurses to such a Regiment." 
 
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 Four months later the scornful were still on the 
 warpath : 
 
 "WHY not design a 'pretty' uniform to attract 
 the 'knuts' to the colours'? Something which 
 would harmonise with heliotrope socks, lavender 
 gloves, spotted waistcoats, and mauve hand- 
 kerchiefs would appeal irresistibly to their 
 sesthetic sense the only sense they possess. 
 Khaki is so unromantic." 
 
 Here is an ingeniously worded request: 
 
 "WlLL ANYBODY CONTRIBUTE 5 per Week 
 
 to help keep wife and family while I go to kill 
 some Germans'? Otherwise impossible. I am 
 a crack shot and good horseman." 
 
 I like the following trio: 
 
 "A PESSIMISTIC AMERICAN, frequenter of a 
 well-known London restaurant, is assured that his 
 audible bets on the 'probable progress' ( ?) of our 
 enemies are as distasteful to his neighbours as 
 they are likely to be unprofitable and dangerous 
 to himself." 
 
 [203]
 
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 "American PESSIMIST would willingly lose 
 many luncheons if he could make some of the 
 'war over in a month' party realise the necessity 
 for every Englishman to prepare himself for a 
 long hard tussle with a powerful and unscrupulous 
 enemy." 
 
 "!F the person who addressed Pessimistic 
 American in this column yesterday will COMMUNI- 
 CATE HIMSELF to 'Optimistic American' the 
 latter will undertake to make suitable representa- 
 tions with as much vigour as may be necessary or 
 desirable to his tactless and ill-advised fellow- 
 countrymen." 
 
 There were several of the following kind: 
 
 "QUESTIONS. How many hundred thousand 
 dogs round London? How much do they cost? 
 How many famished Belgians or Frenchmen 
 would that sum help? How many comforts for 
 our troops would it buy?" 
 
 This is one of an anti-football series: 
 
 "ENGLAND'S GREATEST NEED a ZEPPELIN 
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 BOMB in the middle of a football field on a 
 Saturday afternoon." 
 
 The next one puzzles me, for I have never heard 
 of any ostracism of anyone. We English are far 
 too uncertain of ourselves to take such an uncom- 
 fortable line as that. Also, we still cherish an 
 ideal of individual freedom: 
 
 "I am a very HEALTHY-LOOKING VIGOROUS 
 YOUNG MAN and over 6 ft. in height, in appear- 
 ance an ideal soldier. Nevertheless I am prevented 
 by reasons which would satisfy the most captious 
 critic from joining the forces. Who will advise 
 me how I am to avoid being ostracised by most 
 men and all women 1 ? Hints and suggestions will 
 be gratefully acknowledged by one who, through 
 no fault of his own, is dejected, lonely, wretched, 
 and virtually outlawed." 
 
 Here is the war in earnest: 
 
 "SKIN ! OFFICER wishes to THANK the 
 numerous persons whose offers of skin he appreci- 
 ates. He almost regrets his inability to accept 
 more than one," 
 
 [205]
 
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 As you know, Vincent is on the Staff in France, 
 and I have seen him only once since the war 
 began. My Toby is a soldier too, and is now in 
 France, so that I open the papers very nervously, 
 even although I am always assured that wives and 
 mothers have private information some days in 
 advance of the Press. 
 
 The poor Indians, I heard, were not a great 
 success at the front. It was too cold and wet for 
 them. The Dome at Brighton, where we used to 
 hear Patti (you remember 4 ?) and Edward Lloyd 
 and Santley, is now a hospital for them. I 
 was at Brighton for a day last week to see old 
 Mrs. Burlingham, and several charabancs of 
 wounded Indians in lovely blue robes and turbans, 
 with dazzling smiling teeth, went by. A strange 
 sight. And a little while ago I read a most 
 impressive account of a funeral pyre on one of 
 the South Downs where they burn their dead at 
 dawn. That is stranger still! But everything 
 is strange now. Your loving HELEN 
 
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 CXXXIV 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK TO His WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST, My blind officer has been in 
 again to-day. He seemed a bit shaky, I thought, 
 and not up to much, and all of a sudden he 
 began to gulp, and then he broke down com- 
 pletely. 
 
 As I guessed he would rather be alone, I rang 
 for the nurse and she steered him away. 
 
 Then she came back and told me about it. Of 
 course I had thought it was unhappiness, a miser- 
 able new realisation of his awful rough luck; but 
 it wasn't, it was the other thing. It seems that he 
 had been waiting to hear from his girl as to 
 whether she would still marry him, which of course 
 he never for a moment expected, and indeed he 
 had said good-bye to her, and this morning a 
 letter came for him saying that she loved him 
 more than ever and they would be married as 
 soon as he liked directly, for choice, and this just 
 broke him up. 
 
 Well, she's a plucky one, God bless her ! 
 
 [.207]
 
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 I have a day nurse and a night nurse and visits 
 from several others as well. Facetiousness is the 
 breath of life to our relationship. Little jokes 
 about everything. "If I didn't laugh I couldn't 
 stand it," one of them said to me yesterday. 
 They really are marvellous creatures, for they 
 work incessantly and never lose their temper, at 
 least with me, and seem to be on really good 
 terms with each other, which is rare among women 
 when there are men about. I am always telling 
 my day nurse, whom I adore, that she ought to 
 have more time off, but directly she goes off I 
 fret for her and feel a kind of resentment at her 
 selfishness. 
 
 I am to have a week or so in a London home 
 before I come to you. I cross on Tuesday, and 
 will wire as to train, etc. Come to Waterloo, my 
 sweet. TERENCE 
 
 cxxxv 
 
 LADY STARR TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, Toby is now established in 
 France, near Amiens, and goes up to those dreadful 
 
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 trenches very shortly. Then will my poor heart 
 begin to beat. By a great piece of good fortune 
 his commanding officer, Col. Thornton, is an old 
 friend of ours, and he will, I am sure, keep an eye 
 on the boy, and let me have word about him now 
 and then. To be quite candid, he was an early 
 flame of mine ! Yours, H. 
 
 P.S. Now that the "war babies' " scare is over, 
 there are such a lot of people whose houses, I find, 
 were being prepared for the reception of these 
 little strangers, wholly irrespective of public 
 opinion. Perhaps had this been known . . . 
 
 CXXXVI 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 DEAR Miss GREY, Our present place is 
 Amiens. We shall be moving towards the front 
 after a week or so. 
 
 Of course I will come and see you at Ashford 
 directly I get leave; but I am awfully shy, and 
 you will think me no end of a rotter. 
 
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 The favour I wanted to ask is, Will you send 
 me your photograph"? I want to carry it in my 
 breast pocket, because you have been so jolly and 
 good to me and after such a bad break on my 
 part to start with too! 
 
 I wish I could write more, because there's heaps 
 more in my head to say, but it's impossible just 
 now. Yours sincerely, TOBY STARR 
 
 CXXXVII 
 
 TOBY STARR TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAREST MOTHER, When the major, who is 
 a very good sort, saw my patent West End 
 "Trench multum in parvo" he laughed. "You'd 
 better throw that away," he said, "it will only 
 be a nuisance. Everything that it contains may 
 be useful at one time or another, but the wise 
 soldier believes that some one else should carry it. 
 Old campaigners," he said, "carry only corkscrews 
 and tin openers, trusting to the young ones to 
 bring the bottles and the tins. But of course," he 
 went on, "a grain of experience is worth a ton of 
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 advice, and you'll come to the corkscrew better if 
 you reach it via all this Bond Street tomfoolery." 
 I am all right at present and can think of 
 nothing I want except a new pipe. A Loewe, 
 with no silver on it. Perhaps it would be a good 
 thing to send two. So far I have only heard 
 distant fighting, not seen it. Your loving 
 
 TOBY 
 
 CXXXVIII 
 
 PORTIA GREY TO TOBY STARR 
 
 DEAR MR. STARR, I am sending you a 
 photograph only an amateur one taken with a 
 Brownie but I have no other. My hair is in an 
 awful mess, but that is the dogs' fault they 
 jumped all over me. I am afraid I am grinning 
 too; but you must put up with it. 
 
 It is, I suppose, no use asking for yours, unless 
 perhaps one of your friends has a Kodak. 
 
 I stop now because father says that all letters 
 are censored; and though there is nothing that 
 I want to say that I should mind the censor 
 
 [211]
 
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 leading, yet I mind the idea of the censor reading 
 it. Does this sound very foolish 1 ? 
 
 I wish it was not so cold and wet for you. I 
 would send you a periscope only I feel sure that 
 a young soldier with so many relations must have 
 one. Yours sincerely, PORTIA GREY 
 
 CXXXIX 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR AUNT HELEN, It was a very exciting 
 crossing, because the boat had not been allowed 
 to leave harbour the last two times on account of 
 rumours of a submarine in the Channel. This 
 means it was terribly crowded with the people 
 who had been waiting. I had my buoyant waist- 
 coat with me, but I was ashamed to wear it and 
 sat on it all the way over. It sounds a very 
 foolish thing to say, no doubt; but as a matter 
 of fact it seemed so snobbish to wish to save 
 one's life. 
 
 The passport arrangements are pitiless now. 
 First you have to show them at Folkestone, and 
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 that takes an hour and a half because you pass 
 through in single file. They ask you if you have 
 any gold on you, and if so, they take it away and 
 give you paper money instead. Also they ask 
 you if you have any letters for anyone abroad, 
 and if you have they make you post them. Then 
 on the other side your passports are looked at 
 and stamped again, and again you have to wait 
 in single file. Two or three people were turned 
 back at Folkestone because they had omitted to 
 do something or other that was essential. It was 
 terrible for them, and one poor woman burst into 
 tears ; but no one relents nowadays. Half-crowns 
 can do nothing any longer! 
 
 The French official looked very narrowly from 
 me to my photograph and from the photograph 
 to me, and I don't wonder, for it is a most ghastly 
 libel. But then that seems to be the rule with 
 passport photographs, which are mostly taken, like 
 mine, in a tearing hurry under a fierce artificial 
 glare. "Mademoiselle is more beautiful than 
 that," he said very prettily. I wanted to reply 
 "So I should hope"; but there is no such phrase 
 in my vocabulary. 
 
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 The war is much nearer in Paris than in 
 London. This morning I was awakened quite 
 early by a terrible buzzing, and rushing to the 
 window, there was an aeroplane. It seems that 
 aeroplane watchmen are always flying over the 
 city. 
 
 To-morrow I begin my work at Neuilly. 
 Your loving Vi. 
 
 CXL 
 
 MRS. CLAYTON-MILLS TO MRS. WISTON 
 
 MY DEAR JOAN, Archibald is greatly dis- 
 appointed to have been refused as a stretcher- 
 bearer. He applied with great promptitude and 
 candour, stating his unfortunate tendency to colds 
 and liver-chills and the fact that he is not allowed 
 to lift heavy weights. It would not have been 
 fair to have done otherwise. And now a letter 
 has come thanking him but declining his services, 
 and the poor boy is in the deepest dejection, and 
 has gone down to the river with his rod to think 
 out some new sphere in which he might be useful. 
 
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 I wonder if your brother, Mr. Haven, could find 
 something for him? He must know so many 
 influential people. Something that would come 
 under the head of war work and make him feel 
 that he was doing what is called his "bit"? 
 Yours, MAUDE 
 
 CXLI 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 DEAR Miss GREY, Thank you a thousand 
 times for the photograph. It is just what I 
 wanted. You are quite what I was expecting, 
 only better. I love rough hair best, and that 
 smile (it is not a grin) is perfect. 
 
 How frightfully clever of you to guess I had 
 a periscope. It is like thought-reading. As a 
 matter of fact, I got several and gave all but two 
 away; but I would rather use one sent by you 
 than any. 
 
 I am arranging about a photograph of myself. 
 Not an amateur one, but done at a shop in 
 Amiens, next time I get a chance. But we are
 
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 very hard at it. Your picture does not look 
 a bit like a Portia. It is too jolly, and yet when- 
 ever I look at it I say Portia. I hope you don't 
 mind, but it must sound like awful cheek. Yours 
 very gratefully and sincerely, TOBY STARR 
 
 CXLII 
 
 ARCHIBALD CLAYTON-MILLS TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR MR. HAVEN, The mater is very keen 
 on my doing something for the country in this 
 time of stress, but I don't know how to begin. I 
 cannot be a soldier because of my eyes, which get 
 steadily worse; and all my other efforts have so 
 far been failures. It would be very kind if you 
 would think of something for me. I should prefer 
 it to be something I could do at home, as I don't 
 like the mater to be left all alone. Or could you 
 get me some Government office job which would 
 occupy, say, from 10 till 5 or even 5.30, and so 
 enable me to get back in time to dress for dinner"? 
 You have so much influence. I wish I could offer 
 my services free, but I am afraid that is impos- 
 
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 sible. And, after all, I am giving up my painting. 
 Believe me yours faithfully, 
 
 ARCHIBALD CLAYTON-MILLS 
 
 CXLIII 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK (NOW IN A LONDON NURSING 
 HOME) TO His WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST, This is, as you discerned, a 
 most admirable place and everything possible is 
 done for me. The doctor says I may leave in 
 ten days. He has also cheered me by the news 
 that billiards can be played perfectly well by men 
 with only the right arm left. One makes an 
 artificial bridge quite easily. But farewell golf! 
 As to fishing, I am doubtful, because what be- 
 comes of the reel? But I have no doubt that all 
 kinds of dodginesses will occur to me in time. 
 
 My neighbour from Africa, who has a bullet in 
 his leg which defies the surgeons, hobbled in 
 to-day full of grievances. London, he says, is 
 unbearable, by reason of the damned old women 
 who want to shake hands with you even in the 
 
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 streets. "There was one in the Stores," he said, 
 "this very afternoon. She seized me by the hand 
 and thanked me publicly for all I have done in 
 Flanders. The ruddy old fool ! I was wounded 
 in the Cameroons." 
 
 No callers from the outer world to-day! 
 Yesterday I had three and was horribly tired. 
 It seems to me that the art of illness is to adjust 
 the balance between resentment at not being 
 visited and weariness from the attentions of 
 visitors. 
 
 Kiss the littluns for me, my darling. 
 
 TERENCE 
 
 CXLIV 
 
 TOBY STARR TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAREST MOTHER, I snatch a few moments 
 to send you a pencil scrawl saying I am so far all 
 right. 
 
 I had my first taste of the real thing yesterday 
 and it was pretty awful, and for a bit I didn't 
 know how I was going to behave. But I pulled 
 through and now it will be all right. I remember
 
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 hearing some one say that the funk in war is pretty 
 general, and that bigger cowards remain in the line 
 than those that run away. I can believe it. It 
 must require an awful lot of pluck of an inverted 
 kind to scoot under the eyes of all one's men and 
 pals. Either pluck or so much panic that one 
 was practically up the pole with it. No amount 
 of throwing grenades about when in training can 
 possibly prepare anyone for his "baptism of fire." 
 The noise is so terrific and scarifying. Lots of 
 men, old soldiers too, cry by the bucket under 
 it. They can't help it. Lots have had to 
 give up and go back not their fault, but their 
 nerves. 
 
 I will write as often as I can, but you mustn't 
 expect much. Consider no news good news. 
 Your loving TOBY 
 
 CXLV 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO ARCHIBALD CLAYTON-MILLS 
 
 DEAR MR. CLAYTON-MILLS, You mistake; 
 I have no influence to get anyone a job of the
 
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 easy kind you name. Hard work is the only 
 thing now, and plenty of it. If you cannot fight, 
 you could take the place of another young man 
 who wanted to fight but could not get away. A 
 clerk, for example. Or you could be a special 
 constable.. My experience is that a man can 
 always have what he wants in England, where 
 feelings are usually tepid, if he wants it enough; 
 that is to say, if he really wants it. Yours faith- 
 fully, RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 CXLVI 
 
 CAPTAIN DERRICK TO His WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST, It is now fixed that I leave on 
 Saturday morning. Digby will bring me down 
 and stay for a day or two. The train is the 
 11.18. 
 
 They are fairly strict about visitors, but a 
 stranger got through to me to-day and gave me 
 the dickens of a time. Directly he came in I 
 knew that there had been a mistake, but it was 
 too late. He was full of apologies, but he had 
 [220]
 
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 heard that I was there and had been wounded at 
 such and such a place, and could I tell him any- 
 thing about his son who was in the same regiment 
 and had been killed? Could I tell him how he 
 died anything to pass on to his poor mother 
 and comfort them? Somehow, directly he said 
 this, I had a horrible instinct as to what his name 
 would be, because there was one of the lieutenants, 
 a rather poisonous little bounder, who was killed 
 under very painful circumstances, for he had been 
 lying on his face for half an hour blubbering at 
 the bottom of the trench when a shell fell on him 
 and took his head clean off. Why, I cannot say, 
 but I instantly knew that he was this man's son, 
 and when he went on to say what his name was 
 I felt myself to be completely in the cart. 
 
