Graves, C. L. and Lucas, E. V.

“ And amid profound excitement he embraced the soldier, pinned the coveted badge to his breast and bade him quickly return to the front to carry on the great work.
"The next reward is for resource in emergency," said the master of ceremonies an hour or so later. He beckoned to a superb officer, splendid in his trappings—a blue-eyed colossus of nearly six-feet-six.
"This highborn Captain," said the Vizier, "snatched some women from their beds and pushed them before his men so that the enemy should not shoot." ”

“ Even with two defaulters the dish does no more than stimulate desire; whilst such is its power of fascination that consummate gourmets have been known to express no dismay at the possibility of poison being there, a death so won being worth dying.
Mushrooms, to win such homage as this, must be picked in the fields and cooked at home. The forced mushrooms which grow under the shelf in the greenhouse or in a corner of the cellar lack something of divinity; while there is not a restaurant chef in the world who has not a long record of ruined mushrooms to his name. ”

“ I have heard of more than one case of a well-known herculean player, accustomed not only to big money but applause and hero-worship, seriously wondering if fighting were not his real duty and if he ought not to make a bolt for the Front, but being compelled to acquiesce in the Government's plans and go on drawing his salary for the public pursuit of an air-bladder. ”

“ When we've driven back the Proosians to Hong Kong,
Ding-dong,
When we've driven back the Proosians to Hong Kong.
What's the matter with the town of Archibong?
It isn't quite as lively as Boulong;
But the name is very tuneful—
Yes, I'll have another spoonful,
For I never liked my soda-water strong;
It's wrong
For a man to drink his soda-water strong. ”

“ He was furious.
"Not a stone should have been left," He said. "The true Geist must prevail. Every opportunity of proving our enlightenment should have been taken. There will be trouble over this, I can promise you. Leave me now. I must think."
He turned again to the blood-and-iron tonic, and was once more at the mirror when I left. ”

“ Outside suggestion has its share, too. Morning papers are a matter of course. One reads one's regular morning papers and no others. But after that the trouble begins with the evening paper placards, each with its lure. How can one resist them? The progress of the Allies! The repulsing of the enemy! The ten miles gained! The Russian advance! A German cruiser sunk! Each newsman has a different bait, and as the day goes on they become more attractive, so that one goes to bed at night filled with optimism. ”

“ As it is, I have to-day to do the best I can either with the tame home-keeping exploits of these two, or, by listening with excessive sympathy or by other parasitical endeavour, acquire a reversionary interest in someone else's relation's narrative. I have even, in order to cut some sort of a figure in a company where relations were being used with dashing success—I have even gone so far as to appropriate the gardener's boy's uncle, last heard of from Cambrai, as a personal and communicative friend, and claim an intimate association with his letter home. ”

“ Henry James is no longer thought of as an American; that Mr. Jack London, it seems, is becoming one of the most popular writers; that Ella Wheeler Wilcox sells probably more copies of her poetry than any English writer sells stories. He had had the pleasure of meeting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in New York recently, but when Mr. Arnold Bennett was there he missed him, to his great regret. America was still feeling the loss of Mark Twain. By the way, that was a good story which Mark Twain used to tell against himself. ”

“ It is no part of my duty to recommend shops and their wares, but it is a pleasure to put on record some of the things on which my roving eyes settled as I traversed London's most luxurious thoroughfare. Every taste is there considered, but for the moment my interest is solely in gifts for our brave officers—and privates too, if they have wealthy enough friends. ”

“ But I have my doubts, after all that I have heard—and I love to hear it and to watch the different ways in in which the tallers narrate it: some so frankly proud, some just as proud, but trying to conceal their pride. ”

“ Blumenbach on his return from his office, "it won't do. The time has come to take the plunge. We have often talked about it, but now we must act. Only this morning I received five letters closing the account—all because of the name."
"You know I have urged it on you often enough," said Mrs. Blumenbach. "And not only have I thought it necessary, but my relatives have urged it too."
Mr. Blumenbach repressed a gesture of impatience. "I know, I know," he said. "Well, we must do it. The Times has a dozen notices of changed names every day." ”

“ But the American Grayson had then gone, and the English Grayson having opened his letter by mistake, and being not unwilling to see Berlin for himself during war-time, carried the missive to the capital, met the illustrious virtuoso and received the confidences intended for the instruction of New York and Washington, correcting their preposterous view of the German origin of the war. ”

