Something about "A Student in Arms" 1 Author's Foreword 33 I.—The Potentate 37 II.—The Bad Side of Military Service 51 III.—The Good Side of "Militarism" 65 IV.—A Month's Reflections 79 V.—Romance 93 VI.—Imaginary Conversations (I) 109 VII.—The Fear of Death in War 115 VIII.—Imaginary Conversations (II) 127 IX.—The Wisdom of "A Student in Arms" 139 X.—Imaginary Conversations (III) 145 XI.—Letter to an Army Chaplain 153 XII.—"Don't Worry" 165 XIII.—Imaginary Conversations (IV) 175 XIV.—A Passing

"His life was a Romance of the most noble and beautiful kind." So says one who has known him from childhood, and into how many dull, hard and narrow lives has he not been the first to bring the element of Romance? He carried it about with him; it breathes through his writings, and this inevitable expression of it gives the saying of one of his friends, that "it is as an artist that we shall miss him most," the more significance. And does not the artist as well as the poet live forever in his wor

"I am very much wondering whether you will receive 'A Diary' in four parts. It is very much founded on fact, though altered in parts. You will probably be surprised at a certain change in tone, but remember that my previous articles were written in England, while this was written on the spot.... The Diary was not my diary, though it was so very nearly what mine might have been that it is difficult to say what is fiction and what is actuality in it. With regard to the 'conversation' during the bo

SCENE. A tent (interior). The POTENTATE is sitting at a table listening to his COURT CHAPLAIN. COURT CHAPLAIN ( concluding his remarks ). Where can we look for the Kingdom of God, Sire, if not among the German people? Consider your foes. The English are Pharisees, hypocrites. Woe to them, saith the Lord. The French are atheists. The Belgians are ignorant and priest-ridden. The Russians are sunk in mediæval superstition. As for the Italians, half are atheists and the other half idolators. Only in

A Padre who has earned the right to talk about the "average Tommy," writes to me that A Student in Arms gives a very one-sided picture of him. While cordially admitting his unselfishness, his good comradeship, his patience, and his pluck, my friend challenges me to deny that military, and especially active, service often has a brutalizing effect on the soldier, weakening his moral fibres, and causing him to sink to a low animal level. Those who are in the habit of reading between the lines will,

I had a letter the other day from an Oxford friend. In it was this phrase: "I loathe militarism in all its forms." Somehow it took me back quite suddenly to the days before the war, to ideas that I had almost completely forgotten. I suppose that in those days the great feature of those of us who tried to be "in the forefront of modern thought" was their riotous egotism, their anarchical insistence on the claims of the individual at the expense even of law, order, society, and convention. "Self-r

Timothy and I are on detachment. We are billeted with M. le Curé, and we mess at the schoolmaster's. Hence we are on good terms with all parties, for of course a good schoolmaster shrugs his shoulders at a priest, and a good priest returns the compliment. In war time, however, the hatchet seems to be buried pretty deep. We have not seen it sticking out anywhere. M. le Curé has a beautiful rose garden, a cask of excellent cider, a passable Sauterne, and a charming pony. He is a good fellow, I sho

I suppose that there are very few officers or men who have been at the front for any length of time who would not be secretly, if not openly, relieved and delighted if they "got a cushy one" and found themselves en route for "Blighty"; yet in many ways soldiering at the front is infinitely preferable to soldiering at home. One of the factors which count most heavily in favour of the front, is the extraordinary affection of officers for their men. In England, officers hardly know their men. They

SCENE. A field in Flanders. All round the edge are bivouacs, built of sticks and waterproof sheets. Three men are squatting round a small fire, waiting for a couple of mess-tins of water to boil . BILL ( gloomily ). The last three of the old lot! Oo's turn next? FRED. Wot's the bleedin' good of bein' dahn in the mahf abaht it? Give me the bleedin' 'ump, you do. JIM. Are we dahn-'earted? Not 'alf, we ain't! BILL. I don't know as I cares. Git it over, I sez. 'Ave done wiv it! I dessay as them wot'

I am not a psychologist, and I have not seen many people die in their beds; but I think it is established that very few people are afraid of a natural death when it comes to the test. Often they are so weak that they are incapable of emotion. Sometimes they are in such physical pain that death seems a welcome deliverer. But a violent death such as death in battle is obviously a different matter. It comes to a man when he is in the full possession of his health and vigour, and when every physical

