, learning
from it courage, manhood? Or has it broken us, teaching us mean fear
and hate?

I quote from the letter of a young cavalry officer writing from the
trenches:

Although I can't pretend to like this nightmare, I cannot
help realizing that it is doing something for those of us
who are going through it that we otherwise would have
missed; it brings out either the best or worst in a man. It
makes character.

He speaks of a little black dog. They are living in two feet of water,
he and his men. The German lines are a hundred yards off; wounds,
disease, and death are around them. They are worried about this
wretched little dog. He has, it seems, lost his people, and is not to
be comforted. It is a curious picture. One sees the straggling line of
grimy, mud-stained men. They are there to kill; their own life hangs
on a thread. A nightmare of blood and dust and horror, and in the
midst of it, growing there as if the soil suited it, this flower of
pity for a little fellow-creature.

I quote from another letter:

I can assure you there is none of that insensate hatred that
one hears about out here. We are out to kill, and kill we do
at every opportunity. But when it is all over the splendid
universal soldier spirit comes over all the men. Just to
give you some idea of what I mean, the other night four
German snipers were shot on our wire. The next night our men
went out and brought one in who was near and getatable and
buried him. They did it with just the same reverence and
sadness as they do our own dear fellows. I went to look at
the grave next morning, and one of the most uncouth-looking
men in my company had placed a cross at the head of the
grave, and had written on it:

Here lies a German,
We don't know his name,
He died bravely fighting
For his Fatherland.

And under that "Got mitt uns," (sic,) that being the highest
effort of all the men at German.

"Got mitt uns." One has the idea that He is--when the game is played
in that spirit. God with us both, shaping brotherhood out of enmity.

Bernard Shaw in a moment of inspiration thinks that some way will have
to be found enabling England and Germany to live together peaceably
for the future. It is an idea that may possibly have occurred to
others. Well, perhaps this is the way. Shaw would not approve of it.
But then