stamp of war cut deep upon him, in keeping with the quality of his soul.

The return to peace was to them, as to the thousands of their comrades
to whom it was given to return, a shock almost as great as had been the
adventure of war. In a single day while still amid the scenes and
with all the paraphernalia of war about them an unreal and bewildering
silence had fallen on them. Like men in the unearthly realities of a
dream they moved through their routine duties, waiting for the orders
that would bring that well-known, sickening, savage tightening of their
courage and send them, laden like beasts of burden, up once more to that
hell of blood and mud, of nerve-shattering shell, of blinding glare and
ear-bursting roar of gun fire, and, worse than all, to the place where,
crouching in the farcical deceptive shelter of the sandbagged trench,
their fingers gripping into the steel of their rifle hands, they would
wait for the zero hour. But as the weeks passed and the orders failed to
come they passed from that bewildering and subconscious anxious waiting,
to an experience of wildly exultant, hysterical abandonment. They were
done with all that long horror and terror; they were never to go back
into it again; they were going back home; the New Day had dawned; war
was no more, nor ever would be again. Back to home, to waiting hearts,
to shining eyes, to welcoming arms, to peace, they were going.

Thereafter, when some weeks of peace had passed and the drums of peace
had fallen quiet and the rushing, crowding, hurrahing people had melted
away, and the streets and roads were filled again with men and women
bent on business, with engagements to keep, the returned men found
themselves with dazed, listless mind waiting for orders from someone,
somewhere, or for the next movie show to open. But they were unwilling
to take on the humdrum of making a living, and were in most cases
incapable of initiating a congenial method of employing their powers,