In the year that has passed my time has been fully occupied.  To begin with, when the war broke out I studied district-nursing in Walworth for a month.  I attended committees, and arranged to go to Belgium, got my kit, and had a good deal of business to arrange in the way of house-letting, etc., etc.  Afterwards, I went to Antwerp, till the siege and the bombardment; then followed the flight to Ostend; after that a further flight to Furnes.  Then came the winter of my work, day and night at the soup-kitchen for the wounded, a few days at home in January, then back again and to work at Adinkerke till June, when I came home to lecture.

During the year I have brought out four books, I have given thirty-five lectures, and written both stories and articles.  I have gone from town to town in England, Scotland, and Wales, and I have had a good deal of anxiety and much business at home.  I have paid a few visits, but not restful ones, and I have written all my own correspondence, as I have not had a secretary.  I have collected funds for my work, and sent off scores of begging letters.  Often I have begun work at 5.30 a.m., and I have not rested all day.  As I am not very young this seems to me a pretty strenuous time!

[Page Heading:  THE DEATH OF YOUTH]

Now I have let my house again, and am off “into the unknown” in Russia!  I shouldn’t really mind a few days’ rest before we begin any definite work.  Behind everyone I suppose at this time lurks the horror of war, the deadly fear for one’s dearest; and, above all, one feels—­at least I do—­that one is always, and quite palpably, in the shadow of the death of youth—­beautiful youth, happy and healthy and free.  Always I seem to see the white faces of boys turned up to the sky, and I hear their cries and see the agony which joyous youth was never meant to bear.  They are too young for it, far too young; but they lie out on the field between the trenches, and bite the mud in their frenzy of pain; and they call for their mothers, and no one comes, and they call to their friends, but no one hears.  There is a roar of battle and of bursting shells, and who can listen to a boy’s groans and his shrieks of pain?  This is war.

A nation or a people want more sea-board or more trade, so they begin to kill youth, and to torture and to burn, and God himself may ask, “Where is my beautiful flock?” No one answers.  It is war.  We must expect a “list of casualties.”  “The Germans have lost more than we have done;” “We must go on, even if the war lasts ten years;” “A million more men are needed”—­thus the fools called men talk!  But Youth looks up with haggard eyes, and Youth, grown old, learns that Death alone is merciful.

One sees even in soldiers’ jokes that the thought of death is not far off.  I said to one man, “You have had a narrow squeak,” and he replied, “I don’t mind if I get there first so long as I can stoke up for those Germans.”  Another, clasping the hand of his dead Captain, said, “Put plenty of sandbags round heaven, sir, and don’t let a German through.”