 What was I to do? What would you have 
 done? I could say that I knew his son, but had 
 never heard how he died; or I could say that I 
 saw him die, and he died like a man doing his 
 duty. The only risk about the second part of it 
 was that some one else might be found to tell the 
 truth. And all the time that these thoughts were 
 flashing through my mind, there sat his poor 
 
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 st6dgy little father, who had probably been so 
 full of snobbish pride to have a son an officer 
 at all, but was now utterly and pitifully genu- 
 ine perhaps hoping against hope for news of a 
 decent end, for his face was all anxious eagerness 
 and his mouth trembled a little. 
 
 Well, I banked on the bigger lie. I was 
 cautious enough to ask first how it was that the 
 colonel had not written, but it seems that he had, 
 but had said very wisely that he had been able 
 to collect no information, and merely stated that 
 the boy would be missed. This was true enough, 
 but not quite in the sense in which it would be 
 taken. So then I said that he was close to me 
 when he was killed and he was making a gallant 
 fight of it. And his poor father's face lighted 
 up, and he thanked me again and again and went 
 away happier than he had been for weeks. 
 
 There, that's a long letter! It will be just 
 heaven to be at home again. Your loving 
 
 TERENCE 
 
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 CXLVII 
 
 PRIVATE STEPHEN PORTER TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 DEAR MADAM, It was very kind of you to 
 send me such a nice parcel. It was the best 
 parcel that any of us had had by a long way, and 
 we have all been doing the puzzles. 
 
 I wish, dear madam, you would not call me 
 brave. I didn't do anything brave. There wasn't 
 time, for we were surrounded and captured before 
 we knew where we were; but I often lay awake 
 at night and wonder if I should have been properly 
 brave if I had had the chance. To tell you the 
 truth, I didn't look forward to a real fight at all. 
 
 There are about a hundred and twenty of us 
 here and we are fed pretty well, but the time 
 goes very slowly. Still, when I think of all my 
 friends who were killed, I can't complain. God 
 bless you, dear Madam, and believe me yours 
 truly and respectfully, STEPHEN PORTER 
 
 P.S. I think, if I might be so bold, I should 
 like some of those long novels. I lent the poetry 
 book to one of my mates. 
 
 [223]
 
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 CXLVIII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO DR. SUTHERLAND 
 
 DEAR SUTHERLAND, Do you remember my 
 sending you Walter Raleigh on "Might and 
 Right" ? Well, Raleigh has been at it again, and 
 is now making for the Times a series of Broad- 
 sheets for the soldiers to read at the front. His 
 pamphlet cost twopence; but such famine prices 
 for literature are now a thing of the past, and the 
 Broadsheets are six a penny, and jolly good 
 they are too. Some people say they are too 
 good; but I don't agree. Nor will you, I think. 
 I am sending you a selection, and hope and pray 
 they may escape the torpedo of the Huns and 
 reach you safely. 
 
 Look particularly at Julian Grenfell's stanzas 
 in the little collection of new war poetry, which 
 is among these that I send you. To my mind 
 this is the best poem that the war has yet pro- 
 duced, and it is already some months old, and 
 its author was known not as a poet but as a polo- 
 player! Yours, R. H. 
 [224]
 
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 THIS Is THE POEM TO WHICH MR. HAVEN 
 REFERS 
 
 INTO BATTLE 
 
 The naked earth is warm with Spring, 
 And with green grass and bursting trees 
 
 Leans to the sun's gaze glorying, 
 And quivers in the sunny breeze; 
 
 And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light, 
 And a striving evermore for these ; 
 
 And he is dead who will not fight; 
 And who dies fighting has increase. 
 
 The fighting man shall from the sun 
 
 Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth ; 
 
 Speed with the light-foot winds to run, 
 And with the trees to newer birth; 
 
 And find, when fighting shall be done, 
 Great rest, and fulness after dearth. 
 
 All the bright company of Heaven 
 Hold him in their high comradeship, 
 
 The Dog-Star and the Sisters Seven, 
 Orion's Belt and sworded hip. 
 
 The woodland trees that stand together, 
 They stand to him each one a friend; 
 
 They gently speak in the windy weather; 
 They guide to valley and ridge's end. 
 
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 The kestrel hovering by day, 
 
 And the little owls that call by night, 
 
 Bid him be swift and keen as they, 
 As keen of ear, as swift of sight. 
 
 The blackbird sings to him, "Brother, brother, 
 If this be the last song you shall sing, 
 
 Sing well, for you may not sing another; 
 Brother, sing!" 
 
 In dreary, doubtful, waiting hours, 
 
 Before the brazen frenzy starts, 
 The horses show him nobler powers; 
 
 O patient eyes, courageous hearts! 
 
 And when the burning moment breaks, 
 And all things else are out of mind, 
 
 And only Joy-of-Battle takes 
 
 Him by the throat, and makes him blind, 
 
 Through joy and blindness he shall know, 
 Not caring much to know, that still 
 
 Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so 
 That it be not the Destined Will. 
 
 The thundering line of battle stands, 
 And in the air Death moans and sings; 
 
 But Day shall clasp him with strong hands, 
 And Night shall fold him in soft wings. 
 
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 CXLIX 
 MRS. HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR HELEN, What dreadful news about the 
 Lusitania! Things seem to get worse and worse, 
 and the world to grow more wicked. I used 
 always to think of the Germans as such a mild, 
 gentle people with large spectacles, who combed 
 their hair as they left the table. Who would ever 
 have thought of them doing these dreadful things? 
 And then there was the dear Prince Consort, whom 
 and quite rightly we always called "Albert the 
 Good." What can we have done for all this to 
 be happening*? I wish I knew if we are being 
 punished for doing wrong, or if it is just German 
 wickedness. But anyway, as I tell Anne, it is 
 quite time to die; and yet I should like to live 
 long enough to see Peace declared and every 
 one turn over a new leaf. Your loving 
 
 MOTHER 
 
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 CL 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR HELEN, And now they have sunk the 
 Lusitania. What terrible power war puts into 
 the hands of one man! And this is 1915 Anno 
 Domini, as we say. 
 
 Which is it, Heine or Voltaire? I don't re- 
 member, but it sounds like one of them who 
 imagined God, after the Creation, rattling the 
 stars and planets in His pockets, as a schoolboy his 
 marbles. One of the pockets had a hole in it, 
 and, before God knew, a planet slipped out and 
 was lost. It was ours. 
 
 Christianity having failed so dismally (or 
 would half the world be at each other's throats 
 like this*?) is it not time to try something else"? 
 Some religion of humanity since religion is nec- 
 essary that shall put the human family first and 
 have as its chief ideal the improvement of the 
 world we have to live in and get our daily bread 
 in 4 ? 
 
 These are great questions. Yours, R. H. 
 
 [228]
 
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 CLI 
 
 MRS. CLAYTON-MILLS TO MRS. WISTON 
 
 POOR Archibald is in despair at a letter which 
 he has received from Mr. Haven, who, we made 
 sure, would help him. Mr. Haven actually has 
 so little imagination as to suggest that the boy 
 should become a clerk. How could Archibald do 
 that 4 ? It is ridiculous to suppose that an artist 
 so full of delicate sensibility and creative fancy as 
 he is could become a clerk. A private secretary 
 possibly, but not a clerk. One must be sensible 
 in these matters. For the moment we are at a 
 standstill in the matter, and Archibald has gone 
 for the week-end to his friends the Steinheimers, 
 who, in spite of their unfortunate name and birth, 
 are absolutely pro-English and have the most 
 beautiful place on Sydenham Hill overlooking 
 London. Yours, MAUDE 
 
 [229]
 
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 CLII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR HELEN, A good story has lately 
 found its way into the papers. A soldier was 
 carpeted somewhere back of the front for wilfully 
 damaging the property of the French Government. 
 It seems that the notices in the railway carriage 
 against leaning out of the window had caught his 
 eye and he had carefully eliminated the German 
 one, "Nicht hinauslehnen" ! Asked to explain 
 his conduct, he said that he had acted from 
 motives of the purest patriotism. 'Patriotism'?' 
 exclaimed the President of the Court. "Certainly, 
 sir," replied the soldier; "I thought that if a 
 German wanted to lean out of the window and 
 have his blooming napper knocked off, it would 
 be a pity to stop him." Result, a triumphant 
 acquittal. 
 
 We went to a theatre last night. It is really 
 
 wonderful how the stage keeps up its spirits and 
 
 detachment. But mummers truly are a race 
 
 apart. I always hold that, so long as they are 
 
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 thorough that is to say, so long as the theatre 
 is their life and not merely an incident in it 
 actors are the happiest of creatures. But the actor 
 who is also a citizen can be a profoundly melan- 
 choly fellow. If conscription comes in, as it 
 probably will, we shall see the end of these 
 capering male choruses, which to me have always 
 been a blot on the stage. Not that young men 
 are au fond any more sensible than young women, 
 but there is something else for young men to do 
 than sing and dance and paint their faces; and 
 when a war is on and soldiers are needed the 
 spectacle is ghastly. Personally I shall go to no 
 more plays where male choruses are engaged. I 
 wish I had lodged a protest from my seat and left 
 last night, but I had not the pluck. Probably 
 many of the audience thought as I do, but they 
 too had not the pluck. Without courage nothing 
 can ever be done. 
 
 Besides, for far too long now the stage and its 
 lions and lionesses have been sacred. Actors and 
 actresses have become the salt of the earth, so far 
 as London is concerned, and they can do no wrong,
 
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 and anyone suggesting that they can would be 
 thrown out of the theatre. This domination of 
 the sock and buskin has come about stealthily 
 but very surely. If you doubt it, try to imagine 
 what certain illustrated papers, daily as well as 
 weekly, which do not pretend to any particular 
 theatrical interest, would be like were London's 
 houses of entertainment all closed. 
 
 What a chance there has been for some big firm 
 to let its patriotism take the form of announcing 
 that no increase would be made in the price of 
 anything during the war as, I believe, Felix 
 Potin in Paris did in 1870. Nor would its virtue 
 be its own reward. As an advertisement alone 
 putting the action on purely commercial grounds 
 the cost would probably be less (and the re- 
 sults greater) than a leading article in the eve- 
 ning papers every night of the year. Yours, 
 
 R. 
 
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 CLIII 
 
 Miss ELLEN FRISBY TO PRIVATE ARTHUR COLE- 
 MAN 
 
 DEAR MR. COLEMAN, Your letter has just 
 arrived and I hasten to answer it, although I can- 
 not help feeling that you want to know rather 
 much. 
 
 But when one is a prisoner I can believe that 
 inquisitiveness comes natural and one must not be 
 hard on you for it. 
 
 What I should do if I were in prison I cannot 
 imagine. 
 
 I am five feet six and a half inches in height. 
 My hair is auburn, my eyes are blue. I am 
 twenty-six next March. If I am to get this off 
 to-night I must now close. Your sincere well- 
 wisher, ELLEN FRISBY 
 
 CLIV 
 
 TOBY STARR TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR MOTHER, I wish you would send me 
 a decent French phrase-book. 
 
 [ 2 33]
 
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 J find that my French is no good at all, and 
 the phrase-book I have does not have the right 
 kind of things in it. Some one should compile 
 a suitable one. These are the kind of things you 
 want to say: 
 
 Can I get an egg for love or money? 
 
 Is there any chance of a lift to *? 
 
 I don't care where I sleep so long as the place 
 isn't damp. Can you swear it's not damp 1 ? 
 But the books give no help. They have no em- 
 phasis in them. 
 
 My long suit is the opening phrase, Ess keely 
 ar. I always begin that way. After this war 
 we shall be so satisfied that we are going to have 
 peace evermore, and particularly with France, 
 that probably no more pains than now will be 
 taken to teach or learn French properly; but of 
 course the neglect of modern languages is a sin. 
 We had French lessons often enough, but what 
 mortal use is one of them to me when the whole 
 business of French is not being able to speak it 
 but hear it. I can ask most questions, but unless 
 the answer is written I haven't a notion what it 
 means; and lots of the people can't write. This 
 
 [234]
 
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 reminds me, anyway, that I 'wish you'd send me 
 some tiny pads and pencils, so that when they can 
 write, I can get them to stick it down. Another 
 of my trump cards is Parlay ploo lontmong, but 
 they won't do it at least for not more than a 
 few seconds. 
 
 I always used to hear that sailors can go any- 
 where and get anything they want on the word 
 Savvy. They must be cleverer than soldiers, or 
 want less. 
 
 So far I have kept very fit. Best love. 
 
 TOBY 
 
 CLV 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO BARCLAY VAUGHAN 
 
 DEAR B., It is funny to see how economy has 
 already taken different people. The richest man I 
 know has given up Havana cigars, and smokes 
 at his own cost, that is only arid things at three- 
 pence each with comic names. Beyond that he has 
 not, that I am aware of, made any change. He 
 still, for example, travels first class; which I have 
 
 [235]
 
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 alrtiost never done, in England, in my life. An- 
 other man that I know has given up meat for 
 lunch; but I could not get through the afternoon 
 if I did that. Another has given up Turkish 
 Baths. Another has retired from one of his clubs; 
 another is beginning to go regularly to his club 
 for the first time, in order to see all the sixpenny 
 weeklies, which until latterly he bought. One 
 lady that I know has relinquished her early morn- 
 ing tea; another buys no more flowers for the 
 house. Several of my friends spend their evenings 
 at home instead of going to restaurants or the 
 play, or to both. 
 
 But not all will stick to these changes, and 
 most of us, I fancy, will indulge in occasional 
 orgies whenever we feel ourselves entitled to them 
 by our intervening Spartanism. Thus will life 
 become much more amusing, for what was once 
 so regular as to have become insipid will by its 
 rarity now take on importance and a new flavour. 
 
 Economy is all very well; but it will have its 
 defects too. It already has. The no-treating 
 order was a godsend to the naturally miserly and 
 grudging; and many people are about so to lose 
 
 [236]
 
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 the habit of putting their hands in their pockets 
 that when things are better they will not renew it. 
 That, of course, is a danger; and the treasurers of 
 hospitals and other public charities are probably 
 only too well aware of it. And I can see also 
 signs of a new snobbishness, which makes a cult of 
 cheese-paring, taking the place of the old one 
 which flaunted wastefulness or want of care. 
 There must be spots on the sun. But even with 
 such drawbacks we shall have gained as a nation 
 by having the real worth of money twelve pen- 
 nies to the shilling, twenty shillings to the pound 
 brought home to us. But, as a matter of fact, 
 at the present moment there cannot be more than 
 nine pennies to the bob, or fifteen bob to the 
 pound, everything has risen so. 
 
 To economists-against-the-grain who find the 
 new conditions almost too distasteful I have two 
 pieces of comfort. The first is an experience of 
 my own the other day, when I gazed upon the 
 drawn and haggard features of a millionaire, who 
 is not only of world-wide fame but whose name is 
 to some extent synonymous with geniality, and 
 incidentally hit upon as good a case of the un- 
 
 [237]
 
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 expected word as I can remember. The great 
 man was seated forlornly and alone in a corner of 
 a first-class compartment waiting for his little 
 branch-line train to start, and I was moved to 
 mention his sickly and melancholy appearance to 
 the guard, as an illustration, if not a proof, that 
 vast riches do not necessarily imply vast happi- 
 ness. The guard agreed, and then added re- 
 flectively: "It's a pity he's not more roguish." 
 Never did an epithet give me more surprise, and 
 to make sure, for I half expected "robust" was 
 intended, I lured the guard to repeat it. But 
 there was no doubt; roguish was the word; the 
 guard thought it a pity that the great man was 
 not more roguish. Roguish he certainly was not, 
 and if such dejection comes from great possessions 
 then let us not hesitate to unload ours. 
 
 For the other piece of consolation, let me, as a 
 comforter, quote the words of a philosopher in 
 that most amusing, but very little-known, book, 
 The Wallet of Kai Lung, of which, as you know, 
 I am a champion. "The road to success," says he, 
 "lies through the cheap and exceedingly unin- 
 viting eating-houses." That is our route. The 
 
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 Kaiser points the way. But success, remember, 
 is to be the goal. Yours, R. H. 
 
