illusion, and realized that Life is the enemy of man, and more
particularly of woman. Possibly her own lover was in the trenches. Or
perhaps this mutilated boy beside her was the first lover of her
youth. One feels far too impersonal for curiosity in these hospitals
and it did not occur to me to ask.

Madame Balli had also brought several boxes of delicacies for the
private kitchen of the infirmières, where fine dishes may be concocted
for appetites still too weak to be tempted by ordinary hospital fare:
soup extract, jellies, compotes, cocoa, preserves, etc. Mr.
Holman-Black came staggering after us with one of these boxes, I
remember, down the long corridor that led to the private quarters of
the nurses. One walks miles in these hospitals.

A number of American men in Paris are working untiringly for Paris,
notably those in our War Relief Clearing House--H.O. Beatty, Randolph
Mordecai, James R. Barbour, M.P. Peixotto, Ralph Preston, Whitney
Warren, Hugh R. Griffen, James Hazen Hyde, Walter Abbott, Charles R.
Scott, J.J. Hoff, Rev. Dr. S.N. Watson, George Munroe, Charles
Carroll, J. Ridgeley Carter, H. Herman Harges--but I never received
from any the same sense of consecration, of absolute selflessness as I
did from Mr. Holman-Black. He and his brother have a beautiful little
hôtel, and for many years before the war were among the most brilliant
contributors to the musical life of the great capital; but there has
been no entertaining in those charming rooms since August, 1914. Mr.
Holman-Black is parrain (godfather) to three hundred and twenty
soldiers at the Front, not only providing them with winter and summer
underclothing, bedding, sleeping-suits, socks, and all the lighter
articles they have the privilege of asking for, but also writing from
fifteen to twenty letters to his filleuls daily. He, too, has not