essary suffering. Always I am reminded of birds on a small ledge
pushing each other into the sea. The big bird that pushes another one
over goes to sleep comfortably.

I remember one evening at Dunkirk when we couldn't get rooms or food
because the landlady of the hotel had lost all her servants. The staff
at the ---- gave me a meal, but there was a queer want of courtesy about
it. I said that anything would do for my supper, and I went to help get
it myself. I spied a roll of cold veal on a shelf, and said helpfully
that that would do splendidly, but the answer was: "Yes, but I believe
that is for our next meal." However, in the end I got a scrap,
consisting mostly of green stuffing.

"But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room"--ah, my
dear Lord, in this world one may certainly take the lowest place, and
keep it. It is only the great men who say, "Friend, come up higher."

"You can't have it," is on everyone's lips, and a general sense of
bustle goes with the brutality. "You can't come here," "We won't have
her," are quite common phrases. God help us, how nasty we all are!

I find one can score pretty heavily nowadays by being a "psychologist."
All the most disagreeable people I know are psychologists, notably ----,
who breaks his promises and throws all his friends to the wolves, but
who can still explain everything in his sapient way by saying he is a
psychologist.

One thing I hope--that no one will ever call me "highly strung." I wish
good old-fashioned bad temper was still the word for highly strung and
nervy people.

... I am longing for beautiful things, music, flowers, fine thoughts....

[Page Heading: LA PANNE]

_La Panne. 25 February._--At last I have succeeded in getting away from
Dunkirk! The Duchess of Sutherland brought me here in her car. Last
night I dined with Mrs. Clitheroe. She was less bustled than usual, and
I enjoyed a chat with her as we walked home through the cold white mist
which enshrouded La Panne.

This long war has settled down to a long wait. Little goes on except
desultory shelling, with its occasional quite useless victims. At the
station we have mostly "malades" and "eclopes"; in the trenches the
soldiers stand in the bitter cold, and occasionally are moved out by
shells falling by chance amongst them. The men who are capable of big
things wait and do nothing.

If it was not for the wounded how would one stand the life here? A man
looks up patiently, dumb