 CLVI 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO SIR VINCENT STARR 
 
 DEAR VINCENT, Any authentic news that 
 you can let me have from time to time would be 
 welcome. Meanwhile I think you ought to know 
 that a man I know who has been talking with an 
 intimate friend of his, an American, just returned 
 from Germany, where he went on business, says 
 that we are being completely hoodwinked, as 
 usual, as regards the position of affairs there. So 
 far from being short of food, they have supplies 
 of everything for at least three years, and 
 enormous reserves of gold stored away in various 
 fortresses which have not yet been tapped at all. 
 They are building submarines at the rate of three 
 a week; flying machines at the rate of thirty a 
 week; and Zeppelins at the rate of two a month. 
 Their supply of ammunition has hardly been ap- 
 preciably touched, and the young men in training 
 
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 who will be ready in a short time can be counted 
 literally by the million. He says that the Am- 
 sterdam Telegraaf is really in the German pay, 
 and is putting out its reports as to German de- 
 pression merely to weaken our attack and make 
 us careless. He also hinted that even Raemakers, 
 the cartoonist, who has been feted in London and 
 Paris as a pro-Ally, is really a German agent, and 
 in every one of his pictures, if one knew where 
 to look for it, is a cipher message to dangerous 
 sympathisers in England and France. I cannot 
 tell you how disquieting it is to hear these things. 
 You will understand, then, how much I should 
 value anything that you can tell me touching on 
 the efficiency and esprit de corps, if they exist, of 
 our army in France. Here one hears sad stories 
 about it. 
 
 Sometimes I think I will give up London alto- 
 gether; but that of course would be cowardly. 
 One must not fly from the truth. 
 
 Wishing you all good luck. Yours cordially, 
 
 GEORGE WISTON 
 
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 CLVII 
 
 JERRY HARDING TO NANCY BERNAL 
 
 [Telegram] 
 
 GROSSING Monday night. Five days' leave. 
 
 HARDING 
 
 CLVIII 
 MRS. BERNAL TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 DEAR MOTHER, It looks as if Digby and I 
 are to be entirely alone. Nancy now is insisting 
 on marrying that young Harding; I had no idea 
 that anything was going on, so blind can parents 
 be; but it seems that they were engaged actually 
 before Dick and Olive! And she has won over 
 her father to sanction a sudden wedding by 
 licence. Mothers are no longer considered at 
 all. It's most extraordinary all of a sudden the 
 world seems to have been made for second lieu- 
 tenants! There is nothing I haven't done for the 
 child, and her father has spoiled her all her life, 
 
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 but everything is forgotten directly she wants to 
 marry. They are neither of them twenty-one yet, 
 but because it's war-time they must be allowed to 
 rush into marriage! 
 
 Digby says we must not stand in the young 
 people's way, but personally I don't see why the 
 Kaiser should be allowed to upset all the common 
 prudences of life. I need hardly say that Richard 
 has been conspiring against me too. 
 
 Luckily I am up to my eyes in a new scheme 
 for a hospital for worn-out nurses, and day and 
 night am slaving to get my share of the necessary 
 money for it. Do send me a trifle, no matter how 
 small, and get Anne to collect something too. I 
 enclose a card for her. Your loving 
 
 MARGARET 
 
 CLIX 
 
 [FROM THE MARRIAGE COLUMN] 
 
 HARDING BERNAL. On the 2ist, by special 
 licence, Algernon Rivers Harding, only son of 
 Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Harding of Eastly Place, 
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 Winchester, to Anne, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Digby Bernal of Campden Hill. 
 
 CLX 
 
 DIGBY BERNAL TO DICK BERNAL 
 
 MY DEAR BOY, The registration for it 
 wasn't a wedding went off all right, and Hard- 
 ing is now back at work again. 
 
 I am glad all goes well with you so far. 
 Things here are not superficially bright, but I 
 have perfect confidence that underneath we are 
 progressing. Your poor father-in-law is still 
 grousing. If all that he hears and repeats were 
 true, the country would be morally and physically 
 bankrupt, beaten and disgraced. And yet things 
 seem to go on much as before, except that many 
 people are braver and more serious, and there- 
 fore better. But men like Uncle George never 
 examine things for themselves; they merely 
 listen and believe, and elaborate and grizzle. 
 
 Your Olive came to see us yesterday. She 
 looks very well, considering, and is throwing 
 
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 toerself into various quiet stay-at-home war tasks 
 that keep her mind occupied. I am, and have 
 always been, very fond of her, but your most 
 serious rival will of course always be your Uncle 
 Richard! It makes me feel very old to be so 
 near a grandfather's estate. I wish you could get 
 away for a week or so to be with her. Good luck, 
 old son, D. B. 
 
 CLXI 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 MY DEAR Miss GREY, Another of my cousins 
 has been married now, a mere girl named Nancy 
 Bernal. She has married my pal Jerry Harding, 
 the one who went in with me over that rotten 
 advertisement, which, however, had such glorious 
 results. I often wonder what kind of answers he 
 got, but I have never asked him. Jerry and 
 Nancy have been engaged on the quiet for a long 
 time. I wonder what you think of secret engage- 
 ments. I expect they're rather fun for the 
 engaged parties, but there must be something nice 
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 too in having all the world know that this girl is 
 yours. Jerry didn't want to marry till the war 
 was over for fear he'd be hit or even killed out- 
 right. He thought that that wouldn't be fair to 
 Nancy; but she wasn't taking any of that, and 
 married him by special licence out of hand, and 
 their honeymoon is something under a week. 
 Some hustle, isn't it 1 ? 
 
 The Boches are keeping us pretty busy, but 
 I have got over paying much attention to them. 
 One learns to distinguish between the shells that 
 are coming your way and those meant for others. 
 I don't mean that we get careless exactly, but 
 since it is all such an absolute toss up we don't 
 let it weigh on our minds. 
 
 I saw a ripping fight in the air yesterday in 
 which our man at last brought the Hun down. 
 He had a bullet through his arm and threw up 
 the sponge. The odd thing is, that I had met 
 him before. He came to Oxford to play footer 
 two winters ago. I should say he's as decent a 
 chap as a Hun can be. 
 
 Half an hour afterwards I had the melancholy 
 experience of seeing our cook's errand man blown 
 
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 to pieces. It's a kind of understood thing that 
 during the dinner hour the gunners on both sides 
 cry off. We keep this bargain absolutely; but 
 the Boches usually send three shells over just to 
 remind us that they're not gentlemen. Well, 
 there's about forty yards of open between the 
 kitchen and our table, and the poor devil was 
 bringing the soup when one of these shells came 
 along. If he'd just lain down for a bit and 
 waited he'd have been all right, but he had a 
 panic and started to run, and ran bang into shell 
 number two, which absolutely scattered him. As 
 it is a rule for every one to have a Christian burial 
 they had to collect as much of him as they could 
 for the purpose. 
 
 If you think that this caused us to go without 
 our dinner you have a very wrong notion of the 
 British soldier. We are so surprised to be still 
 alive, any of us, that we don't let things like this 
 spoil our appetite. 
 
 Nice reading for your quiet Ashford garden, I 
 don't think; but you asked me to tell you even 
 the dreadful things, and I am obeying, as a soldier 
 must. Yours sincerely, TOBY STARR 
 
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 CLXII 
 DR. SUTHERLAND TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR HAVEN, The situation here is 
 really comic rather than serious. Because it has 
 revealed the fact, which every one wanted to keep 
 secret, that there is no American nation. Yet. 
 There will be, no doubt. America is something 
 of all; whereas a nation is all of something. 
 The finer, more chivalrous spirits want to fight 
 or at any rate want to establish their belief in 
 honesty and decency and personal honour in 
 some emphatic way. The chief organ of these 
 proud, scornful knights is Life, which perhaps 
 you don't see. Since the war it has been 
 admirable, and since the sinking of the Lusitania 
 its satire has literally scalded. The Allies and 
 the cause of liberty and justice and humanity 
 never had a better champion. Of course any 
 satirical paper that is against Germany has a 
 great chance now, because there is such a wonder- 
 ful target in the Kaiser, who, inversely, may 
 almost be said to edit it. At any rate he 
 
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 supplies an inexhaustible motif; which all such 
 papers are the better for. 
 
 After the somewhat impetuous champions of 
 the higher policy, on whose side is Roosevelt, by 
 the way (although Roosevelt does not stand for 
 what he did, and there is always the possibility 
 that his Pro-Ally fervour and pugnacity might 
 be at bottom Anti-Wilsonism), there are the 
 statesmen who see very clearly the difficulties in 
 the way, one being the internal embroilment that 
 would instantly break forth, and another the fact 
 that there is no battleground for either her army 
 or navy if America did declare war. Where 
 could she send her troops'? And what is there 
 for her ships to tackle? Furthermore, the Allies 
 want Uncle Sam's assistance as a munition 
 worker to go on and on, and they would then 
 lose it. Without our war work at Bethlehem 
 where would you all be 4 ? 
 
 Apropos of American industry for the war, a 
 letter from a friend in France the other day told 
 me that thousands of the camions employed in 
 conveying both French soldiers and shells to the 
 front are made here, largely by White; while in 
 
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 one place he found a cohort of American motor- 
 lorries with the name of Kmpp on every one, 
 these having been made by us for Germany, but, 
 delivery being impossible, re-sold to France! 
 
 It seems to me that, apart from such industry, 
 there is nothing for Americans to do but to wait 
 and see in the excellent words of your Premier. 
 Yours, T. S. 
 
 CLXIII 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR AUNT HELEN, The work at this 
 hospital is very interesting, but I wish there were 
 more English soldiers here. There are only a 
 few, and none in my ward, where every one is 
 French. I find that I can understand nearly all 
 they say and I make myself understood; but it 
 is very pleasant now and then to steal away to 
 the ward where the English boys are, and talk 
 properly. 
 
 One of them his name is James Buncombe 
 comes from your part of the country and knows 
 
 [249]
 
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 you by sight. He was in the racing stable. He 
 has been shot through the lungs and speaks with 
 great difficulty. Two others have lost eyes. The 
 fourth had all his fingers on one hand cut off by a 
 German officer slashed with a sword. What is 
 to become of them when they are discharged"? 
 That is what I am always wondering. 
 
 There is also an English officer in a room to 
 himself, rather sidey. Every one is laughing over 
 the blunder he made yesterday, for he rather 
 fancies his French. He called out to the orderly 
 who was passing, "Envoy ez moi la nourrice, s'il 
 vous plait; j'ai faim." 
 
 I thought I would be very clever yesterday, 
 and I went into Paris and bought a little pile of 
 detective stones for my ward. Wouldn't you have 
 said that all men would like detective stories'? 
 But it was a failure. It seems that there is only 
 one kind of story that they like, and that is about 
 the Wild West. There is a series now running in 
 France which you buy for a few centimes, with a 
 wonderful hero named Nick Carter, and this is 
 what the French soldiers want. Arsene Lupin 
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 isn't in it with Nick Carter. And the most 
 welcome present you can give them is sweets. 
 
 They're really just children all the time 
 children with appalling vocabularies. 
 
 I will write again soon. Your loving infirm- 
 iere, Vi. 
 
 CLXIV 
 
 NANCY HARDING TO HER HUSBAND 
 
 MY DARLING JERRY, I think about you day 
 and night. Do take care of yourself and do not 
 run unnecessary risks. I know how brave and 
 impulsive you are. It was all very well before, 
 but now you have some one else to live for. 
 
 It is very odd being married and not having 
 any husband or any home. But we shall have 
 tremendous fun getting the furniture and things 
 after the war, won't we 1 ? I am busy making lists 
 of what we shall want. Mother, who has quite 
 come round, is helping me. 
 
 I look in all the furniture shops and get all 
 their lists. There are some firms which do it all
 
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 for you for so much, but that is very dull, I think. 
 Bimbo was very funny about the anti-aircraft 
 guns in the Park the other day. "Aren't they 
 afraid they'll hit God?" he asked. What 
 heavenly things small children can be! Your 
 ever loving NAN. 
 
 CLXV 
 
 MRS. PARK-STAN MER TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR HELEN, I had such an adventure 
 yesterday. One of my lonely subs of a year ago 
 came to call on me. He is stationed at Shorn- 
 cliffe and he walked over. Such a dear boy. He 
 says that my letters were the greatest comfort to 
 him. I always try to picture them as I write to 
 them, but I got this one absolutely wrong. He 
 is really very tall and thin, with a big nose and 
 yellowish hair, and I had thought of him as thick- 
 set and dark; but most awfully attractive, and 
 ready, like all my boys, to be up in arms over me. 
 I told him I was called the Mother of the Mess> 
 and he was furious. "Mother, indeed!" he said. 
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 "Sister of the Mess, perhaps, but not mother." 
 It was such fun watching him. I expect I shall 
 see a lot of him unless, of course, he is twitched 
 over to France, which is always a possibility, 
 worse luck! for every one except Horace. He, 
 I always tell him, will be the last man left in 
 England. Yours, AMABEL 
 
 CLXVI 
 
 LADY STARR TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, I had a great thrill yester- 
 day. I had been for a few days' visit to the 
 Harringtons in the Isle of Wight, and was coming 
 back in the steamer when we came upon a 
 gigantic vessel moored in the middle of the 
 Solent, with its head towards the East, waiting for 
 an escort or something. And what do you think 
 it was? The Mauretania, all painted slate col- 
 our, and on every inch of its decks were men in 
 khaki with sun helmets, on their way to the 
 Dardanelles. You know that annoying tearful 
 feeling you get when a monarch goes by in state. 
 
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 Well, I had it yesterday, only it did not annoy 
 me in the least. I just had to cry. There they 
 were, these myriad men, all waving good-bye, 
 and every one on our little boat was waving back, 
 and one knew that it was good-bye for ever for 
 so many of them. No more England, no more 
 home, nothing but a bullet and a foreign grave. 
 Men marching to the station do not seem half so 
 doomed as men on a troopship. 
 
 I am glad I did not have to say good-bye to 
 Toby in this way. I never could have stood it. 
 Yours, H. 
 
 CLXVII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO BARCLAY VAUGHAN 
 
 DEAR B.,- It is a commonplace to say that 
 England can never be the same; but it has not 
 been easy hitherto to put one's finger here and 
 there and show where the difference will be. 
 Now, however, when girls are taking almost every 
 male situation, and have become nurses by the 
 thousand, one can see clearly enough that almost 
 
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 the principal difference will be an England of 
 enfranchised woman. I don't mean enfranchised 
 in the political sense merely, but in the larger 
 sense. An independence will have come to her 
 that she has wofully lacked, ranging her on the 
 administrative side with French women, and self- 
 reliantly with the American, and the Turks 
 among us won't like it, but will have to put up 
 with it. Already their strongholds, the clubs, 
 have fallen, for waitresses are now to be found in 
 most of them; and now for the first time having 
 spies there, the Turks' wives are probably learning 
 what exceedingly dull dormitories those places 
 are. 
 
 Some folks' incorrigible disregard of the situa- 
 tion is appalling. When one sees how little dif- 
 ference there is in their mode of life among play- 
 goers and diners out and, above all, racegoers, 
 one has to admit sadly that there are in this odd 
 little England of ours people who didn't deserve 
 to have the war at all. 
 
 I find Burke remarking in conversation: 
 "France has all things within herself; and she 
 possesses the power of recovering from the sever- 
 
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 est blows." Dear France, I hope it is still true. 
 Yours, R. 
 
 CLXVIII 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR RICHARD, The interesting event 
 came off this morning and I am the grandfather 
 of a fine boy. Olive is doing well. But what I 
 really want to tell you is that there are dark and, 
 I fear, only too well-founded whispers of the ap- 
 palling vulnerability of our coast defences should 
 the Huns attempt an invasion. Everything is 
 chaos since the coast-guards were disbanded by 
 the folly of some sapient Jack-in-office drawing 
 his 5000 a year to betray his country. The 
 thought of it all is maddening, and what life is 
 going to be like when the war is (if ever) over I 
 dare not think. Averse as I am constitutionally 
 and resolutely from losing hope, I am beginning 
 to believe that there is some truth in the old say- 
 ing, "Call no man happy till he is dead." Yours 
 cordially, GEORGE WISTON 
 
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 P.S. We go from bad to worse. I have it on 
 the best authority, but naturally am not at liberty 
 to give any name, that we have lost two dread- 
 noughts and three destroyers in the past week, 
 but the Government dare not make it public. I 
 am making one more grave appeal to the Govern- 
 ment to be brave and tell the truth. Look for it 
 in to-morrow's papers over the signature "Magna 
 est Veritas." 
 
