duced to my hostess, whose kind face and gentle manner put me at my ease

at once.

Oh, but it was a good dinner I sat down to that day! After all these years the taste of the good things lingers in my memory, and I can almost smell the 'aurora,' as Boatswain Miller used to call the aroma, of the wonderful old madeira. It was in the month of September, and the weather was intensely hot; I had my heavy cloth uniform coat buttoned closely, and only the rim of my paper collar showed above. Dinner over, we assembled in the drawingroom, where we were enjoying music, when suddenly I found myself in a most embarrassing position. Dear, kind Mrs. Trenholm was the cause of it. Despite my protestations that naval officers were never allowed to open their uniform coats, she insisted, as it was so warm, that I should unbutton mine and be comfortable. Unbutton that coat! Never! I would have died first. I had no shirt under that coat: I did

not own one.

When bedtime arrived Mr. Trenholm escorted me to a handsomely furnished room. What a sleep I had that night between those snow-white sheets, and what a surprise there was in the morning when I opened my eyes and saw a man-servant putting studs and cuff-buttons in a clean white shirt. On a chair there lay a newly pressed suit of civilian togs. I assured the man that he had made a mistake, but he told me that he had orders from his mistress, and that all those things and the contents of a trunk he had brought into the room were for me, adding that they had belonged to his young 'Mars' Alfred,' a boy of about my own age, whose health had broken down in the army and who had been sent abroad. I wanted the servant to leave the room so that I could rise. I was too modest to get out of bed in his presence and too

diffident to ask him to leave; but at last I reflected that everybody must know that I had no shirt, so I jumped up and tumbled into a bath, and when the 'body' servant had arrayed me in those fine clothes I hardly knew myself.

After breakfast two horses were brought to the front of the houseone, with a lady's saddle, Gypsy by name, was one of the most beautiful Arabs I ever saw (and I have seen many); the other, a grand chestnut, called Jonce Hooper, who was one of the most famous racehorses on the Southern turf when the war began. He had been bought by Colonel William Trenholm, my host's eldest son, for a charger; but Colonel Trenholm soon found that the pampered racer was too delicate for rough field-work in time of war. Miss Trenholm and I mounted these superb animals, and that morning and many mornings afterwards, we went for long rides. In the afternoons I would would accompany the young ladies in a landau drawn by a fine pair of bays, with two men on the box. Just at that time the life of a Confederate midshipman did not seem to me to be one of great hardship; but my life of ease and luxury was fast drawing to an end.

One day the distinguished Commodore Matthew F. Maury, then on his way to Europe to fit out Confederate cruisers, dined at the house, and, after dinner, joined the gay party on the piazza with Mr. Trenholm, who was the head of the firm of Fraser, Trenholm and Co. of Liverpool and Charleston, financial agents of the Confederate government. Suddenly, Mr. Trenholm came over to where I was laughing and talking with a group of young people, and asked me if I would like to go abroad and join a cruiser. I told him that nothing would delight me more, but that those details were for officers who had distinguished themselves, or who had influence, and that as I had not

done the one thing, and did not possess the other requisite, I could stand no possible chance of being ordered to go. Mr. Trenholm said that was not the question: he wanted to know if I really wished to go. On being assured that I would give anything for the chance, he returned to Commodore Maury and resumed his conversation about the peculiarities of the Gulf Stream.

Imagine my surprise the next morning when, after returning from riding, I was handed a telegram which read: 'Report to Commodore M. F. Maury for duty abroad. Mr. Trenholm will arrange for your passage. Signed: S. R. Mallory. Secretary of the Navy.' It fairly took my breath away!

Mr. Trenholm owned many blockade-runners - one of them, the little light-draught steamer Herald, was lying in Charleston harbor loaded with cotton and all ready to make an attempt to run through the blockading fleet. Commodore Maury, accompanied by his little son, a boy twelve years of age, and myself, whom he had designated as his aide-de-camp for the voyage, went on board after bidding goodbye to our kind friends. About ten o'clock at night, we got under way and steamed slowly down the harbor, headed for the sea. The moon was about half-full, but heavy clouds coming in from the ocean obscured it. We passed between the great lowering forts of Moultrie and Sumter, and were soon on the bar, when suddenly there was a rift in the clouds, through which the moon shone brightly, and there, right ahead of us we plainly saw a big sloopof-war!

