liminated; the German fleet, or what is left
of it, to become Great Britain's; and the German colonies to be
used to satisfy such of the Allies as clamour for more than they
get.

Meantime this invincible race is doing this revolutionary task
marvellously--volunteering; trying to buy arms in the United
States (a Pittsburgh manufacturer is now here trying to close a
bargain with the War Office!)[78]; knitting socks and mufflers;
taking in all the poor Belgians; stopping all possible expenditure;
darkening London at night; doing every conceivable thing to win as
if they had been waging this war always and meant to do nothing
else for the rest of their lives-and not the slightest doubt about
the result and apparently indifferent how long it lasts or how much
it costs.

Every aspect of it gets on your nerves. I can't keep from wondering
how the world will seem after it is over--Germany (that is, Prussia
and its system) cut out like a cancer; England owning still more of
the earth; Belgium--all the men dead; France bankrupt; Russia
admitted to the society of nations; the British Empire entering on
a new lease of life; no great navy but one; no great army but the
Russian; nearly all governments in Europe bankrupt; Germany gone
from the sea--in ten years it will be difficult to recall clearly
the Europe of the last ten years. And the future of the world more
than ever in our hands!

We here don't know what you think or what you know at home; we
haven't yet any time to read United States newspapers, which come
very, very late; nobody writes us real letters (or the censor gets
'em, perhaps!); and so the war, the war, the war is the one thing
that holds our minds.

We have taken a house for the Chancery[79]--almost the size of my
house in Grosvenor Square--for the same sum as rent that the
landlord proposed hereafter to charge us for the old hole where
we've been for twenty-nine years. For the first time Uncle Sam has
a decent place in London. We've five times as much room and ten
times as much work. Now--just this last week or two--I get off
Sundays: that's doing well. And I don't now often go back at night.
So, you see, we've much to be thankful for.--Shall we insure
against Zeppelins? That's what everybody's asking. I told the
Spanish