 CLXIX 
 [FROM A DAILY PAPER] 
 
 BIRTHS 
 
 BERNAL. On the 6th inst., at 108 Lancaster 
 Gate, the wife of Lieutenant Richard Bernal of a 
 son. 
 
 CLXX 
 
 ^ANCY HARDING TO HER HUSBAND 
 
 MY DARLING JERRY, I was so glad to have 
 your letter and to find that you are still all right. 
 
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 Do get some leave soon. London always seems 
 full of officers on leave, so I can't think why you 
 don't have it too. When I was passing by Cox's 
 yesterday afternoon I saw three or four of them 
 all over French mud, who had come straight from 
 their train at Charing Cross to rush in for some 
 money; and any one of them might just as well 
 have been you. 
 
 I keep as busy as I can, and on Wednesday I 
 nearly dropped through selling programmes at a 
 Red Cross matinee^ but I find myself wanting you 
 all the time. And it is tiresome to have the 
 servants continuing to call me Miss. 
 
 Do you know I can't help almost wishing that 
 you would get some tiny little wound, only just 
 the teeniest weeniest, of course so that you could 
 be invalided home and then stay here. 
 
 Olive's baby is a pet. Your very lonely wife, 
 
 NAN. 
 
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 CLXXI 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR HELEN, Having found nor heard 
 no new war story for you, I am tempted to try 
 and tell you one myself. True too. 
 
 I went on Saturday to Eastbourne to spend 
 the day with the Tristrams you know who I 
 mean Captain Tristram of Welwyn who was 
 at school with me poor old Tristram having had 
 an accident and convalescing there, and this is 
 what happened, word for word. 
 
 I went straight from the station to the 
 promenade, feeling certain that Mr. and Mrs. 
 Captain would be there. But they weren't. So 
 then I found the house and there was the Captain, 
 on his crutches, plodding round and round the 
 tiny back garden. 
 
 "And that's all he'll do," little Mrs. Captain 
 complained. "Here we are in an expensive house, 
 at an expensive watering-place, for no other pur- 
 pose than that he may get the sea air and be
 
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 amused by the people, and he won't leave this 
 poky back garden." 
 
 "But, my dear old idiot," said the Captain, 
 "you know the reason why well enough. You 
 know I can't go out." 
 
 "I know you're a ridiculous super-sensitive 
 egotistical person," she retorted, "and you ought 
 to live on a planet of your own." 
 . "Do tell me," I said. 
 
 "Well " she began. 
 
 "No," said the Captain, "let me. She'll put 
 me in a false light, this hateful woman." 
 
 After a brief skirmish little Mrs. Captain gave 
 way. 
 
 "To begin with," said Tristram, "you will 
 admit that my position is about as foolish as any 
 man's can be. To be in the trenches for four 
 months without a scratch, and then, the day after 
 reaching home on leave, to break one's leg fooling 
 about with a pack of children you'll agree that 
 absurdity couldn't go much farther than that. 
 Undignified, too. Well, as soon as I could get 
 about we came down here, and on the first day 
 I took my crutches and hobbled down to the 
 
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 parade. That's what we'd come for, and I never 
 had a second thought about it. But this place, 
 as perhaps you have noticed, is full of wounded 
 men really wounded men, decently injured by 
 bullets and shrapnel and the other honourable 
 apparatus of war and before I realised the 
 situation, there I was all among them I, the 
 only fraud there." 
 
 "Fraud!" I interjected. "What rubbish you 
 talk ! After four months in the trenches, too." 
 
 "That's nothing," he said. "The trenches are 
 not the point. The point is that I was on 
 crutches from a leg broken in the silliest possible 
 way at home, and these fellows were on crutches 
 with legs properly crocked up at the front. 
 I tell you the realisation gave me a shock. Talk 
 about wolves in sheep's clothing: I was the very 
 limit. I was quickly made to feel it, for before 
 I could get out of it up comes an old lady to 
 insist on the privilege of shaking the hand of one 
 who had so suffered for his country; and then 
 a blazing old lunatic took his hat off right at me 
 and said it was an honour to salute one of 
 England's heroes." 
 
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 v "So you are," said little Mrs. Captain stoutly. 
 
 "Oh, do stop talking balderdash!" said her 
 husband. "I put it to you," he added to me, 
 "what could any ordinary decent man do but get 
 back here, away from the genuine lot of wounded 
 as soon as possible, and lie low*?" 
 
 "Isn't he absurd isn't he too ridiculous*?" 
 little Mrs. Captain exclaimed. "Fancy carrying 
 a conscience like that about in a world like this !" 
 
 "I need hardly say," the Captain continued, 
 "that I came in for some pointed domestic 
 criticism, and under its influence and it's fairly 
 potent, you know," he remarked in parenthesis, 
 throwing his wife a kiss "under its influence 
 I consented to go out again, but only on con- 
 dition that I might put myself right with the 
 public." 
 
 "Do listen to this," said Mrs. Captain "the 
 dear old snob!" 
 
 "Not at all," said her husband. "It isn't snob- 
 bish to wish not to deceive. Anyway, snobbish or 
 not and we shall never agree about this I had 
 to be straight with myself, so I prepared a placard 
 to the effect that my broken leg had nothing to 
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 do with the war, and hung it on one of my crutches 
 where every one could read; and would you be- 
 lieve it," he went on bitterly, "within a few 
 minutes I was bombarded by a new set of old 
 gentlemen and old ladies who wished to shake 
 the hand of so candid a man. 'Such a brave teller 
 of the truth,' they said. So there you are. And 
 now you understand why I prefer our back gar- 
 den to all the waves of the English Channel. 
 Here, at any rate, I am not a fraud, nor am I 
 offered compliments on being merely commonly 
 honest." 
 
 "Did you ever hear of such nonsense*?" little 
 Mrs. Captain inquired, as she slipped her arm into 
 his. "Bless his absurd old heart!" Yours, 
 
 R. 
 
 CLXXII 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 MY DEAR Miss GREY, You remember that 
 officer cousin of mine who was married last year to 
 another of my cousins *? Well, they've got a kid. 
 
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 That makes the war seem to have been going on 
 for a bit, doesn't it 1 ? It's a boy. People used to 
 say that kids born in war-time were usually boys. 
 I wonder how that is working out. Personally I 
 would rather have a girl, I think at any rate 
 for the first. I have always been sorry I had 
 no brother or sister, and you are like that too, 
 aren't you*? And we've both been rather alike in 
 taking refuge in dogs. 
 
 Do you think friends should be alike or 
 different*? Some people say one and some the 
 other. I think it is jollier to be alike and agree 
 about things. I know I'm always nervous when 
 I go to see those sort of married people who 
 take a pride in having different tastes. I'm 
 always afraid there's a row coming. Yours 
 sincerely, TOBY STARR 
 
 CLXXIII 
 
 JERRY HARDING TO His WIFE 
 
 MY DEAREST NAN, Please be a good brave 
 girl and never write to me again about being 
 
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 wounded. Suppose the Censor had opened that 
 letter (which by great good luck he didn't do), 
 what a rotten thing for him to read. 
 
 There's only one thing to do in this beastly 
 war, my sweet, and that is to keep one's end up 
 and grin. We must never give way, any of us, 
 and you at home must feel just as much on active 
 service as we are out here. I don't want to be 
 wounded for many reasons. Chiefly for your and 
 our sakes, but also, very considerably, because I 
 want to go on fighting these brutes till we lick 
 them. To be wounded would be to be out of it, 
 and that is unthinkable. 
 
 So be brave and trust in our lucky star. 
 Your loving J. 
 
 CLXXIV 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAR JOAN, I met little Harry Lancaster 
 yesterday, hearty as ever and as ever running over 
 with invitations and those generous impulses 
 which come to him in such profusion that they 
 
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 make an ordinarily quite hospitable man appear 
 grudging. He had just left his brother, who is 
 home for a few days from the front. Although 
 fifty-five, he got in the Army, somehow, and 
 Harry was allowed by his commanding officer to 
 present him with a revolver, although sergeants 
 are not supposed to carry these. And what do you 
 think the result has been 1 ? He has already killed 
 with it, beyond any doubt, Harry assured me, his 
 eyes dancing with pride, "two Germans for each 
 member of the family" and the family is not 
 a small one either. 
 
 "Splendid!" I said. 
 
 What bloodthirsty ruffians we become! 
 
 Poor old George or Jonah, as I hear he is 
 called at his club not even the birth of a new 
 potential soldier adds to his confidence in his 
 country. It is funny how many Englishmen 
 seem to want to belong to an incompetent race 
 are not happy unless they can convince you that 
 all their goods are rotten. I wonder if it was 
 always the same or if it is a new development. 
 History does not tell us. The special pity of it 
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 is that this kind of temperament too often takes 
 to journalism. 
 
 After one has reached a certain age there is a 
 great danger that any sudden changes of one's 
 habits in the direction of economy may be very 
 costly. My recent efforts to be economical have 
 been so disastrous that I think of dropping them 
 altogether, and merely being careful. To begin 
 with, I knocked off taxis, with the result that 
 I got a vile cold, in a bus, as I now remember I 
 always used to do. That cold cost me several 
 pounds, for it kept me at home for a day or so 
 and depreciated my abilities for a week. I also 
 completely upset my digestion by food reforms, 
 all also in the national interest. So now I talk 
 no more of being economical. I am too old and 
 also too impatient; and economy and impatience 
 have never joined hands. But after office hours 
 and apart from meals I think I can save a little. 
 Yours, R. 
 
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 CLXXV 
 
 MRS. RICHARD BERNAL TO HER HUSBAND 
 
 MY DARLING DICK, You really must get 
 leave soon, if only to see HIM. He is really too 
 sweet and just like you. I am getting stronger 
 every day and shall soon be about again. I have 
 been a model patient, the Doctor says, but that 
 is easy with this little mite in one's arms. He 
 would send you a kiss if he could, I know. Your 
 
 OLIVE 
 
 CLXXVI 
 
 PRIVATE ARTHUR COLEMAN TO Miss ELLEN 
 
 FRISBY 
 
 DEAR Miss ELLEN, I received your welcome 
 letter last night and it has given me the highest 
 pleasure, although it might have been longer. I 
 cannot conceal my gratification that your hair is 
 red. It is my favourite colour for a lady. And 
 blue eyes go so beautifully with it. I can now 
 
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 see you, I think, when I close my eyes and think 
 very hard. Won't you add to your other kind- 
 ness and send me one of your photos? I am sure 
 you have one to spare, but if not you can easily 
 have one taken at Aylesbury. 
 
 I wish you had answered what I asked about 
 walking out. It would make so much difference 
 to me to know about that, not because I should 
 bother you, but because a man has a separate 
 kind of thought for a young lady who is fancy 
 free and a young lady who is not. I should like 
 to know too if there are any footmen, or butlers, 
 or gardeners, or grooms at your place. They are 
 not men that I much take to. You might like to 
 know, though you don't ask, that I am twenty- 
 seven come July and a joiner by trade. My 
 home is at Birmingham and I was doing well 
 before the war, and my place is to be kept open 
 for me. I live in lodgings at Sparkbrook. I am 
 just six feet in heigh th and have brown hair. . 
 Yours respectfully and sincerely, 
 
 ARTHUR COLEMAN 
 
 [269]
 
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 CLXXVII 
 
 LADY STARR TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAR JOAN, A perfectly dreadful thing has 
 happened here. I don't know whether you re- 
 member Mrs. Wink, the little woman who used 
 to help in the kitchen now and then 1 ? With 
 very prominent eyes. Well, early in the war the 
 news came that her husband, who was a reservist, 
 was killed, and after a year she married again. 
 You see what is coming "Enoch Arden" once 
 again. Yesterday who should walk in but Wink 
 himself, with only one arm and very much be- 
 draggled, but alive. It seems that he was left 
 for dead, but for months was kept at a farm by 
 some kindly French people. 
 
 Mrs. Wink, who is now Mrs. Blencowe, began 
 very properly by fainting. She then hurried here 
 for advice. It seems that she infinitely prefers 
 Blencowe, her new husband, who is the postman, 
 both for himself and his position; at the same 
 time, she has a horror of the sin of bigamy and 
 views herself with a certain disgust. The situation 
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 is complicated, as usual, by various human incon- 
 sistencies. Wink's one idea being to regain his 
 home, he is prepared to overlook the offence, 
 whereas his wife, it is very obvious, although she 
 never puts the feeling into words, would much 
 prefer that he should cast her off. On the other 
 hand, Blencowe, who is rumoured already to have 
 somewhat tired of his marriage, takes the line that 
 Wink is a much wronged man, and that the only 
 reparation due to him namely, the surrender of 
 Mrs. Blencowe should be made. 
 
 The two men probably may be dismissed from 
 the plot as any but tragic figures, for neither 
 thinks of much beside his own comfort, although 
 Blencowe's efforts to conceal his real preferences 
 under a cloak of high magnanimity are beyond 
 words joyful to watch. It is the woman who is 
 really pathetic, torn as she is between shame, self- 
 respect, a certain sense of loyalty to Wink (who, 
 however, of course behaved very badly in not 
 writing), and a genuine passion for Blencowe. 
 And of course there is everything in Blencowe's 
 favour; for not only is he younger than Wink,
 
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 and fit, but he is a man of some importance in 
 the place, and can tell his wife what he reads on 
 our post cards. 
 
 As the case stands at present, all three, by the 
 advice of the rector, are isolated. Blencowe lives 
 alone in his cottage; Wink lodges with a neigh- 
 bour; and Mrs. Blencowe has rejoined her mother. 
 A new Solomon seems to be the real need of the 
 village, which meanwhile was never half so happy. 
 Old feuds have been patched up in order not to 
 hinder the flow of gossip and conjecture. 
 
 Well, we shall see what happens. Your 
 
 HELEN 
 
 CLXXVIII 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO TOBY STARR 
 
 DEAR TOBY, I have had a letter from that 
 complacent creature, your uncle Bernal, saying 
 that we must win, because Time must be on our 
 side. But for the sake of argument, granting him 
 that point, where and what shall we be then*? 
 There won't be a penny left in the country. As 
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 it is, we are spending five millions a day. Where 
 is it coming from*? Win or lose, we are done. 
 
 Why, however, I am writing to you is to say 
 that I hope you are keeping fit in France, and to 
 ask you to let me know anything interesting that 
 you hear over there. I put to your father the 
 same reasonable request, but either he did not get 
 my letter or cannot find time to answer it. 
 Yours cordially, GEORGE WISTON 
 
 CLXXIX 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 MY DEAR Miss GREY, I don't write to you 
 half as much as I want to, although perhaps 
 oftener than you are keen on, because there is 
 too much to do. You can't have any notion of 
 what a rush it is over here, and how impossible to 
 count on any future minute as your own. But I 
 often look at your photograph and bless that 
 advertisement of mine and old Jerry's, who is now 
 my cousin by marriage, for luring me on to the 
 bet. I often wonder what kind of letters he got 
 
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 in answer to his. Better than mine, I don't fink. 
 
 Tell me more about your home, won't you 4 ? 
 Tell me what your father is painting just now, 
 and what pictures you have in your bedroom, and 
 who is your favourite author. 
 
 I am not much at reading myself, but I think 
 The Four Feathers is ripping. I have just finished 
 it. I like Seton Merriman too. A man here has 
 all his books. 
 
 I wonder if you believe in fate. I mean by 
 fate a kind of chance full of meaning, or perhaps 
 predestination is the best word. I like to believe 
 that everything that happens to me is predestined. 
 Part of a scheme all arranged by the stars or 
 whatever it is that does these things. For 
 instance, I believe that it was all mapped out that 
 I should put that advertisement in the paper and 
 that you should pick me out to write to. You see 
 it might so easily have been another advertise- 
 ment old Jerry's even but it wasn't. That's 
 the corking thing. // was mine. 
 
 Now I must stop, for the letters are being 
 collected. Whatever else there is to grumble at 
 over here, wet, and rats, , and Pip-Squeaks and 
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 Jack Johnsons, and dirt and screwmaticks, we do 
 get two things up to sample, and those are the 
 post and rations. 
 
