They are reality dealers in this war, and the Germans are effigy
mongers. Practically the Allies are saying each to one another, "Pray
come to me and see for yourself that I am very much the human stuff that
you are. Come and see that I am doing my best--and I think that is
not so very bad a best...." And with that is something else still more
subtle, something rather in the form of, "And please tell me what you
think of me--and all this."

So we have this curious byplay of the war, and one day I find Mr.
Nabokoff, the editor of the _Retch_, and Count Alexy Tolstoy, that
writer of delicate short stories, and Mr. Chukovsky, the subtle critic,
calling in upon me after braving the wintry seas to see the British
fleet; M. Joseph Reinach follows them presently upon the same errand;
and then appear photographs of Mr. Arnold Bennett wading in the trenches
of Flanders, Mr. Noyes becomes discreetly indiscreet about what he has
seen among the submarines, and Mr. Hugh Walpole catches things from Mr.
Stephen Graham in the Dark Forest of Russia. All this is quite over and
above such writing of facts at first hand as Mr. Patrick McGill and a
dozen other real experiencing soldiers--not to mention the soldiers'
letters Mr. James Milne has collected, or the unforgettable and
immortal _Prisoner of War_ of Mr. Arthur Green--or such admirable war
correspondents' work as Mr. Philip Gibbs or Mr. Washburne has done. Some
of us writers--I can answer for one--have made our Tour of the Fronts
with a very understandable diffidence. For my own part I did not want
to go. I evaded a suggestion that I should go in 1915. I travel badly,
I speak French and Italian with incredible atrocity, and am an extreme
Pacifist. I hate soldiering. And also I did not want to write anything
"under instruction". It is largely owing to a certain stiffness in the
composition of General Delme-Radcliffe is resolved that Italy shall not
feel neglected by the refusal of the invitation from the Comando