refrain from execrating the Germans. When I add that during that visit
I grew to love the French people (whom, in spite of many visits to
France, I merely had admired coolly and impersonally) as much as I
abominate the enemies of the human race, I feel that the last word has
been said, and that my apology for writing what may read like a
memoir, a chronicle of personal reminiscences, will be understood and
forgiven.

G.A.




=THE LIVING PRESENT=

I

MADAME BALLI AND THE "COMFORT PACKAGE"


One of the most striking results of the Great War has been the
quickening in thousands of European women of qualities so long dormant
that they practically were unsuspected. As I shall tell in a more
general article, the Frenchwomen of the middle and lower bourgeoisie
and of the farms stepped automatically into the shoes of the men
called to the colors in August, 1914, and it was, in their case,
merely the wearing of two pairs of shoes instead of one, and both of
equal fit. The women of those clearly defined classes are their
husbands' partners and co-workers, and although physically they may
find it more wearing to do the work of two than of one, it entails no