SCENE. A dug-out in a wood somewhere in Flanders. Officers at tea. HANCOCK. Damned glad to be out of that infernal firing trench, anyway. ( A dull report is heard in the distance. ) There goes another torpedo! Wonder who's copt it this time! SMITH. For Christ's sake talk about something else! HANCOCK ( ignoring him ). Are we coming back to the same trenches, sir? CAPTAIN DODD. 'Spect so. HANCOCK. At the present rate we shall last another two spells. I hate this sort of bisnay. You go on month af

It is no good trying to fathom "things" to the bottom; they have not got one. Knowledge is always descriptive, and never fundamental. We can describe the appearance and conditions of a process; but not the way of it. Agnosticism is a fundamental fact. It is the starting-point of the wise man who has discovered that it needs eternity to study infinity. Agnosticism, however, is no excuse for indolence. Because we cannot know all, we need not therefore be totally ignorant. The true wisdom is that i

SCENE. A trench unpleasantly near the firing line. There has been an hour's intense bombardment by the British, with suitable retaliation by the Boches. The retaliation is just dying down. CHARACTERS. ALBERT— Round-eyed, rotund, red-cheeked, yellow-haired, and deliberate; in civil life probably a drayman. JIM— Small, lean, sallow, grey-eyed, with a kind of quiet restlessness; in civil life probably a mechanic with leanings towards Socialism. POZZIE— A thick-set, low-browed, impassive, silent cou

April 17, 1916. Thank you very much for your letter of a week ago, which I should have tried to answer before if I had had time. I am afraid that your confidence in me as an oracle will be severely shaken when I confess that I was once on the eve of being ordained, and that in the end I funked it because it seemed such an awfully difficult job, and I couldn't see my way to going through with it. However, I must try to answer your letter as best I can, and I hope that you will not mind my speakin

This is at present the soldier's favourite chorus at the front— "What's the use of worrying? It never was worth while! Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag And Smile, Smile, Smile!" Not a bad chorus, either, for the trenches! You can't stop a shell from bursting in your trench, even if Mr. Rawson can! You can't stop the rain, or prevent a light from going up just as you are half-way over the parapet ... so what on earth is the use of worrying? If you can't alter things, you must accept them

SCENE. A barber's shop in a small French town about thirty miles from the front. A SUBALTERN and a stout BOURGEOIS are waiting their turn . BOURGEOIS. Is it that it is the mud of the trenches on the boots of Monsieur? SUBALTERN. Ah! but no, Monsieur, for then it would reach to my waist! BOURGEOIS. Nevertheless, Monsieur is but recently come from the trenches, is it not so? SUBALTERN. Yes, I am arrived from the trenches yesterday. BOURGEOIS. Then Monsieur has assisted at the great attack! SUBALTE

SCENE. The parlour of an Auberge. PERSONS. A stoist motherly MADAME, a wrinkled fatherly MONSIEUR, and a plain but pleasant MA'MSELLE. Some English soldiers drinking . CECIL is talking in French to MONSIEUR, and they are all very friendly . MADAME. Alors, vous n'avez pas encore été aux tranchées? CECIL. Mais non, Madame, peut-être ce soir. (MONSIEUR and MADAME exchange glances . CECIL rises to go. ) CECIL. À Jeudi, Monsieur, Madame, Ma'mselle. MONSIEUR, MADAME, AND MA'MSELLE ( in chorus ). À Jeu

What is one to say of home? It is difficult to know. I find that biographers are particular about the date of birth, the exact address of the babe, the social position and ancestry of the parent. I suppose that it is all that they can learn. But as an autobiographer I want to do something better; to give a picture of the home where, as I can now see, ideals, tastes, prejudices and habits were formed which have persisted through all the internal revolutions that have since upheaved my being. I tr

I have before me as I write a pencil sketch, limned with considerable care, of a rather disagreeable looking young man, and beneath it is written— "D.W.A.H., by Himself." It is a profile. The eye has almost disappeared under the brow, the mouth is tightly closed to a degree that is quite unpleasant and there is a deliberate exaggeration of a slight defect he actually had—a tendency for the lower jaw to protrude a little. This little defect hardly any of his friends seem to have noticed, for most