ed walls with a sort of grandeur of pity about
it. The legs had been shot away or burned, but "the hands were stretched
out still."

As we came away firing began all round about, and we saw the toss of
smoke as the shells fell.

[Page Heading: STEENKERKE]

_31 May._--We went to Steenkerke yesterday and called on Mrs. Knocker,
and saw a terrible infirmary, which must be put right. It isn't fit for
dogs.

At the station to-day our poor Irishman died. Ah, it was terrible! His
lungs never recovered from the gas, and he breathed his last difficult
breath at 5 o'clock.

In the evening a Zeppelin flew overhead on its way to England.

[Page Heading: NIGHTINGALES]

There is a nightingale in a wood near here. He seems to sing louder and
more purely the heavier the fighting that is going on. When men are
murdering each other he loses himself in a rapture, of song, recalling
all the old joyous things which one used to know.

The poetry of life seems to be over. The war songs are forced and
foolish. There is no time for reading, and no one looks at pictures, but
the nightingale sings on, and the long-ago spirit of youth looks out
through Time's strong bars, and speaks of evenings in old, dim woods at
home, and of girlish, splendid drives home from some dance where "he"
was, when we watched the dawn break, and saw our mother sleeping in the
carriage, and wondered what it would be like not to "thrill" all the
time, and to sleep when the nightingale was singing.

Later there came the time when the song of the throbbing nightingale
made one impatient, because it sang in intolerable silence, and one
ached for the roar of things, and for the clash of endeavour and for the
strain of purpose. Peace was at a discount then, and struggle seemed to
be the eternal good. The silent woods had no word for one, the
nightingale was only a mate singing a love-song, and one wanted
something more than that.

And afterwards, when the struggle and the strain were given one in
abundant measure, the song of the nightingale came in the lulls that
occurred in one's busy life. One grew to connect it with coffee out on
the lawn in some houses of surpassing comfort, where (years and years
ago) one dressed for dinner, and a crinkly housemaid brought hot water
to one's room. The song went on above the smug comfort of things, and
the amusing conversation, and the smell of good cigars. Within, we saw
some pleasant drawing-room, with lamps and a big tabl