There was no use trying to hide. She had also seen us, and the order 'Harda-starboard!' which rang out on our boat was nearly drowned by the roar of the warship's great guns. The friendly

clouds closed again and obscured the moon, and we rushed back to the protecting guns of the forts without having had our paint scratched. Two or three more days were passed delightfully in Charleston; then there came a drizzly rain and on the night of the 9th of October, 1862, we made another attempt to get through the blockade. All lights were out except the one in the covered binnacle, protecting the compass. Not a word was spoken save by the pilot, who gave his orders to the man at the wheel in whispers. Captain Coxetter, who commanded the Herald, had previously commanded the privateer Jeff Davis, and had no desire to be taken prisoner, as he had been proclaimed by the Federal government to be a pirate and was doubtful about the treatment he would receive if he fell into the enemy's hands. He was convinced that the great danger in running the blockade was in his own engine-room, so he seated himself on the ladder leading down to it and politely informed the engineer that if the engine stopped before he was clear of the fleet, he, the engineer, would be a dead man. As Coxetter held in his hand a Colt's revolver, this sounded like no idle threat.

Presently I heard the whispered word passed along the deck that we were on the bar. This information was immediately followed by a series of bumps as the little ship rose on the seas, which were quite high, and then plunging downward, hit the bottom, causing her to ring like an old tin pan. However, we safely bumped our way across the shallows, and plunging and tossing in the gale, this little cockle-shell, whose rail was scarcely five feet above the sea-level, bucked her way toward Bermuda. She was about as much under water as she was on top of it for most of the voyage.

I

Nor many months ago an English family was gathered round the fire, reading various newspapers and magazines. In the group was a young officer who had taken part in the battle of Loos and escaped death by a miracle. All the party were silent except for an occasional remark or ejaculation. The officer was the eldest son of a large family and much beloved. In a few days his leave would expire and he would return to a most dangerous part of the line. The family knew well how great the chances were that they would never see him again after his departure. Yet there was no conversation.

The scene was characteristically English, especially in the pervading silence. But in this the party was in some degree under the influence of the young officer himself. He had been strangely reticent during his leave, especially about his own doings and experiences. To his parents and brothers and sisters he had been most affectionate and tender; but, as they would often say to one another, 'We can get nothing out of him.' Whenever the war was talked about he would look far into the distance with a strange, solemn expression on his face. But he would say nothing. After a time the family came to feel that his silence was more eloquent than speech, and ceased to ply him with questions.

That night it so happened that one member of the party was reading the Atlantic Monthly, in which there was an

article describing the battle of Loos. It was one of the admirable artieles on Kitchener's Mob.'

When the reader had finished, he laid down the magazine and said, 'Shocking, shocking!' whereupon the officer, very quietly, took up the magazine and read the article in his turn. 'Well, what do you think of it?' somebody asked. 'Oh,' he answered, 'it's quite true. But it's not shocking. No, not shocking at all.'

Then silence again fell on the group and the young officer resumed his gazing into the distance. Presently he broke out with some heat. 'You said the article was shocking. I tell you no description of anything is worth such a word. Fancy being shocked by what a man writes! Nothing that anybody can say or write about anything will ever shock me again. You should see what men do. You should see what they suffer. Oh, how I wish they'd all shut up!'

Ever since this incident occurred, these last words have recurrently echoed in my mind and I have been trying to fathom their meaning. It is a difficult undertaking; and the difficulty is greater because every attempt to say what they mean is at once checked by the words themselves: 'Oh, how I wish they would all shut up!' And yet, from the first I could not help feeling that they gave expression to something that was deeply moving, not in my own mind alone but in the minds of the men and women whom I meet every day. It has nothing to do with the articles on 'Kitchener's Mob,' at least not more to

do with them than with a dozen articles I have written myself. All this talk about the war, the moralizing about it, the analysis of its causes, the lessons to be drawn from it, the professors' views of it, the preachers' views of it, the attempts to reconcile it with this or that, the proof that it is evil, the proof that it is good, all this mass of literature and speech-making to which the war is, before anything else, a theme for discussion- to what does it all amount when set side by side with the realities of the war itself?

In the space of two years, six million human beings have been slaughtered by other human beings, and the slaughter still goes on; thirty-five millions have been mutilated, and the mutilation still goes on; fifteen thousand million pounds' worth of property has been destroyed, and the destruction still goes on. On the one side a devastating whirlwind, a tempest of elemental forces, a wild chaos of death and ruin; on the other side, a chorus of talkers and speech-makers and article-writers; political philosophers building their cloud-castles; a monotonous sing-song about 'humanity' and 'society' and the 'world-state' and the 'social whole.' Visualize the six million slain and the thirty-five million wounded; look for one instant at this madness as a thing in being — and you will understand, even though you cannot express, the meaning of the words, 'Oh, how I wish they would all shut up!'