“ Professor Keith, of the Royal College of Surgeons, reporting on the skeleton of a prehistoric twelve-year-old boy recently discovered near Ipswich, pronounces his stature to be much the same as the average height of a modern boy of the same age, but the size of the head is remarkably large. The professor states that he and his colleagues are trying to get hold of people of every period, going as far back as they can. ”

“ A private letter is probably the only means of communicating the real situation to you, for the English papers of course do not tell the truth. In fact you must believe nothing they say, for there is a great conspiracy here to maintain the fiction that we are high-spirited, eager and confident. Everything is done to foster the illusion. ”

“ Who circulates ingenious glosses
To minimize his army's losses,
And scatters showers of Iron Crosses?
The Kaiser.
Who suffers agonizing pains
When stern necessity constrains
The bashing-in of Gothic fanes? ”

“ There has so far been no public mention of any books of mine being read in the trenches and affording solace to our gallant troops. This, however, is because all the reports from the Front come from men, and men are notoriously jealous of feminine activity in literature as elsewhere. I have no doubt in my own mind that many a soldier in action has been cheered by hurried glances at my novels, a list of which can be forwarded on application. ”

“ In fact, his unofficial news is terrific and sometimes must be taken with salt. But denials do not much abash him. He was prepared for them and can explain them.
His letters are interesting and cover a vast amount of ground. They are sometimes very well written, and in differing moods he abuses the enemy and pities them. He never grumbles but is sometimes perplexed by overwork in the trenches. He hates having to stand long in water and has lost more comrades than he likes to think about. ”

“ At last my eyes were unbound and I discovered myself to be in the midst of a company of soldiers aimed to the teeth, obviously underground, and I saw opposite me, in the light of an electric torch, a massive iron gate, which the supreme expert proceeded to unlock. ”

“ The Emperor's noble Vizier, to whose massive mind treaties were of no more consequence than waste paper, stood at the side of his Imperial Master to act as introducer of the gallant soldiers whose exploits (with which the world was ringing) it had been decided to reward although so early in the campaign—pour encourager les autres. ”

“ The interesting point that emerges so far is that while little change is observable in the physique, habits and manners of the British, as illustrated by these relics, up to the last ten years or so, the development in every direction, since the foundation of The Daily Lyre, has been quite extraordinarily rapid and pronounced. For instance, a cast of the head of a modern "nut" shows a compactness which compares most favourably with the overgrown cranium of the prehistoric boy reported on by Professor Keith. ”

“ One day early in April, 1902, the cat—whom we called Beethoven because of his indulgence in moonlight fantasias—came to the back door mewing, and on opening the door my father found that it had lost an eye—probably in a fight—and evidently wished him to supply the loss artificially, which he did. I have never heard a cat purr so loudly as Beethoven did on that occasion. ”

“ To know a person who has a relation at the Front is to be immeasurably promoted socially, and most of the conversations which one overhears in trains and elsewhere have some such opening as this: "A friend of my brother's has seen a Belgian..." ”

“ Hardly a soul is now to be seen in the streets of London. Everyone is below the earth, in the Tubes and subways, which are packed by white and trembling crowds. Every cellar is congested, and top floors having been wholly abandoned. ”

“ There is a Balzac, too, in a number of volumes not mentioned on any title-page and not numbered individually, so that time alone can tell whether that group is ever fully assembled. But as we placed them side by side we could almost hear them sigh after their separation—though whether with satisfaction or annoyance who shall say? Volumes, may be, can get as tired of their companions as human beings can. ”

“ No soldier—at any rate, no officer—should be without it. Cheered by its presence he would fight twice as well, and any horrid old pipe that he might possess and, however tired of it, be forced still to smoke for want of a new one, he would be able to give to a Tommy. ”

“ No sooner does a public cook get at a mushroom than it begins to deteriorate. When the chef comes in at the door the savour flies out of the window. It is a point of honour with him. When therefore I said that one can never have enough mushrooms I meant at home. ”

“ It is a strange thing that, much as women have entered the writing lists with men, there is one branch of literature which they rarely attempt. Take away Mrs. Browning and Christina Rossetti and you will scarcely find a love poem by a woman, or, at any rate, a love poem which takes the woman's point of view. ”

