terminated.

* * * * *

After Cardiff (and a most cordial send-off from my committee) I came
back to London, and lectured at Eton, at the Polytechnic, and various
other places, while all the time I was preparing to go to Russia, and I
was also writing.

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