the plains of windy Troy. Turn to those stories of
the winning of the V.C., and then ask yourself whether the nation whose
sons are capable of this noble heroism deserves to have the whip of Zabern
laid across its shoulders by any jack-in-office who chooses to insult us.

Those two stokers, putting their heads out for a breath of fresh air in the
midst of the battle, are true to the English type. Death was all about
them, and any moment might be their last. But they were so completely
masters of themselves that in the brief-breathing space allowed them they
could turn their minds to a simple question of everyday conduct. "What I
says is, 'e ought to have married 'er." That is not the stuff of which
heroics are made; but it is the stuff of which heroism is made.

ON FALLING IN LOVE

Do not, if you please, imagine that this title foreshadows some piquant
personal revelation. "Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir." I
have not fallen in love for quite a long time, and, looking in the glass
and observing what Holmes calls "Time's visiting cards" on my face and
hair, I come to the conclusion that I shall never enjoy the experience
again. I may say with Mr. Kipling's soldier that

That's all shuv be'ind me
Long ago and fur away.

But just as poetry, according to Wordsworth, is emotion recalled in
tranquillity, so it is only when you have left the experience of falling in
love behind that you are really competent to describe it or talk about it
with the necessary philosophic detachment.

Now of course there is no difficulty about falling in love. Any one can do
that. The difficulty is to know when the symptoms are true or false. So
many people mistake the symptoms, and only discover when it is too late
that they have never really had the true experience. Hence the overtime in
the Divorce Court. Hence, too, the importance of "calf love," which serves
as a sort of apprenticeship to the mystery, and enables you to discriminate
between the substance and the shadow.

And in "calf love" I do not include the adumbrations of extreme childhood
like those immortalised in _Annabel Lee_:--

I was a child and she was a child
In that kingdom by the sea.

* * * * *

But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Annabel Lee.

I know that love. I had it when I was eight. "She" was also eight, and she
had just come from India. She was frightfully p