life from that standpoint. All that he wanted he took without asking.
Now, all that he has he gives without being asked.

Woman, too, gives more than herself. She gives her men, her peace of
mind and all that makes her life worth living. The man after all may
have little hope, but while he is alive he has the daily pleasures of
health, vitality, excitement, and a thousand interests. A woman has
but a choice of sorrows: the sorrow of unbearable suspense or the
acceptance of the end.

Yet it needed this war to show again to women what they could best do
in life: to love their men, bear their children, care for the sick and
suffering, and learn to endure. It has taught them also to accept from
man what he is able or willing to give, and to admit a higher claim
than their own. They have been forced to put aside the demands and
exactions which they felt before were their right, and to accept
loneliness and loss without murmur or question.

A woman who loses her son loses the supreme reason of her existence;
and yet the day after the news has come, she goes back to her work for
the sons of other women. If she has more sons to give she gives them,
and faces again the eternal suspense that she has lived through
before. The younger women, who in times of peace would have looked
forward to an advantageous and comfortable marriage, will now marry
men whom they may never see again after the ten days' honeymoon is
over, and will unselfishly face the very real possibility of widowhood
and lonely motherhood. They have had to learn the old lesson that work
for others is the only cure for sorrow, and they have learned too
that it is the only cure for all those petty worries and boredoms
which assailed them in times of peace. If they have learned this, then
again one may say that war is worth while.

What effect has the war had upon those countries who in the beginning
were not engaged in it? The United States, for instance, has for three
years been an onlooker. The people of that country have had every
opportunity to view, in their proper perspectives, the feelings and
changes brought about among the men and women of the combatant
countries. At first, the enormous casualties, the sufferings and the
sorrow, led them to believe that nothing was worth the price they
would have to pay, were they to enter into the lists. For in the
beginning, before that wonderful philosophy of spirit and cheerfulness
of outlook arose, and before the f