o so far as to say that our civilians were delighted to have
such exciting news to read at breakfast. But I cannot pretend that I
noticed either in the papers, or in general intercourse, any feeling
beyond the usual one that the cinema show at the front was going
splendidly, and that our boys were the bravest of the brave. Suddenly
there came the news that an Atlantic liner, the Lusitania, had been
torpedoed, and that several well-known first-class passengers, including
a famous theatrical manager and the author of a popular farce, had been
drowned, among others. The others included Sir Hugh Lane; but as he had
only laid the country under great obligations in the sphere of the fine
arts, no great stress was laid on that loss. Immediately an amazing
frenzy swept through the country. Men who up to that time had kept their
heads now lost them utterly. "Killing saloon passengers! What next?" was
the essence of the whole agitation; but it is far too trivial a phrase
to convey the faintest notion of the rage which possessed us. To me,
with my mind full of the hideous cost of Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, and
the Gallipoli landing, the fuss about the Lusitania seemed almost a
heartless impertinence, though I was well acquainted personally with
the three best-known victims, and understood, better perhaps than
most people, the misfortune of the death of Lane. I even found a grim
satisfaction, very intelligible to all soldiers, in the fact that the
civilians who found the war such splendid British sport should get a
sharp taste of what it was to the actual combatants. I expressed my
impatience very freely, and found that my very straightforward and
natural feeling in the matter was received as a monstrous and heartless
paradox. When I asked those who gaped at me whether they had anything
to say about the holocaust of Festubert, they gaped wider than before,
having totally forgotten it, or rather, having never realized it. They
were not heartless anymore than I was; but the big catastrophe was too
big for them to grasp, and the little one had been just the right size
for them. I was not surprised. Have I not seen a public body for just
the same reason pass a vote for L30,000 without a word, and then spend
three special meetings, prolonged into the night, over an item of seven
shillings for refreshments?

Little Minds and Big Battles

Nobody will be able to understand the vagaries of public feeling during
the war unless they bear con