In presence of a fact so outrageous, so abominable, so unspeakable, there are moments when one feels that all a reasonable being can do is to hold his peace. There is no theory of human nature, no view of the world, into which such a thing can be fitted. Even if one holds, as I have recently heard it suggested, that man is the lowest of the carnivora, the situation is still inexplicable and meaningless. The carnivora

do not make war on their own species; they make war on other species; they make it in a less cruel manner, and for a far better purpose, for their prey is their food. There is nothing in the life of the lowest of the beasts which can be compared for utter senselessness with this mutual rending to pieces of the nations. Even if we admit, as perhaps we must, that war develops the higher faculties of man, what an amazing numbskull man must be, to have found no better way of developing his higher faculties! And if war is the only way in which it can be done, does it follow that a war such as this is the best sort of war for the purpose? Is it necessary to kill and wound to the tune of forty-one millions in order to get our higher faculties into the best possible shape? Are our higher faculties so constituted that they need, not only war to develop them, but just that kind of war which enables you to blow the souls out of a thousand of your fellow men by pressing a button? Would not bows and arrows, and slings, and stone hatchets, and Roman swords develop our higher faculties just as effectively?

And what shall we say of our views of the world? Take the worst of them, and suppose the world to be utterly and irremediably given over to the Devil. What follows? Surely this that the Devil is an unspeakable idiot. Hell does not make war upon itself. It makes war upon heaven: it conserves its own forces for the destruction of its opposite. This may be immoral, but in point of sanity there is no comparison with the spectacle before us. No devil has ever been constructed by the human imagination who would not look upon such proceedings with proud contempt. Gehenna itself seems to turn its back upon us.

Looking at the matter in this way, we begin to understand the mood of indignation which breaks loose in the cry,

'Oh, how I wish they would all shut up!' After all, the war itself is not the crowning absurdity. The crowning absurdity is the notion that this fools' business can be reduced to some sort of rational proposition by any manner of talking about it, explaining it, drawing 'lessons' from it, or pronouncing moral epigrams over it. The world is ruled by ideas,' say the talkers, and if only we can get the right idea of this thing all will come well. Let us therefore go on talking till the right idea emerges.' Well, what kind of an 'idea' is it which decreed the killing and the wounding in two years of a number of human beings equal to the total population of the British Isles? Whose sapient brain conceived it? Whose wise discretion carried it into operation? The doctrine of ideas ruling the world is a two-edged sword, for it involves, not only that remedies come from ideas, but that the mischiefs to be remedied spring from the same source. But the facts say no! There never was an idea, either of man or devil, which can rightly be held responsible for the formless hotch-potch of murder which is now being enacted in Europe. It is the negation of all ideas moral or immoral, wise or foolish, that have ever visited the mind of man. As one views it in that light the heart grows hot with indignation against the whole tribe of preachers, philosophers, moralists, and essayists who nourish the delusion of their own importance in this hurly-burly; who think that what they can say about this thing will set it right or exercise any weight or influence whatsoever in a world which now before our eyes is trampling underfoot all that has been said hitherto by them and by their likes in every age.

It is possible that candid observers in America have not yet begun to share the feeling I am trying to describe. I observe from the American newspapers

that are sent me that the proposal to form a league of peace among the nations is still being advocated with great ability and enthusiasm on the other side of the Atlantic. I have nothing to say against such a league, and sincerely hope it may be set on foot in some effective form. But just now in England it is difficult to work up much enthusiasm about the league of peace. When I mention it to my friends I often get an answer something like this: 'Yesthe league of peace is an excellent idea. But ideas far more excellent, proposals far more beneficent have been before the world for nineteen centuriesand they have n't come to much!' Or again, the same paper which contains on one side a list of three or four thousand casualties-and we have been searching them through, dreading that a particular name might meet the eye

- contains on the other side an admirable epigram by President Wilson which has just been cabled round the world and puts the whole situation in a nutshell. 'How true!' we say to one another. But alas, alas! the world is not ruled by moral epigrams. The best that can be done in that line was done by the Lake of Galilee a long time ago - but it did not prevent this war.

To such a pass of skepticism do men come who for two years and more have been gradually growing familiar with a reality whose nature as we come nearer to it seems more and more to baffle speech, and to elude, by its ugliness and irrationality, all the known categories of human thought.

This sort of skepticism, I say, has been growing on us here in England. Two years ago it hardly existed. We were under certain obsessions, which, though they have an academic origin, are by no means confined to academies. We had an unlimited faith in that mode of governing the world which consists in describing how the world ought to be