Part 23 (2/2)

You will find it hard, at least over here, to find anyone to disagree with you, except, of course, on Aation

I may add another proof that the correspondents met my efforts to help thenificent work they did individually and collectively in preventing the growth of ill- feeling, or, at any rate, , bethat I may call their and our two nations

On Novee's Hotel, which was, I can say without flattery, the easiest, the most pleasant, the most natural, the least strained function of the kind in which I have ever taken part Here is the list of my hosts--as representative a body both for men and newspapers as any journalist could desire to entertain hio Daily News_ Sa Post_ Curtis Brown _New York Press_ John T Burke _New York Herald_ R M Collins _associated Press_ Herbert Corey _associated Newspapers_ Fred Grundy _New York Sun_ Edward Keen _United Press_ Ernest Marshall _New York Times_ Roy Martin _associated Press_ H B Needham _Collier's Weekly_ Frederick Palmer _Everybody's_ Philip Patchin _New York Tribune_ Fred Pitney _New York Tribune_ J Spurgeon _New York World_ W Orton Tewson _New York American_ J M Tuohy _New York World_

The dinner was as good as the coreat deal

I shall record the Menu, to show that in 1914 the cooks of London were still bravely ignoring the ugly fact that ere at war

MENU

Oyster cocktail a la Strachey

Lobster-Newburg Chicken a la Maryland

Selle d'Agneau

Haricots Verts Poine

Bombe a la Censor

Friandises

Cheese Savoury a la ”Spectator”

Corbeilles de Fruits

Cafe--Liqueurs

The speeches I re, but I liked them none the less for that I am sure they were sincere

Certainly mine was I had started out on the hard track of duty to my profession and my country, and behold, it had turned into the Primrose Path of pleasure! I expected to deal with a body of severe strangers and I found myself with a band of brothers--men to whom you could entrust your secrets in the spirit in which you entrust a bank with your money

CHAPTER XXIII

IDYLLS OF THE WAR

People are getting tired of military controversies, and if they were not, I should be precluded fro with them by the fact that I intend to avoid as far as possiblemen, unless these are non-contentious _Horas non nuain, and even if it were desirable to add fresh fuel to the controversial fire, I could not, speaking generally, add to knowledge without violating confidence

Nevertheless I cannot treat the war as if it had never existed, or as if it had no influence on my life It had, of course, a profound influence, and that I araphy of the kind I aathered indirectly rather than directly All I propose to do at present is to touch the war on two points First, I want to give one or two examples of what I may call ”War Idylls”--recollections which were of so picturesque and poignant a character that theyof the adventure of living continuously for four and a half years in a hospital There I learnt great and useful lessons about my countrye what had been but guesses or intuitive visions

My Idylls of the conflict are partly objective and partly subjective In my visits to the front and in such ork as I did at hos, and I saw them at moments of htened them and sometiether their own