hours--even the women only get one day off in a
week--while in Glasgow the men are sticking out for strict labour
conditions, and are "slacking" from Friday night till late on Tuesday
morning, and then demanding extra pay for overtime. And this in face of
the bare facts that since October the Allies have lost ground in Russia;
in Belgium they remain as they were; and in France they have advanced a
few kilometres. At Ypres the Germans are now within a mile of us, and
the losses there are terrible. Whom shall we ever see again?

Men come out to die now, not to fight. One order from a sergeant was,
"You've got to take that trench. You can't do it. Get on!"

A captain was heard saying to a gunner subaltern: "We must go back and
get that gun." The subaltern said, "We shall be killed, but it doesn't
matter." The captain echoed heavily, "No, it doesn't matter," and they
went back.

Sir William Ramsay, speaking about the war, says that half the adult
male population of Europe will be killed before it is over. Those who
are left will be the feeble ones, the slackers, the unfit, and the
cowards. It is good to be left to breed from such stock!

It is odd to me how confusing is the want of difference that has come to
pass between the living and the not living. Cottages and little towns
seem to be part of nature. One regrets their destruction almost as one
regrets the loss of life. They have a tragic look, with their
dishevelled windows and stripped roofs and skeleton frames. Life has
become so cheap that cottages seem almost as valuable. "It doesn't
matter"--nothing matters. I rather dread going back to London, because
there things may begin to seem important and one will be in bondage
again. Here our men are going to their death laughing because it doesn't
matter.

There is a proud humility about my countrymen which few people have yet
realised. It is the outcome of nursery days and public schools. No one
is allowed to think much of himself in either place, so when he dies,
"It doesn't matter."

God help the boys! If they only knew how much it mattered to _us_! Life
is over for them. We don't even know for certain that they will live
again. But their _spirit_, as I know it, can never die. I am not sure
about the survival of personality. I care, but I do not know. But I do
know that by these simple, glorious, uncomplaining deaths, some higher,
purer, more splendid place is reached, some release is found from the
heavy weigh