 Please write again soon. Yours very sincerely, 
 
 TOBY STARR 
 
 CLXXX 
 
 NANCY HARDING TO HER HUSBAND 
 
 MY DARLING JERRY, I am so ashamed of 
 myself to write as I did and to make such a fuss 
 about my loneliness, for I am fortunate indeed 
 compared with some wives. Only yesterday I 
 met Cicely Franklin in Kensington Gardens. You 
 remember how jolly she used to be; well, she is 
 now a widow, after being married only a month 
 longer than us. Isn't that terrible*? And poor 
 Uncle Terence has lost his arm. So really, since 
 you keep fit, I ought to be quite gay. I promise 
 you I will be as brave as you can possibly wish. 
 Your ever-loving NAN 
 
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 CLXXXI 
 
 LADY STARR TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAR JOAN, Our village comedy or tragedy 
 has suddenly taken a new turn. It is now estab- 
 lished that Mrs. Wink is to present the world with 
 a little Blencowe. (We never say "baby" here; 
 we say "increase.") This alters things. Other- 
 wise, I believe, Blencowe would have been forced, 
 not at all against his will, to retire, and Wink 
 would have resumed his old position as her lord 
 and very much her master. But Wink now pauses 
 and reflects, and not unnaturally. I find that my 
 kitchen is divided. Cook is for Blencowe retain- 
 ing the lady ; the others are for Wink. The rector, 
 of course, says that Wink is the true husband, but 
 has to admit that he is being tried rather high, as 
 the Americans say, by the turn that events have 
 taken. Were it not that Wink wants to be 
 worked for by his lawful toiler, and live comfort- 
 ably ever after, he would, I am sure, disappear 
 again; but what is a one-armed man to do? 
 Yours, H. 
 
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 CLXXXII 
 MRS. PARK-STAN MER TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR, It is extraordinary how the un- 
 happy people always come to me, as though I 
 was a kind of magnet. I think I told you about 
 poor Gerald Vansittart. Well, he has now gone 
 to France, not, I am glad to say, to the front, 
 but in some safe capacity, and he writes to me as 
 often as he can, always beginning "Madonna." 
 Isn't that sweet 1 ? 
 
 I have also on my hands another lieutenant 
 who sticks to me like a leech. He implored me 
 the other day to let him call me Amabel. What 
 is one to do when they ask things like that? I 
 hate to be unkind and say no, and he is such a 
 forlorn dear. You should see how he goes quite 
 white and tense when Horace says one of his 
 sharp things to me or finds fault with anything. 
 Last night at dinner Horace swore because the 
 soup had soot in it, only the tiniest little lumps, 
 and I thought that Guy that's his name would 
 
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 have struck him. If he had, it would have meant 
 court martial and imprisonment isn't that aw- 
 ful? It makes me feel so responsible and fright- 
 ened. Yours ever, AMABEL 
 
 CLXXXIII 
 
 LADY STARR TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAR JOAN, The Wink case has solved itself, 
 but not too satisfactorily. Blencowe has vanished. 
 This must have cost him a wrench, I know, for it 
 is no small thing to have been a trusted postman 
 here for over thirty years and to be a person of 
 some importance in other ways too. Besides, he 
 had his cottage, quite well furnished, garden, and 
 so forth. But he has gone, leaving no address, but 
 saying that he will never return. It is really a 
 story for W. W. Jacobs. All interest is now 
 centred in the future relations of the Winks, 
 for the poor little woman moves about like one in 
 a dream, and what surname the child is to pos- 
 sess! Personally it would not surprise if it was 
 
 [278]
 
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 never born, the mother is so likely to wake up one 
 day soon and do something desperate. 
 I have only good news of Toby. Yours, 
 
 H. 
 
 CLXXXIV 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR AUNT HELEN, All goes well. I am 
 pretty tired, but I mean to go on. 
 
 My greatest difficulty over here just now is not 
 nursing and keeping fit, but in persuading the 
 French people whom I meet and the wounded 
 men that England is really in earnest. They 
 have got it so firmly fixed in their heads that 
 everything is going on just the same with us, and 
 that we are only playing at war, that this is no 
 easy job. I suppose it is largely the difference 
 between a conscripted country and one that is 
 not conscripted; and they lose sight altogether of 
 our navy, and then they read about our dis- 
 gusting race meetings. And the poor things, of 
 course, are on a very different footing from us, 
 with all that great tract of France occupied by 
 
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 tjie Germans, and so many ruined villages. No 
 wonder they are a little sore at the disparity. 
 
 Here is rather a funny thing. I asked one of 
 the English soldiers at what place he was 
 wounded. He said that, as it happened, he had 
 noticed the name of the village as they were 
 entering it. It was "Ralentir" ! 
 
 My poor text-book French is not much good 
 here except to give instructions in. But the men 
 are dears and do all they can to make it easy for 
 me. But their phrases are so roundabout. This 
 is a very common one : "II va y avoir du boulot." 
 That means there's going to be trouble. And 
 when they see anything rather better than usual 
 for dinner they say, "Se caler les joues." I have 
 bought a dictionary of poilu terms, but it can't 
 ever be quite up to date. 
 
 Tell me about Toby. I think he might write 
 to me. I never go into the ward where the 
 English men are without a little tremor lest he 
 should be in one of the beds. Poor boy, I do so 
 hope he manages not to "stop one" which is 
 what being hit is called here. Your loving 
 
 Vi. 
 [280]
 
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 CLXXXV 
 
 ELLEN FRISBY TO PRIVATE ARTHUR COLEMAN 
 
 DEAR MR. COLEMAN, It has not been con- 
 venient to have a new photo taken, but I have 
 written to my sister for one that was done about 
 a year ago. My friends don't think it quite does 
 me justice, and I do my hair differently now, but 
 none the less I send it as you are so kind as to 
 wish for it. I am putting it into the parcel, to- 
 gether with some sweets and cigarettes and a few 
 recent numbers of Forget-me-Not in case you 
 want a read. 
 
 I thought of you yesterday when three aero- 
 planes went over. Your sincere friend and well- 
 wisher, ELLEN FRISBY 
 
 CLXXXVI 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO DR. SUTHERLAND 
 
 DEAR SUTHERLAND, Your interesting letter 
 escaped the submarines. 
 
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 , We too have aliens in our midst, but the aliens 
 that count with us are not the Germans and 
 Austrians, who are mostly interned, but the in- 
 triguers and the frivolists and the bookmakers 
 and all the horde of petty creatures who still fan 
 the flames of the old Liberal and Tory dissen- 
 sions. They are the true enemy in our midst, 
 far more deadly than any of the interned waiters 
 could be, or probably ever wished to be. For no 
 man that ever willingly left his own fatherland to 
 scamper about plying another race with food and 
 drink and opportunities for abuse that he may 
 not reply to, can ever be much of a foe. 
 
 One effect of the war here, which is getting 
 v.ery noticeable, is a relaxation of propriety. The 
 word having gone forth (and naturally enough) 
 that nothing is too good for the fighting man, 
 a new tolerance has come in with regard to his 
 amours. Girls may almost be said to be set at 
 him. The more frivolous papers, both in picture 
 and paragraph, deal with little else; and it seems 
 to be a point of honour (or dishonour) both with 
 editors, theatrical managers, and modistes to con- 
 vert the schoolgirl into the woman of the world 
 
 [282]
 
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 with breathless haste. I should like to think that 
 we were going to adjust these things later on. 
 The healthy years between seventeen and twenty- 
 one are too good in a girl's life to be lost. The 
 Personal Columns of the papers yield further 
 proofs of the young officer's roving proprietary 
 eye. This kind of advertisement occurs every 
 morning : 
 
 GAIETY. Will YOUNG LADY, black hat, last 
 but one, fourth row, Wed. Matinee, COMMUNI- 
 CATE with officer two rows behind 1 ? 
 
 There must, of course, have been a certain amount 
 of wireless communication in the theatre to make 
 such an advertisement possible. What one won- 
 ders is, if these people always read the same 
 papers. 
 
 We have not yet reached the frankness of the 
 French, and probably shall not; but some of our 
 men seem already to have learned French candour 
 and machinery, judging by the following which 
 I cut from La Vie Parisienne: 
 
 JEUNE OFFICIER cavalerie anglaise, ayant 6 
 mois front, desire, pour prochaine permission 
 
 [283]
 
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 Paris, correspondre avec jeune femme jolie, dis- 
 tinguee, chataine ou blonde; discretion d'officier. 
 Ecrire: Captain MacBlank, Poste Restante, 
 Montfaucon. 
 
 JEUNE DOCTEUR anglais, au front, cherch. jol. 
 marr. Parisienne, type Fabiano, aimant beaucoup 
 flirt. A. B., 1586 Brigade, R.F.A., B.E.F. 
 
 I think that among the most unhappy men left 
 in London must be the head waiters who are 
 either Swiss, or pretend successfully to be, or are 
 over age for war. Unhappy, not because they 
 cannot fight, but because they cannot get waiters. 
 There is not a restaurant in London to-day which 
 has any but second-rate and third-rate waiters 
 old men or weakly young men. To have engaged 
 girls, as the clubs have done, would be wiser; but 
 for some reason this has been avoided. But cus- 
 tomers should be very lenient about bad service. 
 I am aware that the war is made the scapegoat 
 to cover a great many defects with which it has 
 nothing to do; but for inferior service it is wholly 
 responsible, and most of the strain and censure 
 fall on the unfortunate head waiters. I watch 
 
 [284]
 
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 them growing visibly older and more haggard. 
 Yours, R. H. 
 
 CLXXXVII 
 
 ANNE WISTON TO LADY STARR 
 
 [This letter, having been excised by the Press 
 Bureau, cannot be printed until after the war. 
 -E. V. L.] 
 
 CLXXXVIII 
 
 PORTIA GREY TO TOBY STARR 
 
 DEAR MR. STARR, I had never thought much 
 about predestination, but I can quite understand 
 that it is an attractive belief. For one thing, you 
 can never prove that there is no such force at 
 work. But what I can't understand is how, when 
 the world is so full of people and other living 
 things, any one creature can believe itself to be 
 the object of so much attention. Doesn't that 
 thought give you any trouble? The whole riddle 
 of existence is all so mysterious and tremendous 
 
 [285]
 
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 \ 
 
 that whenever I find myself thinking of it I 
 change the subject; and since the war it has be- 
 come more perplexing still, with the Germans 
 and ourselves equally claiming our successes to 
 be due to God's goodness. One of us must be 
 mistaken. I think the French, who say nothing 
 about God, are wiser. 
 
 A very interesting man has been staying here, 
 and we have had some long walks. The country 
 is so beautiful just now it seems impossible that 
 all the fighting can be going on just over there. 
 Yours sincerely, PORTIA GREY 
 
 CLXXXIX 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO DR. SUTHERLAND 
 [See note to letter CLXXXVII.] 
 
 cxc 
 
 PRIVATE ARTHUR COLEMAN TO ELLEN FRISBY 
 
 DEAR Miss ELLEN, Your photo arrived 
 safely, together with the peppermints and Wood- 
 [286]
 
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 bines. Thank you very kindly. I like your photo 
 and keep it handy. The hair seems very nicely 
 done, to my way of thinking, but ladies are not 
 so easily satisfied. I wonder what your new way 
 of doing it is like. 
 
 It is very dull here, and more so since some 
 silly juggins lost two of the cards out of our 
 pack. We had an entertainment last night, in 
 which I gave an imitation of George Robey, but 
 it wasn't a great success, because I couldn't re- 
 member all the words of the song, and no one else 
 knew them, but you should have seen my arched 
 eyebrows. They were a knock out. We don't 
 have another entertainment fpr a fortnight, and I 
 think I shall imitate Harry Champion then. Do 
 you know him*? He sang "Boiled beef and car- 
 rots." One of our lot is rather a brainy chap, and 
 he is writing a revue, and I may get a part in 
 that. It is to be called Hate Dirty: or, We're 
 all Hundone. Little Willie is to come into it. 
 Hate dirty means 8.30, which is the time the piece 
 begins. Do you see the joke"? 
 
 I would rather have the weekly Mirror than 
 Forget-me-Not, if you don't mind; but I like the 
 
 [287]
 
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 name of the latter. I must close now, as dinner 
 is nearly ready. Hoping that you are well and 
 in good spirits. I am, yours truly, 
 
 ARTHUR COLEMAN 
 
 CXCI 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 MY DEAR Miss GREY, I snatch a moment or 
 so in my dug-out to answer your last, which 
 made me very homesick. How extraordinary 
 lucky that friend of yours is to be able to walk 
 about dear Old England, and with you. I feel as 
 if I would give anything to be in a Kentish lane 
 again and see the flowers and smell the freshly cut 
 wood in a coppice. But I should be mouldy com- 
 pany for you, I fear, because I can't talk and 
 I don't really know about anything except per- 
 haps cricket. 
 
 There is no country here at least not what 
 
 we mean by country. It is all country really, but 
 
 blasted by the shells. Next to a dead pal torn 
 
 to pieces, nothing gives you such an idea of how 
 
 [288!
 
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 rotten war is as a wood of flowers and leaves 
 all blackened and the trees smashed and every 
 bird scared miles away. Not every bird, though. 
 It is wonderful how some have stuck it. 
 
 I hope I don't bore you with all this. 
 
 I keep very fit, and of course it is fearfully 
 exciting never knowing what is going to happen 
 any minute. It seems impossible, when you think 
 about it, that anyone can escape being hit, but of 
 course lots do. 
 
 We'll get to Lord's yet! Yours sincerely, 
 
 TOBY STARR 
 
 CXCII 
 
 GEOFFREY HARDING, J.P., TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR MR. HAVEN, You will probably re- 
 member me, for we met the other day when my 
 son Jerry married your niece Miss Bernal. I 
 write now on a very sad business : no less than to 
 say that Jerry is dead. I have just received a War 
 Office telegram to that effect, and I am writing to 
 ask you to be so good as to tell his wife. It is 
 
 [289]
 
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 tjuite beyond my powers, and, moreover, I have 
 the boy's mother to comfort here. There is no 
 real comfort possible. I can only say, "The Lord 
 gave and the Lord taketh away," and remind her 
 that his end was unselfish and soldierly, and his 
 life laid down for his country and for freedom. 
 He was a good boy, and I wish now that I had 
 increased his allowance. If your niece would like 
 to come up to us here a little later for a good cry 
 I expect it would do us all good. 
 
 You must forgive me for putting this heavy 
 task on to you, but I feel that you would be kinder 
 than a letter, and telegrams I don't believe in. 
 Yours sincerely, GEOFFREY HARDING 
 
 \ 
 
 CXCIII 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, I am grieved to have to 
 tell you that our poor little Nancy is a widow 
 already. Her father-in-law had the news by 
 telegram and asked me to break it. You will 
 see the name in the official list in a day or so. 
 [290]
 
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 I went over to Campden Hill at once and found 
 the child alone both Digby and Margaret were 
 out, destination unknown, but undoubtedly both 
 hard at work in some or other war industry. 
 These are terrible moments; but something grave 
 in my appearance and the unusual event of my 
 being there at all served as a kind of herald, so 
 that she jumped at the fact and no words were 
 needed. I suppose that, like all the young wives 
 to-day, she was expecting it. Poor creatures, how 
 can they escape that dread? Well, we had a 
 good cry my first tears for I can't say how long, 
 but years and years. 
 
 She will be very brave, I am sure, and there is 
 this to help the young widows in war-time that 
 there are, alas! so many of them that they can 
 supply courage to each other; at any rate, one 
 must not be less brave than another, and being 
 soldiers' widows, and their husbands having died 
 fighting, they too must show gallantry. But the 
 poor little thing is horribly bruised and broken. 
 For the moment she has no foothold and sees no 
 future^ 
 
 Write to her. Every letter for a while will 
 
 [291]
 
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 start her tears afresh, and that brings relief. 
 Your loving RICHARD 
 
 CXCIV 
 
 NANCY HARDING TO MRS. HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAREST GRANNY, Thank you for your 
 darling letter. I am going to be as brave as I 
 am sure Jerry was and as he would like me 
 to be. 
 
 Everybody has been so kind. I had never 
 thought there was so much kindness in the world. 
 I am sure I have had as many as fifty letters, and 
 it is wonderful to think of all these people, with 
 things to do, finding the time to write, and such 
 very sweet letters too. Three or four were from 
 Jerry's fellow officers in France, saying such 
 splendid things about him. It all makes me 
 wonder more and more what he could see in me 
 to wish to marry me. But that is just nothing 
 but a strange dream now. 
 
 Such a sweet thing happened yesterday. Next 
 door to us live the Woodhouses, and they have 
 [292]
 
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 two children, a little boy and girl of about eight 
 or nine. Perfect dears. Well, what do you 
 think these little pets did, but struggle in, soon 
 after breakfast, with their gramophone and a pile 
 of records, because they had heard that I was 
 unhappy and they thought that the music would 
 cheer me up. Andrew, the boy, who has great 
 blue eyes, very seriously recommended "Tipper- 
 ary" as a cheerful tune. An avenging nurse soon 
 followed, but they had really done me good. 
 
