in front of my doorway and rolled in my area. This is the
sort of thing we incidentally get, not of course from the enemy
directly, but from the British guns in London which shoot these
things at German aeroplanes. What goes up must come down. Between
our own defences and the enemy, God knows which will kill us first!

In spite of all this I put my innocent head on my pillow every
night and get a good night's sleep after the bombing is done, and I
thank Heaven that nothing interrupts my sleep. This, and a little
walking, which is all I get time to do in these foggy days,
constitute my life outdoors and precious little of it is outdoors.

Then on every block that I know of in London there is a hospital or
supply place and the ambulances are bringing the poor fellows in
all the time. We don't get any gasolene to ride so we have to walk.
We don't get any white bread so we have to eat stuff made of flour
and corn meal ground so fine that it isn't good. While everybody
gets a little thinner, the universal opinion is that they also get
a little better, and nobody is going to die here of hunger. We
feel a little more cheerful about the submarines than we did some
time ago. For some reason they are not getting so many ships. One
reason, I am glad to believe, is that they are getting caught
themselves. If I could remember all the stories that I hear of good
fighting with the submarines I could keep you up two nights when I
get home, but in these days one big thing after another crowds so
in men's minds that the Lord knows if, when I get home, I shall
remember anything.

Always heartily yours,

W.H.P.

_To the President_

London, December 3, 1917.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

... Some of the British military men in London are not hopeful of
an early end of the war nor even cheerful about the result. They
are afraid of the war-weariness that overcame Russia and gave Italy
a setback. They say the military task, though long and slow and
hard, can be done if everybody will pull together and keep at the
job without weariness--_be done by our help_. But they have fits of
fear of France. They are discouraged by the greater part of Lord
Lansdowne's letter[65]. I myself do not set great value on this
military feeling in London, for the British genera