Various

“ How will the qualities that ensure success in that direction serve him at Westminster? Macaulay truly said, "The House of Commons is the most peculiar audience in the world. A place in which I would not promise success to any man." ”

“ Nothing would induce little Miss Banks to leave the house in the morning without seeing what the cards promised her, and so open and impressionable are her mind and heart that she is still interested in the colour of the romantic fellow whom the day, if kind, is to fling across her path. The cards, as you know, are great on colours, all men being divided into three groups: dark (which has the preference) , fair, and middling. ”

“ Some men are here to-day and the far side of Wipers to-morrow night. Others arrive from England thirsting for all sorts of things that no sane man ever wants to have anything to do with, and are kept doing a bomb course and a machine-gun course on alternate days for eight months. There is a tale told of one such who, when he was finally sent to the trenches, was returned as hopeless after three days because he would do nothing except sit beside a machine gun trying to fill the belt with grenades. There is no sadder story in the War. ”

“ They whine when they ought to be up and denouncing, and they crouch and crawl instead of standing upright like free and fearless men, and giving the devil's agent the straightest eye-puncher of which the human arm is capable. I thank Heaven, Sir, that I'm not made on that plan. I'm out to fight humbug and hypocrisy, even when they masquerade as friendship and benevolence; and when I see a fellow coming along with hundreds of pious texts in his mouth, and his hands dripping with the blood of innocent women and children, why, I've got to say what I think of him or die. ”

“ I am a convinced believer in the Voluntary System, always have been—on principle. But I am willing to sacrifice even that for victory. If it can be shown that by compulsion one single man can be added to our forces who would not have volunteered (even if he had been scientifically bullied) , I will be willing to adopt conscription. ”

“ To many people wholly free from superstition, except that, after spilling the salt, they are careful to throw a little over the left shoulder, and do not go out of their way to walk under ladders, and are not improved in appetite by sitting thirteen at table, and much prefer that may should not be brought into the house—to these people, otherwise so free from superstition, it would perhaps be surprising to know what great numbers of their fellow-creatures resort daily to such black arts as fortune-telling by the cards. ”

“ You must have a war so as to show what a great general you were, and you shoved on the old man Francis Joseph and kept urging him from behind until everyone got tired by the impossibility of making you come out fair and square on the side of peace. ”

“ Talking of despatches, I see that our old friend the Regimental Anarchist has not escaped notice. I never thought he would, for a less unnoticeable man I don't remember meeting. He is one of those big untidy fellows, very nice for purposes of war and all that, whom not the cleverest adjutant could manage to conceal on a ceremonial parade. His service equipment alone was notorious in the division. While we were still in England he and I used to share a billet. Every night the last thing I saw before going to sleep was the Anarchist trying on a new piece of personal furniture. ”

“ Tuesday.—Said with truth that a speech in the House of Commons, however forcible and eloquent, rarely influences a vote. Some orators, however, have gift of stirring the soul to emotions that carry a man to actions beyond range of conventionality. Such an one is the Right Hon. Thomas Lough, commonly and affectionately known through several Parliaments as "Tommy." One of small faction of Liberals who have not withdrawn opposition to Military Service Bill. ”

“ Lovely she may have been, though in a style more appreciated by the late George Cruikshank than by myself; but looks are not everything. Art simply didn't exist for her. Revue might have been her real line; or, better still, a strong-woman turn on the Halls. ”

“ A friend of mine has started as manager of his first theatre these holidays. It may seem to you an unpropitious moment for such a beginning, but in many ways this special theatre is exceptionally well guaranteed against failure. The proprietor was kind enough to invite my presence at his opening performance. As a matter of fact I had myself put up the money for it.
Naturally I was anxious for the thing to be a success. The theatre stands on what you could truthfully call a commanding situation at one end of the schoolroom table. ”

“ If there had been any limit, however generous, to the amount of room an officer may occupy in the column of route we'd have had to go abroad without our Anarchist, and a much quieter and more respectable life we'd have had that way. ”