 I shall now get a war job which will take up 
 every minute of the day. Your loving 
 
 NANCY 
 
 cxcv 
 
 DIGBY BERNAL TO GEORGE WISTON 
 
 MY DEAR GEORGE, I am sure your only 
 interest is in England and the Allies winning the 
 war; but I can't help feeling that you and your 
 favourite journals make a mistake in supposing 
 that our leaders and rulers do not equally want 
 that end and toil honestly for it. Everything 
 
 [293]
 
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 'seems to me to be going on all right not rapidly, 
 but surely. To be frank, I can't understand 
 those Englishmen, with whom you seem to me 
 sometimes to sympathise, who are suspicious of 
 everything that the Government and those in 
 power do, and who look on the heads of depart- 
 ments as corrupt, or incapable, or both. Why is 
 it so distasteful to suppose equally that every one 
 is doing his best*? Sometimes when I read your 
 letters or hear you talk I wonder if you will not 
 be really disappointed when the war is over and 
 we have won. Forgive me for writing like this, 
 but when one has a son fighting, and has just lost 
 a son-in-law, one is even less prepared for con- 
 tinual and not particularly well-grounded attacks 
 on the War Office and the Cabinet. I don't 
 think you can have quite realised how much 
 worse that kind of thing can make it for parents 
 and those who are bereaved. I am, yours 
 sincerely, DIGBY 
 
 [294]
 
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 CXCVI 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO DIGBY BERNAL 
 
 DEAR DIGBY, Your letter came as a great 
 surprise to me. You seem completely to mis- 
 understand my attitude, and to think that I find 
 fault for the sheer pleasure of doing so. Nothing 
 could be farther from the fact. My case is, that 
 there is supineness in every department of public 
 life to-day. The Government fears to do any 
 bold thing. For example, it does not deport or 
 intern all the hostile aliens, most of whom are 
 dangerous spies. Why 1 ? Because there is no one 
 with enough imagination to see that a man once 
 a German is always a German. Imagination is 
 indeed the crying need of the moment. Then 
 look at our air service. Look at our ordnance. 
 Why have we not siege guns like the Germans'? 
 Why have we no Zeppelins'? People say that the 
 Navy is all right; but how do we know*? What 
 do we know of Jellicoe*? Why was not Lord 
 Fisher put in command'? 
 
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 As you no doubt have noticed in life, it is 
 the small things that tell. It is the straws which 
 indicate the direction of the wind. Only yesterday 
 I saw a letter from a man at the front who said 
 that the very first time he put his spade to the 
 earth, to begin a new trench, it broke. What do 
 you say to that 1 ? That means bad work at the 
 contractor's, and without honest contractors no 
 army can win. 
 
 I quite appreciate your wish that everything 
 should be all right in this best of all possible 
 worlds; but I fear you are destined to some very 
 ugly awakenings. Yours cordially, 
 
 GEORGE WISTON 
 
 CXCVII 
 
 TOBY STARR TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, I am most awfully cut 
 up about Jerry. He was a jolly good sort and 
 my best pal. Please give my love to poor Nancy. 
 I would write to her but I don't know how to. 
 
 Now I come to think about it, Jerry didn't look 
 
 [296]
 
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 as if he would get through; but it hadn't struck 
 me before. 
 
 Somehow or other the bullets miss me. There 
 is no reason why they should, but they do, and I 
 hope they'll make a habit of it to the end. But 
 I have had some jolly near shaves and have seen 
 lots of good fellows laid low. Only yesterday 
 poor Hugh Blackstone was pipped right at my 
 side, and he lasted only ten minutes. He was 
 able to give me a few messages, and he said one 
 thing I shall never forget. "I hope we're all 
 dying to some purpose," he said. "It will be 
 awful if this war leaves off in such a state that 
 another can begin soon afterwards." 
 
 What do you think those German blighters in 
 the trench opposite us did the other day*? This 
 is a gospel fact, and it shows that there's been 
 some peace talk among them. They held up a 
 placard with these words on it: "Shoot high, 
 boys ; we shall be shaking hands in 2 or 3 weeks." 
 It is a bit of a commentary on England and 
 Germany that there is always in every German 
 trench some one who can speak English, but jolly 
 seldom any one in ours who can speak German
 
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 at any rate, any private. It's because so many 
 Germans come over to England to be waiters 
 and barbers, I suppose. Well, not for a long 
 time in the future, I guess. 
 
 I get messages from the pater now and then, 
 but there's no chance to see him. 
 
 Consider yourself well kissed. Your loving 
 son, TOBY 
 
 CXCVIII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO NANCY HARDING 
 
 MY VERY DEAR NANCY, I came upon these 
 verses to-day and I at once copy them out for 
 you, for I think they may comfort you, as they 
 have comforted me. Let us hold firmly by what 
 they say. I do. Your affectionate uncle, 
 
 R. H. 
 
 [Enclosure] 
 
 We stand one with the men that died, 
 Come dawn, come dark, we have these beside; 
 Living or dead we are comrades all. 
 Our battles are won by the men that fall. 
 
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 He who died quick with his face to the foe, 
 In the heart of a friend must needs die slow; 
 Over his grave shall be heard the call, 
 The battle is won by the men that fall. 
 
 For a dead man leaves you work to do, 
 Your heart's so full that you fight for two; 
 And the dead man's aim is the best of all, 
 The battle is won by the men that fall. 
 
 O lads, dear lads, who were loyal and true, 
 The worst of the fight was borne by you ; 
 So the word shall go to cottage and hall, 
 Our battles are won by the men that fall. 
 
 When peace dawns over the countryside, 
 Our thanks shall be to the lads that died. 
 O quiet hearts, can you hear us tell 
 How peace was won by the men that fell? 1 
 
 CXCIX 
 
 PRIVATE ARTHUR COLEMAN TO ELLEN FRISBY 
 
 DEAR Miss ELLEN, Thank you for the weekly 
 Mirror. There doesn't seem to be much the 
 
 1 This poem is entitled "The Winners" and is by Mr. 
 Laurence Housman. 
 
 [299]
 
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 matter with Old England. Everything seems 
 to be very much as usual with you. I sit and 
 smoke and think about England till I can't 
 bear myself. This is an awful country for church 
 bells, and though they're not like ours they make 
 me horribly home-sick. I don't mean that I go 
 to church, but on Sunday mornings some of us 
 usually go a walk far enough to get a drink and 
 then back to dinner. And I don't know why, 
 but I've been thinking of marigolds and sweet 
 williams. The gardens here are poor affairs. 
 And fried onions. 
 
 I've got a pal here who has no one to write to 
 him. If you had a friend who wanted to write he 
 would be grateful to receive her letters. But not 
 you^ of course. You write to me. He's a nice 
 chap, named Alf Wilkins, and some boxer, I can 
 tell you. A middle weight, tell your friend. 
 
 I must now stop, as it is dinner-time, and 
 although I have no appetite one must eat to live. 
 
 God bless you, Miss Ellen. Your admiring 
 friend, ART
 
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 cc 
 
 LADY STARR TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAR JOAN, If you want John to earn some 
 money and grow up quickly without going into 
 the army, now's the time. Just think of it 
 there's Hilda Grierson, my cousin's girl, only left 
 school a few minutes and already earning money. 
 If the Kaiser had never got on his hind legs she 
 would merely be playing tennis, and staying with 
 friends, and burrowing in Vogue, and all the rest 
 of it. But now she has some clerical job at 
 twenty-five shillings a week, eight hours a day. 
 At the National Portrait Gallery of all places! 
 The Gallery is closed to the public, and there she 
 sits, with hundreds of other girls, earning her 
 living. What a wonderful war ! All around her, 
 she says, are pictures of national highbrows, and 
 hardly a woman among them. She has an hour 
 for lunch, and tea on the premises, and every 
 Thursday they hand her, in her own horrid slang, 
 "twenty-five of the best." 
 
 I am quite sure that when the war is over she 
 
 [301]
 
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 will want to continue to receive a salary. Won't 
 there be some tangles to unravel then! 
 
 I was amused in London yesterday to see the 
 posters headed "Bad Form in Dress." What an 
 amazing people we are! Surely such a matter 
 could be left to be discovered by ourselves. The 
 notice at one of the theatres, "Evening dress 
 optional but not fashionable," is much better. 
 Yours, HELEN 
 
 MY DEAR HELEN, Times change indeed. I 
 was alone in a smoking carriage yesterday, on my 
 way to the country, when at a wayside station 
 in walked two vigorous young women in short 
 tweed skirts. 
 
 Directly the train had started one of them 
 pulled out a cigarette-case and they each took a 
 cigarette. Nothing in this really, and perhaps I 
 should not have noticed it had I not just begun 
 to leave off tobacco myself, partly from medical 
 [302]
 
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 advice, and partly from war economy. Women 
 have smoked for years, and yet there was some- 
 thing new about these two girls they were so 
 self-reliant, so vigorous and seemingly so wholly 
 independent of the sex to which I belong. They 
 leaned back and smoked, without talking, and at 
 their own station I saw them drive off in a run- 
 about car which was waiting for them, the wheel 
 being taken by the owner of the cigarette-case. 
 I have come to the conclusion that a man 
 never feels his empire slipping from him so surely 
 as when, all ignorant of cars, he stands by, incap- 
 able of helping, while a fragile female creature 
 turns the crank that starts her engine. If only to 
 preserve my respect a little longer, I must (much 
 as I hate motors) take a few lessons in car man- 
 agement. Yours, R. 
 
 ecu 
 
 MRS. CLAYTON-MILLS TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR HELEN, You will be pleased to hear 
 that Archibald is at last in a most comfortable 
 
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 post, with quite a nice little salary too. He is 
 assistant secretary to a new league for promoting 
 Economy. Great things are expected of it, and I 
 am sure the dear boy will be of real assistance in 
 drawing up the programme of the suggested re- 
 trenchments, for he had to rough it terribly when 
 he was in Paris learning to paint. I remember 
 him telling me that he was often so hungry that 
 he would drink the juice in an oyster shell as well 
 as eat the oyster. Only fancy! Yours ever, 
 
 MAUDE 
 
 CCIII 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO DR. SUTHERLAND 
 [See note to letter CLXXXVII.] 
 
 CCIV 
 
 MRS. HAVEN TO HER SISTER IN NEW ZEALAND, 
 MRS. GLAZEBROOK 
 
 MY DEAR EMMIE, December has again come 
 round, and again I sit down to send you my 
 
 [304]
 
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 annual budget of news. The war still goes on, 
 and no one can see into the future far enough to 
 know anything of what is to happen; but every 
 one tries. My neighbour here, Sir Caxton 
 Plumbe, has been saying for months that six 
 weeks will see it through. He is quite unabashed 
 by its persistence; and of course a time must 
 arrive when he will be right, and then there won't 
 be a happier man in the world. My son-in-law 
 George Wiston doesn't believe it will ever be over 
 at all, for he looks upon Peace with a gloomier eye 
 even than he keeps for war : Peace being, for him, 
 only the beginning of new hostilities. As a 
 matter of fact, I think that secretly he likes a war 
 to be on. It provides his natural pessimism and 
 grievance-mongering with really big opportunities. 
 My other civilian son-in-law, Digby Bernal, 
 expects a sudden end through internal German 
 troubles. Richard follows Lord Kitchener, and 
 is prepared for three years. Helen's husband, 
 Sir Vincent, being on the Staff, says nothing but 
 looks profound. 
 
 Anne is still busy over a number of war 
 charities and in taking care of me. I hope that 
 
 [305]
 
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 tny needs in this out-of-the-way place are not 
 keeping her from marriage, but I fear sometimes 
 that they are and I ought to let her go where 
 there are more men. But then, where is that*? 
 There are no men of the age she requires who are 
 not fighting. There may be a few still avoiding 
 it, but Anne would not look at them. And the 
 fine young fellows that are maimed and killed! 
 Margaret's daughter Nancy had been married 
 only a few weeks when her husband, a nice 
 youth from Northumberland, was killed. She is 
 very brave about it, and has taken up a lot of 
 responsibilities by way of occupying her thoughts ; 
 but the chances are she will not marry again, and 
 so far as I have heard there is to be no little one. 
 Similar cases meet one on every hand several 
 just round us. Kate's daughter Olive, who 
 married Nancy's brother Dick, is, however, happy 
 with a little boy, and Dick is still unhurt. 
 
 Joan's daughter Violet is in Paris nursing 
 French soldiers. She sends her aunt Helen 
 interesting letters which go the round of the 
 family. 
 
 Anne and I had one most amazing experience, 
 
 [306]
 
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 such as I never expected to live to see. We 
 [Rest of paragraph excised by the Press Bureau.] 
 
 Since I wrote last the Germans have done 
 many other terrible things too. Perhaps you 
 heard of the sinking of the Lusitania and the 
 shooting of Nurse Cavell. I never quite know 
 what kind of things you are told so far away. 
 In England the difficulty is to avoid hearing too 
 many things, there are so many papers, and, since 
 the war, so many people who know people who are 
 in a position to know others in influential places. 
 
 Sir Caxton Plumbe is always calling in here 
 to tell me the latest rumours. Anne reminds me 
 of all the times he has been wrong and tells 
 me to disregard him, but for the moment I must 
 admit he often startles me dreadfully. This very 
 morning, for example, he brought news of the 
 discovery of a German mine right under the War 
 Office. It was found out just in time. He calls 
 all these things the work of the Unseen Hand, 
 which he says is everywhere, and will be until 
 Lord Haldane is interned! It seems that Lord 
 Haldane dug this mine himself in his spare time 
 when he was War Secretary ! But I don't believe 
 
 [SO?]
 
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 rt. I have seen his portrait. Still, that's the way 
 they talk. 
 
 If you have not heard, dear Emmie, let me tell 
 you that the German disregard of decency and 
 truth and humanity still goes on. It is all very 
 strange to me who remember so many Germans in 
 Berlin and Heidelberg and other places when on 
 my wedding tour, and all of them, although not 
 quite as we should like them, especially at table, 
 apparently warm-hearted and honourable. I re- 
 member one German gentleman, I think he was a 
 Professor, who was most charming with a cage 
 of little birds. To-day, were he living, which is 
 hardly likely though, for he was an elderly man 
 then, he would, I suppose, be applauding his coun- 
 trymen's wickedness. Even the pastors call for 
 the destruction of England. The only two pastors 
 that I met were on a walking tour, and were only 
 too glad of the shelter of our carriage in a thunder- 
 storm in some wild part of Saxony. They were 
 so placid and bovine and far too hot; but quite 
 amiable. And to think of the Germans to-day! 
 
 Everything is getting more expensive here, and 
 my poor income is being reduced every day by 
 
 [308]
 
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 income tax and so forth. But I think of the 
 soldiers fighting, and don't complain. 
 
 Well, dear Emmie, I must now close. Your 
 loving sister, VICTORIA 
 
 ccv 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR AUNT HELEN, There has been a very 
 strange case here a splendid French officer, 
 very tall and dark and handsome, who had been 
 in terrible pain for days and the doctors couldn't 
 find out what was the matter with him. He was 
 so strong that it took three or four orderlies and 
 nurses to hold him in bed when his paroxysms 
 came on. Well, he was getting so much worse 
 that his people were sent for, but when they came 
 nothing could induce them to see him. Isn't that 
 extraordinary? They could not stand the idea 
 of death, or even of such illness as that, and there 
 they all stood in the passage, crying, and now 
 and then one would peep through the door at 
 him. But they daren't go in, although he was 
 
 [309]
 
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 'quite conscious and longed to see somebody he 
 knew. I did all I could to overcome their 
 reluctance, but it was no use. 
 
 He died yesterday, and now the doctors have 
 found that all the time he had a bullet right in 
 his heart, but he was so strong that it took that 
 long time to kill him. I never saw such a hand- 
 some man. 
 
 How different people can be! Some of the 
 men here have relations who are continually trying 
 to get in to see them, and sit about for hours 
 waiting. And then there are the poor old 
 peasant fathers and mothers who come in from 
 the country and never can be made to understand, 
 bless their dear simple hearts, that their sons are 
 far too ill to eat the things they bring for them. 
 Indeed, it is only when a soldier is probably 
 going to die that his people are sent for at all. 
 They dress so quaintly, and have such sweet apple 
 complexions, and the old men have cross lines on 
 their necks just like crocodile leather, and they 
 carry bulging string-bags. And the old women cry 
 and the old men try to be practical and full of 
 common sense and philosophy, but you can see 
 
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 that they're all equally dazed and outraged by 
 it all. And then they are so lost when it is time 
 to go. They have no idea where to stay and 
 they don't want to leave Paris till the end. 
 There ought to be a society to provide them with 
 lodgings, but poor France has no time for that. 
 
