namely, how it comes to pass that a calamity, grievous and
intolerable beyond all calamities in its pain and sorrow and waste,
a strife abhorred and dreaded by all who are concerned in it,
fruitful in every shade of misery and wretchedness, should yet have
come about so inevitably and relentlessly. No one claims to have
desired war; all alike plead that it is in self-defence that they
are fighting, and maintain that they have laboured incessantly for
peace. Yet the great mills of fate are turning, and grinding out
death and shame and loss. Everyone sickens for peace, and yet any
proposal of peace is drowned in cries of bitterness and rage. The
wisest spend their time in pointing out the blessings which the
conflict brings. The mother hears that the son she parted with in
strength and courage is mouldering in an unknown grave, and chokes
her tears down. The fruit of years of labour is consumed, lands are
laid desolate, the weak and innocent are wronged; yet the great
war-engine goes thundering and smashing on, leaving hatred and
horror behind it; and all the while men pray to a God of mercy and
loving-kindness and entreat His blessing on the work they are
doing.

Is there then, if we are confronted with such problems as these,
anything to do except to stay prostrate, like Job, in darkness and
despair, just enduring the stroke of sorrow? Is there any excuse
for bringing before the world at such a time as this the delightful
reveries, the easy happiness, the gentle schemes of serener and
less troubled days? The book which follows was the work of a time
which seems divided from the present by a dark stream of
unhappiness. Is it right, is it decent, to unfold an old picture of
peace before the eyes of those who have had to look into chaos and
destruction? Would it not be braver to burn the record of the