“ After all, one could alternate the badges and the armlets and, at a pinch, wear them all together. Then I became an unskilled munition worker, which meant three badges and two armlets. At first I wore two on my overcoat and three inside. Then I would give some of them a rest, generally to find that I was wearing the wrong ones on the wrong occasions. Altogether it was very confusing."
"So far," I said with some sympathy, "I can follow you. I am myself an unskilled War Office clerk; but you have forgotten Lord Derby's armlet, which at the moment has the place of honour with me." ”

“ Elderly and experienced ladies and gentlemen should be employed to bring young people together, and "unostentatiously to give them practical counsel, conveying their remarks tactfully, and in such a way as not to awaken the spirit of contradiction found in youthful minds;" paying due regard, moreover, to theories of eugenics and heredity. The Winged Boy disguised as an antique German professor makes an attractive picture.
Some anxiety was caused in America by the news that the Ford Peace party was to meet in the Zoo at the Hague. But they have all emerged safely. ”

“ If I dislike you and feel as if I'd sooner kick you than shake hands with you, it isn't because I'm a peace-at-any-price man. No man can say that about me without qualifying for a place within easy reach of Ananias ”

“ And particularly women. Those well-thumbed packs of cards that we know so well are not wholly dedicated to "Patience," I can assure you.
All want to be told the same thing: what the day will bring forth. But each searcher into the dim and dangerous future has, of course, individual methods—some shuffling seven times and some ten, and so forth, and all intent upon placating the elfish goddess, Caprice. There is little Miss Banks, for example, but I must tell you about her. ”

“ It's bully to live in a country where you can say what you like about the bosses, and that, Sir, is what I've been doing and mean to go on doing to you. There's no manner of question about it, you're the biggest boss and the most dangerous that we in this country have ever come up against, and if our Government had only got a right idea of its bounden duty we should have protested against your conduct, yes, and backed our protest by our deeds long before this ”

“ In his latest work, Athalie (Appleton) , the heroine, who is clairvoyant, sees the ghost of the hero's mother, who prevented the hero from marrying her, and cuts it. "A hot proud colour flared in her cheeks as she drew quietly aside and stood with averted head to let her pass." In all my researches in modern fiction I cannot recall a more dramatic and satisfying situation. ”

“ Chambers. The world is divided into those who read every line Mr. Chambers writes, irrespective of its merits, and those who would require to be handsomely paid before reading a paragraph by him. A [pg 60] million eager shop-girls, school-girls, chorus-girls, factory-girls and stenographers throughout America are probably devouring Athalie at this moment. My personal opinion that the book is a potboiler, turned out on a definite formula, like all of Mr. Chambers' recent work, to meet a definite demand, cannot deter a single one of them from sobbing over it. ”

“ But how can you feel that when you over-run Belgium and burn down Louvain—that's the place that made your heart bleed, bah!—and when you shoot down Belgian hostages and do to death an English nurse? All that never seems to strike you. ”

“ Here where the world is quiet except for the noise of the rain trickling into one's valise through the nooks and crannies of one's rustic apartment—here where there is no peril from above and no peril from in front, neither peril of enfilade, here too—it is a Base I am doing this sentence about—we have our problems. ”

“ Isn't it just about time you saw yourself as the rest of us see you, an irritable lime-light hero, whose favourite effort is to sink a Lusitania and pretend he had to do it because he didn't think she'd go down or because there were too many women and just enough children in the world? ”

“ Or again, referring to my later career: "The pen is mightier than the sword, but Lieut. Henry's indelible pencil, when engaged on official correspondence, is mightier than both." Or at least, at the very beginning of things, I'm quite sure the Mentioner devoted a passing phrase to me: "By the way, I have just received a consignment described on the Movement Order as 'Officer, one, Henry, Lieut.' Speaking frankly as between ourselves, what is it exactly? In any case I would gladly exchange for a dozen tins of bully beef." ”