 One of our sights for visitors here is a dog. A 
 real dog, not a toutou or a loulou, but a great 
 collie kind of thing. This belongs to one of our 
 wounded men, and it went to the front with him. 
 One day a shell buried him, together with another 
 soldier and the dog. The dog was only lightly 
 covered and scrambled out, and then it began to 
 dig out its master and the other soldier but its 
 master first and but for the dog they would 
 have died. So now it is a hero, and all our rules 
 are broken by its presence here, and twice a day 
 it is allowed to visit its master. 
 
 I suppose you know that dogs have been 
 trained to find the wounded, and it is perfectly 
 sweet, I was told, to see how gentle they are with 
 them. The darlings ! Your loving Vi.
 
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 CCVI 
 
 MRS. CLAYTON-MILLS TO MRS. WISTON 
 
 MY DEAR KATE, Poor Archibald has had to 
 give up his fine work for the Economy League. 
 He was doing so well there, although, of course, to 
 one so artistic as he is, the office routine was very 
 uncongenial; but still he stuck to it, in his great 
 keenness to help at this critical time. And then 
 came the news of Lord Upperton's death at the 
 front, and this completely unstrung the boy. 
 You see Archibald and Lord Upperton were con- 
 temporaries at Eton, and the blow was a very 
 severe one, even although they had not met since. 
 Archibald has now gone to Scotland in the hope 
 of forgetting his loss. 
 
 This war is relentless. It reaches every one 
 sooner or later. Your affectionate MAUDE
 
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 CCVII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO BARCLAY VAUGHAN 
 
 DEAR B., It is New Year's Day, and that 
 makes one think a little: at least, if one strayed, 
 as I did last night, to St. Paul's churchyard, and 
 saw how the strange frivolous crowd there, chiefly 
 young soldiers with their arms round giggling 
 girls, suddenly hushed as the clock began to strike 
 the hour which brought in this 1916. For, with 
 all contempt for anniversaries, it is not possible to 
 be present in a crowd at such a moment without 
 a consciousness of something fateful happening. 
 A year is dead: what did we in it"? A new year 
 has begun: what has it in store for us? Shall 
 we even be still alive in twelve months' time, or 
 cold and buried and out of it all*? That is a 
 steadying and serious enough poser anyway; for 
 we are all like the old studio-cleaner in a beaded 
 black bonnet whom I met last week at a party 
 for Belgian refugee children, who explained her 
 presence there by the confession, "I love life." 
 
 But whether or not we make one at any form 
 
 [313]
 
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 of watch-night gathering, this year everything is 
 different. This is a New Year's Day indeed! 
 This may be the beginning of the most tre- 
 mendous New Year in all our experience. 
 
 All the work of the war has not been deadly, 
 by any means. We owe to it already a new 
 England and a much finer England than any 
 living eyes have seen. War can be, and often is, 
 as horrible as it is painted, even by the most 
 powerful and sinister brushes; indeed, it is more 
 horrible than that, as soldiers will refuse to tell 
 you. But war is a purifier, too, and an ennobler. 
 War and adversity bind men together, where peace 
 and prosperity can isolate them in self-indulgence. 
 War and such a war as this sets before every 
 one the problem, "What can I do for my coun- 
 try*?" and insists on an answer; whereas during 
 peace there is no compulsory question-time. That 
 is why war is good : it can be the surgical opera- 
 tion which restores health only, alas ! as a medi- 
 cal friend of mine pointed out when I used the 
 simile to him, there is no. anaesthetic! Every En- 
 glishman who has died or has been maimed in this 
 conflict has suffered not merely to stem the tide 
 
 [SHI
 
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 of German aggression, but to help towards the 
 rebuilding of England. And one can say the 
 same of the French and Russian victims, too; 
 they are saviours of their country in a double 
 sense. Every man still active in service is lifting 
 his country's banner a few inches higher. 
 
 The loss of our men is irreparable. Splendid 
 young men cut down in their glory. Nothing 
 can bring them back, and we shall always be the 
 poorer for them. But that apart, the war has 
 been a wonderful thing for us. It has revealed 
 new depths of fineness in so many people, given 
 so many people their chance, brought out qualities 
 of sympathy and kindliness that might have 
 fossilised. I have met many bereaved parents 
 and relatives far too many and they have 
 shown their grief in differing ways; but all have 
 made one remark in common. All have used to 
 me some such words as these "How extraordi- 
 narily kind people are!" 
 
 And another thing the war has done for us is 
 to cut down luxury. And even more do I thank 
 it for giving women their opportunity. This they
 
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 have too long waited for, but now it has come 
 they have most admirably risen to it. 
 
 But most of all one looks to this war to end 
 war not, of course, for ever for we are not 
 ready for such advance as that yet but for many 
 years. For our time at any rate. 
 
 If only we can remember all of us the 
 wickednesses that this war has seen; if only 
 the wanton destructivenesses and the cruelties to 
 which ambition leads can never be lost sight of; 
 only then, out of realisation of them and amaze- 
 ment at them, should come a new and wiser era. 
 There must be, at this date in the world's history, 
 some saner arbitrament than machine guns, liquid 
 fire, and poisoned gas, or let the curtain fall; let 
 the earth become as tenantless as the moon! 
 
 If every man who has fallen has brought a 
 wiser, humaner future nearer, he has not fallen in 
 vain. If parents can feel that their sons fell to 
 this end, their grief may be turned almost to joy. 
 Yours, R. H. 
 
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 CCVIII 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 I AM going to be very bold and call you 
 
 DEAR PORTIA ! 
 
 Are you very cross with me"? As I always 
 think of you as Portia, I may as well write 
 it, don't you think*? So, dear Portia, this is 
 just a brief note to say that I am out of the 
 trenches for a few days and so far have not had 
 even a scratch. This is glorious luck, and I ought 
 to touch wood when I write it. I put it all down 
 to carrying your photograph about with me. 
 Isn't that splendid? That's all for to-day. 
 Yours very sincerely, TOBY STARR 
 
 P.S. I wonder if you ever think of me as 
 Toby? 
 
 CCIX 
 
 LADY STARR TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR RICHARD, Thank Heaven all goes 
 well with Toby, but a letter from his colonel has 
 
 [317]
 
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 * given me a fright. It seems that the other day 
 he was sitting in his dug-out, apparently writing 
 home, when a shell exploded close by. It did not 
 hurt him, but it seems to have blown a photograph 
 mine, I suppose that he must have had on his 
 knee, or perhaps in his letter pad, on to the open 
 ground above the trench, and the foolish head- 
 strong creature must needs start at once to 
 retrieve it. Fortunately there is a sergeant there 
 who has a way with him, and he absolutely 
 refused to let the boy go indeed, pulled him 
 forcibly back and more or less sat on him till 
 nightfall, when they went for it together and 
 found it, still at the risk of their lives, with a 
 pocket torch. But there's a darling son for you ! 
 The colonel pledged me not to say anything 
 about it. He says that Toby is wonderful in 
 spirits and pluck, and his men would follow him 
 anywhere; which is good hearing for a mother. 
 God send him safely home to me! 
 
 Some day I suppose he will fall in love and I 
 shall lose him; but so far there seems to be no 
 one, thank goodness! Yours, HELEN
 
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 ccx 
 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO DR. SUTHERLAND 
 
 DEAR SUTHERLAND, You would find, if you 
 came over, that fatalism is largely on the increase 
 in this country, and how can you wonder"? Even 
 simple trustful souls like my mother seem to have 
 given up their ancient belief in a personal Care- 
 taker. "It's all very terrible and wicked and be- 
 yond all comprehension," has become their half- 
 dazed attitude. "But what will be, will be." It 
 is not the war alone that has done it, but in par- 
 ticular the Zeppelins. All their lives these credu- 
 lous hopeful people have been looking up for 
 blessings ; and now the sky has played them false, 
 and instead of heaven's gentle dews come in- 
 flammatory and explosive bombs, discharged by 
 fellow-creatures. 
 
 By the way, what amazing recollections some 
 of the Germans who survive will carry down to 
 old age. Fancy the old fellows sitting in their 
 arm-chairs (or, more probably, armed chairs) with 
 their innocent grandchildren around their knees, 
 
 [319]
 
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 'telling proudly about dropping bombs on London 
 from Zeppelins; hiding bombs in the form of 
 pieces of coal packed with high explosives in the 
 bunkers of the Bulwark and other ships; sinking 
 the Lusitania; setting fire to the Canadian Houses 
 of Parliament; shooting Miss Cavell! And the 
 strange thing is that, on the plea that might is 
 right, and the advancement of one's country 
 comes before all, and soldiers and sailors must 
 obey orders, these deeds are probably leaving no 
 scar on the conscience. 
 
 Nothing can get decency into some people. 
 If ever there was a time for not spending much 
 money on theatrical enterprises, but letting the 
 authors and the performers do the entertaining, it 
 is now. And many managers with a sense of 
 decency know this. But in other quarters the 
 same desperate competition in lavish display goes 
 on. The excuse is, of course, that our soldiers 
 like it; but my experience is that our soldiers are 
 equally happy, if not more so, where there is less 
 spectacle and more fun. At a recent first night 
 I was told the flowers handed over the footlights 
 must have cost hundreds of pounds. Some day
 
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 we shall have to take decency in hand and try and 
 teach it in schools, and then perhaps, during a 
 terrible national crisis such as this, a grain or two 
 of it may get even into the stage-struck; or, if 
 not, some actress of the better kind may issue a 
 notice stating that no flowers are to be given her 
 at all, but if her admirers have so much cash to 
 spare they can apply it to some worthy end, 
 suggested by herself. Is that too fantastically 
 Utopian a notion*? 
 
 Now that conscription has come in, the mysteries 
 of life have been increased by one tremendous 
 one How do so many apparently eligible men 
 escape*? I see on all sides young fellows with 
 exemptions. They ought to have placards on 
 them explaining why. 
 
 What weather we are having! Poor human 
 nature not much is done for it. It makes me 
 blush to see how pathetically happy people can be 
 just because the sun comes out; and we surely 
 are entitled to that. There are two things which 
 no one who has not a very robust faith should 
 ever permit himself to see. One is a ruined
 
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 hay crop. The other is his fellow-bathers in a 
 Turkish bath. Yours, R. H. 
 
 CCXI 
 
 MRS. PARK-STANMER TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR, I have had such an extraordinary 
 adventure. When I was in London last week I 
 went to the Palace, and I noticed that a tall man 
 in uniform was looking my way a good deal. 
 Still, I didn't think anything of it, so many men 
 look at me. I ought to say I was wearing a 
 rather striking green Chinese wrap with purple 
 and red embroidery. Well, what do you think 1 ? 
 On the next morning but one, in the Personal 
 Column of the Times, I read this : 
 
 "PALACE THEATRE, Monday night. You were 
 wearing a green shawl with flowers worked on it 
 and you looked more than once at officer in uni- 
 form same row of stalls. Please comfort him by 
 writing to Box 36." 
 
 I have of course heard of this kind of thing 
 happening to other women, but I never expected 
 [322]
 
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 it for myself, and it's a mercy that Horace never 
 notices what I am wearing or he might be sus- 
 picious. 
 
 At first I didn't mean to reply, but then I 
 thought how cruel that would be, with this poor 
 lonely fellow on leave, and perhaps without a 
 friend in London, so I wrote very discreetly, and 
 to-day his answer has come imploring me to 
 meet him in town to-morrow. Of course I shan't 
 go, but isn't it romantic*? I can't think what 
 there is about me that so marks me out. Your 
 devoted AMABEL 
 
 CCXII 
 MRS. CLAYTON-MILLS TO MRS. WISTON 
 
 DEAR KATE, We are in great distress. Dear 
 Archibald, as you know, ever since the beginning 
 of the war, has been anxious to do his bit, and 
 visited our medical man on the subject more than 
 once, but was always assured by him that he was 
 not fitted to be a soldier. And now that con- 
 scription has come in the military doctor pretends 
 
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 -that there is nothing the matter with him, and he 
 must join up. This is, of course, ridiculous, for 
 the poor boy is far from strong, as I, being his 
 mother, know. I have told the doctor this, but 
 he won't believe me, and, in fact, has been very 
 brusque about it. The drill and fatiguing life 
 will, I am sure, be fatal, and I am distracted at the 
 thought, while Archibald has become moody and 
 nervy and anything but his usual gay self. Do 
 advise me what to do? Mr. Haven was not very 
 kind to Archibald when we approached him. Do 
 you think your sister's husband, Sir Vincent Starr, 
 could do anything? Or ought I to present a 
 petition to the King 1 ? Apart from Archibald's 
 inherent weakness, have they any right to take 
 a widow's only son? Yours in great distress, 
 
 MAUDE 
 
 CCXIII 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 DEAR MOTHER., I had such a treat yesterday, 
 for who should suddenly appear at the hospital 
 
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 but Uncle Vincent, in Paris for a day or two, and 
 he took me out to dinner, and told me such news 
 of you all as Aunt Helen had sent him. Toby 
 seems to be a great success as a soldier, and 
 Uncle Vincent now wants him to stick to the 
 army as a profession, as he is certain of promotion 
 directly. We went to a favourite restaurant of 
 Uncle Vincent's, but it was very sad. Nearly 
 every one he knew had gone to the war. "Where 
 is Xavier 1 ?" he asked. They said he was fighting 
 and had not been heard of for some time. "Where 
 is the vestiaire with the red hair*?" "II est 
 blesse." "Where is the sommelier'?" "II cst 
 mort." 
 
 The streets are full of black, too. I feel so 
 sorry for them all. 
 
 I saw Uncle Vincent off, and we watched a 
 train full of soldiers go off first. The wives and 
 mothers and sweethearts were so different from 
 those one used to see at Waterloo. There a kind 
 of desperate high spirits was the thing, I remem- 
 ber; but of course it may be different now. And 
 not a few of the poor things had been drinking. 
 But the women here are so quiet and determined, 
 
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 and they all have something sensible for the sol- 
 dier to take with him a bundle of things to eat, 
 fruit and so forth, and it is so funny to see every 
 man with a yard or so of bread to munch in the 
 train. It isn't till the train has gone that the 
 women cry. 
 
 The soldiers are so philosophic too in that kind 
 of fatalistic way that one sees everywhere over 
 here now. Sometimes they get to the station, 
 after their few days' leave, only to find that the 
 train can't start for two or three hours. But 
 having made all their preparations to go then they 
 accept the delay and settle down quite naturally 
 on the steps and the floor, in little groups, eating, 
 talking, playing cards. French soldiers seem to 
 be able to play cards anywhere. 
 
 There has been tremendous excitement here 
 to-day because Dubosc, the funniest of the men in 
 my ward, whose leg was shot away, has got a 
 new one. It came this morning a wooden one 
 and Dubosc has been as proud as a dog with 
 two tails and has made a complete tour of the 
 hospital to show it off. I wish a movie picture 
 could be taken of him, so that the kind Americans 
 
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 who subscribed for the leg (one of a great con- 
 signment) might see his joy. Your loving 
 
 Vi. 
 
 CCXIV 
 
 GEORGE WISTON TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 DEAR RICHARD, I suppose that in a sense 
 we are nearer the end of the war; but what good 
 will that do us! Look at our expenditure. 
 Look at our losses. And then think of the 
 problems that must follow, whatever peace we 
 have, whether a sound one or only a patched-up 
 one. To begin with, we shall have some dis- 
 gusting Mafficking. That, however, is secondary. 
 After that there will be a period of intense de- 
 pression, during which the great mass of people 
 are realising to their surprise and mortification 
 that the millennium is not instant. Then thert 
 will be the gradual disbanding of a large part of 
 the army, and the reluctance or inability of the 
 men who have tasted blood, so to speak, to resume 
 their old tame lives. These will have to be dealt 
 
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 'with, as well as the women, the substitutes for the 
 more amenable ones, thrown thus out of employ- 
 ment. And all the while a very high rate of 
 taxation will have to be maintained, for normal 
 expenditure cannot return for years and years. 
 
 Among other troubles for Parliament will be 
 Ireland and the Insurance Act. No, it is not the 
 declaration of Peace that is going to smooth our 
 pillows. 
 