“ There is something engaging as well as pathetic in these unruffled countenances, blind to the realities of modern life and the need of that fraternal fellowship which alone can bring peace to the head that wears a crown or a coronet. ”

“ Ramsay MacDonald's account of his lion-hunting exploits in The Daily Chronicle, he professed ignorance and even indifference. Speaking as an aristocrat he thought that a Labour leader was not worthy to twist his tail. ”

“ The only Mayor I know—at least
I know by sight—a splendid creature,
Whose presence at a civic feast
Is always a conspicuous feature,
Has lately in his favourite organ
Proclaimed his ignorance of De Morgan. ”

“ To discuss Mr. Roosevelt he was unwilling. The name of Hearst—I mean Mr. Hearst—touched no live wire, as it does with a few of his countrymen. He had merely heard of Mr. Brisbane, but had no information. ”

“ He marched into Ypres and is rather angry when the Germans are blamed for shelling the Cloth Hall, because he tell you that there was a big French gun firmly established behind it, and only by shelling the building could the enemy hope to descroy that dangerous piece ordnance. He saw something of the bombardment of Rheims and he watched the monitors at work on the Belgian coast.
And not only does he perform some of the best deeds and often get rewarded for them, but he is a good medium for news too. He hears things. ”

“ You know I'm no chicken at this sort of thing."
"Thank you," said Aunt Louisa, but I think I can manage."
"All right," replied Mr. Foley, "but, of course———. Want of experience———"
"First of all," said Aunt Louisa, "I must choose a Kaiser. Someone who can act."
We all became very self-conscious. Our expressions said severally, "No can act as well as I, but it's rotten form to push oneself forward."
Aunt Louisa scanned us narrowly and, much to everybody else's surprise, picked out Tommy Thurlow. To my mind she could not have made a worse choice ”

“ Every time a new person came on the stage my friend eagerly perked up and lost his depression, hoping that at last it might be one of his old delights—a juggler or knockabout or something like that—but always he was disappointed. ”

“ Probably many of the most cherished sentimental songs which wake the echoes of the drawing-room and conservatory are the work of women; but they write as men. It is always the masculine aspect which is set before the public; the beloved is always feminine. And yet marriage statistics show that precisely as many men have married as women. ”

“ But when all allowance was made for this lack of precision the general impression was one of satisfaction that a leading politician should have frankly admitted that monkeys possessed qualities which entitled their human possessors to high office and handsome salaries. ”

“ Cardinal College, unlike Balliol, Magdalen and New College, has never shown itself responsive to the new spirit. There are probably fewer Socialists in Peckover than in any other quad in Oxford. The old feudal traditions, though somewhat mitigated, still survive. You still hear the characteristic Mayfair accent and recognise a curious lack of that Moral Uplift without which, as Sir Robertson Nicoll finely says, a man is no better than a mummy. ”

“ As Christmas draws nearer, the problem of what gifts to send to our brave men at the Front becomes more acute. For of course they must all have presents, no matter what decision is come to as to the manner of spending the dear old festival at home. ”

“ England, however, always envious and acquisitive, in matters of connoisseurship dense, and now mad with rage to think that I alone had sufficient culture to discern the true and beautiful, at once set up the cry that the bust was the work not of Leonardo in the fifteenth century, but of an Englishman named Lucas in the nineteenth. ”

“ My Dear Friend,—I am sure you will like to hear from me, especially as I am in a position to enlighten you as to the deplorable condition of things in England under the fear of the Mailed Fist and forebodings of the worst. For it is only too true that all the best and most knowledgable people here have thrown up the sponge and are prepared for the inevitable. ”

“ It does not matter what the stories are about, the fact remains that an opening gambit which thme months ago would stamp a man as a triple bore now holds everyone breathless. In short, relations at last have come to their own. ”

“ When he had finished I asked whether the Duke was sent down. "Oh, no, Sir," was the prompt response. "You see the grocer, being a bald-headed man, had no trouble with the treacle, and, besides, the Dook he gave him a wig next day. But if anyone was to do that to-day, Dook or no Dook, there'd be questions asked about it in the House of Commons, or a Royal Commission would be appointed. Times is changed," he went on sadly, "and there ain't any more of the old stock left. ”