“ Worse even than the dearth of buttonholes is the lack of eligible sleeves. In peace time two sleeves may have been sufficient; to-day ... Well, you can sympathise." He looked (still smiling) at the khaki armlet that bound my arm and the Special Constable's badge that nestled in my overcoat. ”

“ American improvements are the wonder of the world. America seems to have the knack of taking hold of old stuff and turning it into something full of pep and punch. You remember a play called Hamlet? No? Well, there is a scene in it, rather an impressive scene, where a man chats with his father's ghost. Mr. Robert W. Chambers, America's brightest novelist, has taken much the same idea and put a bit of zip in it. ”

“ Not having read the script, I have a feeling that it might be unfair to judge the unknown author by the lines as rendered by Peter, who was often pre-occupied with other anxieties. As, for example, the scene in the Baronial Castle between its noble but unscrupulous proprietor and a character introduced by Peter with the simple notice: "This is a murderer coming on now."
Baron. Oh, are you a murderer? ”

“ He searched the woods and delved in the instructional trenches, but never another officer came to light. So he went home and, after a bad lunch—we surmise—set himself to abolish Alternative Necessary Duties in a formal edict. No officer is to absent himself from a parade except by the express orders of an O.C. Base Depôt.
This happened several days ago, and the ruling is probably obsolete by now, but I am wondering how I shall break the news to the G.O.C. if I should happen to meet him on one of my morning walks into town ”

“ In the course of a debate in the Reichstag on the German Press Bureau it was revealed that the Censor had struck out quotations from Goethe as being dangerous to the State. Our man who tinkered with Kipling is wonderfully bucked by this intelligence.
Bread is the staff of life, and, in the view of certain officers in the trenches, whose opinions we cannot of course guarantee, the life of the Staff is one long loaf. ”

“ Then again, as the supply of recruits becomes exhausted, it must always be remembered that we are dealing with a residuum. That is to say, those that remain are always growing more conscientious, more criminal, more unfit, more mercantile and so on. However, I count nothing for that, for I haven't much of my total left to dispose of, and I have still to deal with spoiled cards.
Everyone who has assisted at a contested election knows very well that many mistakes occur. I propose to allow 3 per cent. for illegible cards which prevented the canvasser from tracking his prey, 4 per cent. ”

“ It is simply a study of conjugal existence in its effect upon character; briefly, how to be happy though married. In the end Edwin seems to hit upon a sort of solution with the discovery that injustice is a natural condition to be accepted rather than resented. So one leaves the two with some prospect, a little insecure, of happiness. Needless to say the study of both Edwin and Hilda is marvellously penetrating and minute, almost to the point of defeating its own end. ”

“ You'd got a navy and you'd got a very meek and submissive people, which didn't prevent them from being harsh and domineering and cruel so far as other peoples were concerned. If you wanted to have folk afraid of you there were plenty to humour you by pretending to tremble when you frowned and shook your head. ”

“ Nor will any mechanical device assist you, for nothing can successfully defeat the wandering of the mind. Continuous concentration is an impossibility; there is nothing for it but habit—a new habit that shall be as strong as the old—or the total cessation of all correspondence and (O that 'twere possible!) ”

“ A young woman who mistook Vine-street police station for a tavern, and was fined ten shillings for drunkenness, is reported to have expressed the opinion that there is room for improvement in the nomenclature of our public edifices. ”

“ A good many men were not canvassed, or at least misunderstood the canvasser. I know of one man in my constituency (unstarred, unbadged, fit, single and of army age) who thought the fellow had come to collect for Foreign Missions, to which he has a conscientious objection. ”

“ Or perhaps the suggestion of flatness is to be ascribed to the enemy's failure on the whole to treat certain of his victims in any very extraordinary manner, and if so we can accept it and be thankful. ”

“ The "motive" of Mrs. Pumfrey Lord's new novel is Christian Science, and the hero, the Duke of Southminster, is understood to be a composite portrait of Lord Rosebery and Mr. Gladstone. The character of the evil genius of the plot, Lord Rufus Doldrum, is partly modelled on Alcibiades, but in its main lines is reminiscent of Mrs. ”