 I am saying all this in a letter to the papers 
 signed "Sombre Avenir." Yours cordially, 
 
 GEORGE WISTON 
 
 ccxv 
 
 MRS. PARK-STANMER TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR HELEN, I went to London after all, as 
 it seemed only kindness to do so, but I wish 
 I hadn't. He was a most frightening man, and 
 I have been all shaken with nervousness ever 
 since. Not a gentleman at all. I assure you 
 I was quite glad to get back to dear old Horace, 
 who really has been rather nice lately and has 
 
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 given me the loveliest fur coat. I am thinking 
 seriously of taking up my music again. Yours 
 ever, AMABEL. 
 
 CCXVI 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO BARCLAY VAUGHA.N 
 
 MY DEAR BARCLAY, To-day I had, in 
 common with millions of others, the newspaper 
 shock of my life. Turning, just after lunch, from 
 a byway into a highway, I met a boy with the 
 placard : 
 
 DEATH OF 
 
 LORD KITCHENER 
 
 What a blow! The word Death on a placard, 
 even now, when the scythe has been changed to 
 a mowing machine, is always startling. But the 
 death of that man that new personification of 
 England's dogged spirit and, as I choose to 
 believe, inevitability ! 
 
 For it is wonderful how Lord Kitchener had 
 changed, in the public mind, from the stern, aloof 
 
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 symbol of military caste to the father of his 
 country. Recent portraits had shown him ageing 
 very graciously, with a suggestion of the citizen 
 in his increasing bulk, and often a smile. 
 
 Well, his work was largely done, for his new 
 armies are in being. No one else could have got 
 them. But one would have wished for him so 
 easy a declining day among his little bits of 
 Ming in his Kentish retreat. 
 
 As it is, what a fine death ! It is given to few 
 Secretaries for War to die like soldiers. I hope 
 the body will not be recovered. I like to think of 
 him with the whole ocean for his grave, and no 
 undertakers or descriptive writers intervening. 
 And that reminds me that to-morrow will provide 
 the delectable spectacle of those papers who lost 
 no opportunity overtly or covertly of belittling 
 the great man, doing all they can to persuade 
 their readers that they did nothing of the kind. 
 
 Meanwhile things will go on towards our 
 victory with the same steadiness : for with all her 
 superficial faults England is a very great country. 
 She is full of the stuff. Yours, R. H. 
 
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 CCXVII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO DR. SUTHERLAND 
 
 MY DEAR SUTHERLAND, Have you noticed 
 but of course you have how we grow into 
 knowledge? Every year of life brings its dis- 
 coveries; and it is never time to die. Even if 
 you lived to be a hundred you would still be 
 deficient in information: you would not know 
 how things struck you at a hundred and one. 
 On the other hand, I believe that by the time a 
 man is five-and-forty he has thought all his best 
 thoughts. After that he merely thinks them 
 again, revises them, or and that is the tragedy 
 cools them. 
 
 Personally, I don't want to die for three or four 
 years after Peace is declared and the world has 
 had a chance to recover. We shall all be wanted 
 then; and especially those of us who have 
 memories, to remind those who have not whose 
 passion is to forget and forgive of the monstrous 
 things that Germany has done. It is this tolerant 
 school of which I am afraid ; for if they get their 
 
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 way, the whole trouble will begin over again. 
 Snakes must be killed, not scotched. 
 
 I heard an odd thing to-day. I met Cross- 
 thwaite the publisher, and he told me that in the 
 need for copper there is quite a good price for 
 engraved plates, and theirs have been weeded 
 out for the munitioners. A source of revenue 
 which had never been contemplated! Among 
 those which had been despatched to Mr. Lloyd 
 George's merry men and maidens were those of 
 a huge illustrated Bible which his firm brought out 
 years ago. There seems to be some irony here. 
 The Bible has often, in the stories, stopped the 
 bullet; but it now supplies it. Yours, R. H. 
 
 CCXVIII 
 MRS. CLAYTON-MILLS TO MRS. WISTON 
 
 DEAR KATE, My troubles for the moment 
 are over- in a most curious and, I am sure, 
 providential way. I will tell you about it. 
 
 Last evening I had a terrible shock. I was 
 sitting at the window, writing to Archibald, when 
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 I saw an ambulance drive up to the door. My 
 heart stood still. Archibald is dead! I said to 
 myself. Although unable to bear the sight, I 
 watched them bear out a body and carry it into the 
 house. How I got downstairs I cannot say, but 
 I found myself in the hall somehow, and steeled 
 myself to hear the worst, when all my grief was 
 turned to joy, for it seems that the poor boy had 
 sprained his ankle at his very last game of golf 
 before he joined up, and now he can't begin for I 
 don't know how long. He is very brave about it, 
 although bitterly disappointed, for, all unknown 
 to me, he had set his heart on being a soldier, and 
 Was really keen to make a start and rise to a high 
 rank. Directly he can move about at all I shall 
 take him to Cornwall. Your greatly relieved 
 
 MAUDE 
 
 CCXIX 
 
 VIOLET LASTWAYS TO LADY STARR 
 
 DEAR AUNT HELEN, As I have time, let me 
 tell you about a boy who was in my ward here 
 
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 and is now reforme. He is in a civil job in Paris, 
 but he comes out to see us pretty often, and 
 always brings me a bunch of flowers, although I 
 am sure he has little enough money. By trade he 
 is a plumber, but you can't plumb with only one 
 arm, so now he has become a messenger. Charles 
 is only twenty-two, and he is very shy and quiet, 
 but his eyes follow you all the time. They have 
 very big black pupils. He told me all about 
 losing his arm, which was like this. At the front 
 he was a despatch bearer. A despatch a pli, as 
 they call it would be given him either back of 
 the lines to deliver in the trenches, or in the 
 trenches to deliver back of , the lines, and in order 
 to get there, if fighting was in progress, it was 
 necessary for him to crawl for perhaps one or two 
 kilometres on his stomach. On a certain day of 
 heavy fighting, Charles, in his trench, was handed 
 a pH for the commanding officer, who was a 
 kilometre or so behind, and this he placed in his 
 satchel and then began the terrible journey. 
 
 This being a terrific day as a matter of fact 
 it was during the famous battle of the Maison du 
 Passeur, when the French and Germans were 
 
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 losing and retaking trenches for hours there was 
 so much firing that he had to crawl all the way, 
 and as he did so he came suddenly upon the 
 body of the commanding officer dead in a carrot- 
 field. 
 
 To Charles's mind there was then only one 
 thing to do, and that was, as he had been unable 
 to deliver the message, to take it back to the 
 sender. He therefore started on the return 
 journey, and was only a few yards from his 
 trench, and still had not been hit, when he found 
 a wounded officer on the ground. Standing up 
 and throwing aside all precautions, Charles got 
 him as well as he could on his back, and half- 
 carried, half -supported him to the trench, and 
 was at once away again with his despatch. It 
 was at this moment that an exploding shell 
 hurled the satchel from his hands and flung it on 
 the open ground between the French trenches and 
 the enemy's, which were separated only by a few 
 yards. Charles knew that at any cost the des- 
 patch must be prevented from falling into German 
 hands, and so he got out of the trench to bring 
 
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 k back, and while he was returning with it a shell 
 broke his arm to pieces. 
 
 That is all he remembers; but he must have 
 rolled back to the bottom of the trench, where he 
 was found, two days later, still clutching the 
 satchel. And after that, although he remembers 
 the coffee he was given to drink, all is a haze 
 until he came fully to himself in hospital and 
 found that he no longer had a right arm. 
 
 He was a long time getting well, and then 
 he was sent for to the Invalides and was given 
 both the Medaille Militaire and the Croix de 
 Guerre. 
 
 Naturally he is very proud of them, although 
 he is so shy; but there is a drop of bitter in his 
 jup, apart altogether from his lost arm, and that 
 really is the point of this long story. For, being 
 now a civilian again, he has to wear civilian 
 clothes, and this means that when, in the street, 
 another soldier, even General Joffre himself, sees 
 his medals and salutes him, as every officer is 
 proud to do, poor Charles may not salute back. 
 It is this that hurts him most! Your loving 
 
 Vi. 
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 ccxx 
 
 TOBY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 [Telegram] 
 
 HAVE short leave. Expect me Thursday. 
 
 STARR 
 
 CCXXI 
 
 LADY STARR TO RICHARD HAVEN 
 
 MY DEAR RICHARD, Alas ! I am a very foolish 
 woman. That was not my photograph at all that 
 Toby wanted to risk his life in retrieving. It was 
 a photograph of a Miss Portia Grey, and the boy 
 is head over heels in love with her, and I must 
 confess that I like her too. It seems that they 
 met over a foolish Lonely Sub advertisement he 
 put in the Times for a joke and then repented of, 
 but the minx had written to him and the mischief 
 was done. Her father is Lucius Grey, the artist, 
 who paints those quaint pre-Raphaelite things. 
 Of course they won't marry yet, and Vincent will 
 
 [337]
 
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 have something to say about it too; but I see the 
 Finger of Fate. 
 
 My Toby has gone for ever. The new Toby 
 (judging by the few glimpses I got of him during 
 his seventy-two hours) is much bigger and broader, 
 and he has a fine confident look, and a really 
 respectable moustache, and a quiet assured smile 
 underneath it. I suppose I stand somewhere in 
 his affections, but he so obviously belongs to the 
 Portia person that I must begin to accept the 
 inevitable and cultivate those arts which assuage 
 the pangs of childlessness. As a matter of fact, 
 I am so glad that Portia is nice that really I am 
 more philosophic than I sound. These things 
 have to be. But it is badly managed : just when 
 one's children reach the age when they might be 
 not only companions but props, they fall to 
 strangers. 
 
 He expressed himself as grieved not to have a 
 minute for you. You see, the girl lives at Ash- 
 ford, and seeing her, fixing things up with her pre- 
 Raphaelite father, and bringing her here and tak- 
 ing her back again, on that railway, filled his leave. 
 
 Such is life. Yours, HELEN 
 
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 CCXXII 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO LADY STARR 
 
 MY DEAR HELEN, Your news is amusing 
 and welcome. I am continually hearing of 
 parents who are quite certain that their children's 
 hearts are free and who are invariably wrong. 
 Were I a father I am sure I should never be so 
 blundering. But it is good news. Let all young 
 people marry, say I, for even if they make a 
 mistake they will have had a little pure happiness 
 en route to the awakening; and, since man is 
 born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, that is 
 a great thing. 
 
 Toby, however, is of the simpler kind and 
 should be happy much longer, if not for ever. 
 Of Portia I know nothing, but guess her to be all 
 right: that is to say, his sort. 
 
 Please the Sisters who spin the web of oui 
 destiny, and do it often so ill, that he comes 
 through this barbarous business to hold her in 
 his arms and some day be surrounded by little 
 twinkling Starrs of greater and lesser magnitude ! 
 
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 There cannot be too many children. And if you 
 can lure his enchantress to London I will give 
 you both a pre-war lunch, and I am sure I am 
 entitled to one such orgy, having smoked no 
 cigars nor drunk any wine for months. Across 
 the table shall I get to know her. 
 
 I heard an incredible thing to-day from little 
 Harry Lancaster. You know that Brighton is 
 a great place for wounded soldiers in fact their 
 blue uniform has given a new colour to the 
 promenade there. Well, it seems that among 
 the gilt-edged visitors to Brighton lately was one 
 man who thought it a great mistake that in a 
 town such as Brighton, where people go to be 
 happy, wounded men should be allowed! This 
 is a positive fact. Harry, I am glad to say, was 
 there to answer him fittingly. And what an 
 attitude to the war it displays, and how far some 
 people, in this the ending of the second year, still 
 are from appreciating what is really happening 
 and how grateful we ought to be to these same 
 promenade kill-joys! By the way, I wonder what 
 are the feelings of the conscientious objector as he 
 gazes upon these poor but cheery one-legged and 
 
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 one-armed and blinded soldiers. I do not envy 
 him his exclusion from any community with 
 them. Yours, R. 
 
 CCXXIII 
 MRS. HAVEN TO MRS. LASTWAYS 
 
 MY DEAR JOAN, What do you think"? 
 Ellen, the silly girl, has engaged herself to a pris- 
 oner in Holland to whom she has been writing. I 
 think women have gone mad. The very idea of 
 a soldier seems to turn their heads, and this is a 
 man that Ellen has never seen. I am very cross 
 with her. 
 
 We had to have "Hi, Sir," our poor dachshund, 
 put away this morning. He has been getting 
 more and more blind, and that made him snappy 
 and dangerous, so we sent him to the vet. Tipper 
 took him and brought back the news: "He went 
 off like a snuff." I was thinking about it all 
 yesterday, after we decided, and most of the night. 
 It seems so awful to arrange for the death of any 
 living thing. 
 
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 I hope you have got good news of Violet. 
 Your loving MOTHER 
 
 CCXXIV 
 RICHARD HAVEN TO BARCLAY VAUGHAN 
 
 MY DEAR B., My nephew Toby Starr, who is 
 a second lieutenant at the Front, has sent me an 
 astonishing chorus, or litany, or what you will, 
 that the men are singing. The Germans hear them, 
 of course, but I doubt if it is sent across No 
 Man's Land as an intimation of our own eventual 
 bliss and the Germans' certain loss of it. I should 
 guess not. That is not the British soldier's way, 
 his heart being far more in conquering the enemy 
 than in criticising him. Indeed, I find such men 
 from the Front as I chance to meet very loth to 
 talk about the Hun at all and rarely voluble as to 
 his iniquities. Rather do they emphasise his 
 merits as a fighter. 
 
 I should guess that this odd triumphant credo, 
 set to an old music-hall tune and springing up 
 and spreading probably as mysteriously as a f olk- 
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 song, is not a defiance of the earthly foe, but 
 merely one more manifestation of the courageous 
 levity that this war has drawn forth. It is 
 Tommy's light surface way of accepting death. 
 To do even so tremendous a thing as that without 
 a touch of humour would not be playing the game. 
 We get therefore trench after trench filled with 
 men who at any moment may be blown to atoms 
 singing these astonishing words: 
 
 The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling 
 
 For you but not for me. 
 For me the angels sing-a-ling-a-ling 
 
 They've got the goods for me. 
 O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling ? 
 
 O Grave, thy victoree ? 
 The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling 
 
 For you but not for me ! 
 
 Isn't that wonderful^ and incredible 1 ? It is not 
 exactly religion, and yet it is religion. Fatalism 
 with faith. Assurance with disdain. The very 
 aristocracy of confidence. And only the new 
 British soldier could sing it. 
 
 But, I say, what material ! I believe that the 
 singing soldier is always to be dreaded, but when 
 he sings things like that . . . ! 
 
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 * So the Great Push has come at last ! May it 
 succeed and bring the end of all this monstrous 
 stupidity nearer! Early in the war a French 
 artist, mobilise, speaking of the British troops, said 
 to me that they knew better how to die than how 
 to kill. I fancy this is no longer true. Much 
 has intervened since then to steel their kind 
 hearts. 
 
 Even as I write, my nephew is in it and may 
 be out of it. Any moment may bring his mother 
 the War Office telegram which so many homes are 
 so constantly dreading. Yet somehow I feel that 
 he will come through. Yours, R. H. 
 
 ccxxv 
 
 LiEUT.-CoL. MORTON TO LADY STARR 
 
 [Telegram] 
 
 TOBY recommended for V.C. Many con- 
 gratulations. Sending full particulars. 
 
 MORTON 
 
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 CCXXVI 
 
 LADY STARR TO PORTIA GREY 
 
 MY DEAR PORTIA, I send you a telegram 
 I had to-day from Toby's colonel. It's proud 
 women we should be, you and I. Yours affection- 
 ately, HELEN STARR 
 
 CCXXVII 
 
 [FROM THE DAILY PAPER] 
 FIVE VICTORIA CROSS HEROES 
 
 His Majesty the King has been graciously 
 pleased to award the Victoria Cross to the follow- 
 ing officer, non-commissioned officers, and men. 
 
 2nd Lieut. Toby Starr, 8th (Service) Bn. R. 
 Southshire Regt. 
 
 For most conspicuous bravery. When the 
 enemy exploded a mine, Lieutenant Starr and 
 many men of two platoons were blown into the air. 
 
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 But, though much shaken, he at once organised a 
 party with a machine gun to mow down the on- 
 coming enemy, and having effectively repulsed 
 them and stopped the advance, he was instru- 
 mental in rescuing, although under fire, a number 
 of his own buried men and bringing them into 
 safety, carrying several unaided in his arms. 
 
 Through all this perilous work Lieutenant Starr 
 remained unhurt. 
 
 THE END 
 
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