There is even a rumour, which I don’t for a moment believe, that he is alive on the Orkney Islands and prefers to disappear there till the war ends.  This is fantastic, and it was doubtless suggested by the story that he did disappear for several years while he was a young officer.

I could not help noticing, when I saw all the Cabinet together at the Cathedral, how much older many of them look than they looked two years ago.  Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Asquith, Mr. Balfour, who is really an old man, Lloyd George—­each of these seems ten years older.  And so does the King.  The men in responsible places who are not broken by the war will be bent.  General French, since his retirement to command of the forces in England, seems much older.  So common is this quick aging that Lady Jellicoe, who went to Scotland to see her husband after the big naval battle, wrote to Mrs. Page in a sort of rhapsody and with evident surprise that the Admiral really did not seem older!  The weight of this thing is so prodigious that it is changing all men who have to do with it.  Men and women (who do not wear mourning) mention the death of their sons in a way that a stranger might mistake for indifference.  And it has a curious effect on marriages.  Apparently every young fellow who gets a week’s leave from the trenches comes home and marries and, of course, goes straight back—­especially the young officers.  You see weddings all day as you pass the favourite churches; and already the land is full of young widows.

     To Edwin A. Alderman[35]

     Embassy of the U.S.A., London,

     June 22, 1916.

     MY DEAR ED ALDERMAN: 

I shall not forget how good you were to take time to write me a word about the meeting of the Board—­the Board:  there’s no other one in that class—­at Hampton[36], and I did most heartily appreciate the knowledge that you all remembered me.  Alas! it’s a long, long time ago when we all met—­so long ago that to me it seems a part of a former incarnation.  These three years—­especially these two years of the war—­have changed my whole outlook on life and foreshortened all that came before.  I know I shall never link back to many things (and alas! too, to many people) that once seemed important and surely were interesting.  Life in these trenches (five warring or quarrelling governments mining and sapping under me and shooting over me)—­two years of universal ambassadorship in this hell are enough—­enough I say, even for a man who doesn’t run away from responsibilities or weary of toil.  And God knows how it has changed me and is changing me:  I sometimes wonder, as a merely intellectual and quite impersonal curiosity.

Strangely enough I keep pretty well—­very