successive wave of invasion demolished the existing
inhabitants is absurd. Not even the Germans do that; nor have the
Turks succeeded in obliterating the Armenian nation. No--in turn our
oncoming hordes, Celts, Romans, English, Danes, enslaved the men and
married, or at least mated with, the women. And so we are descended,
and (let me at this hour of victory be allowed to say) a marvellous
people we are. For tenacity, patience, and obedience to the law--not
of men, but of nature--I don't suppose there is another such people
in the world. Those characteristics, for which neither Celt nor Roman,
Teuton nor Dane, as we know them now, is remarkable, I set to the
score of the neolithic race, whose physical features are equally
enduring.

When you get what seems like a clear case in either sex, you have a
very handsome person.

The most beautiful woman I ever saw in my days was scrubbing a kitchen
floor on her knees, when I saw her first--not a hundred miles from
here. Pure Iberian, so far as one can judge--olive skin, black hair,
grey-green eyes. Otherwise--colouring apart--the Venus of Milo, no
less. I don't say that she was very intelligent. I wonder if the Venus
was. But she was obedient to the law of her being--that I do know; and
it is a matter of faith with me that Aphrodite can have been no less
so.

Neither a quick-witted nor an imaginative race are we; but we have
the roots of poetry in us, and the roots of other arts, for we have
reverence for what is above and beyond us. Custom, too, we worship,
and decency and order. We fight unwillingly, and are very slow to
anger; but we never let go. Witness the last four dreadful years;
witness Europe from Mons to Gallipoli. The British private, soldier
or sailor, has been the backbone of the fight for freedom. But I am a
long way from my valley in the Downs.

I shall first of all sink a well, for one must have water, even if one
is going to die. Then I shall make a mist-pool--that art is not lost
yet--because as well as water to drink I like water to look upon.
Lastly, I will build a hermitage of puddled chalk and straw, and
thatch it with reeds, if I can get them. It will consist of a single
room thirty feet long. It will have a gallery at each end, attained
by a ladder. In each gallery shall be a bed, and the appurtenance
thereof, one for use and one for a co-hermit or hermitess, if such
there be. I leave that open. There must be a stoop, of course. Nothing
enclosed