which involved the entire
manhood of the nation was new, and unparalleled in past history. And the
further conception of a war so vast in its issues that it really
threatened the very existence of the nation was new too. Alarmists had
sometimes predicted these things, but they had been disbelieved.
Historians had used such phrases of long past struggles, but often as a
mode of rhetoric rather than as the expression of exact truth. Yet, in a
very few weeks, it became evident that not alone England, but the entire
fabric of liberal civilisation was threatened by a power that knew no
honour, no restraints of either caution or magnanimity, no ethic but the
armed might that trampled under blood-stained feet all the things which
the common sanction of centuries held dearest and fairest.

Perhaps, if Coningsby had been resident in England, these realities of
the situation would have been immediately apparent. Residing in
America, the real outlines of the struggle were a little dimmed by
distance. Nevertheless, from the very first he saw clearly where his
duty lay. He could not enlist immediately. He was bound in honour to
fulfil various literary obligations. His latest book, _Slaves of
Freedom_, was in process of being adapted for serial use, and its
publication would follow. He set the completion of this work as the
period when he must enlist; working on with difficult self-restraint
toward the appointed hour. If he had regrets for a career broken at the
very point where it had reached success and was assured of more than
competence, he never expressed them. His one regret was the effect of
his enlistment on those most closely bound to him by affections which
had been deepened and made more tender by the sense of common exile. At
last the hour came when he was free to follow the imperative call of
patriotic duty. He went to Ottawa, saw Sir Sam Hughes, and was offered a
commission in the Canadian Field Artillery on the completion of his
training at the Royal Military College, at Kingston, Ontario. The last
weeks of his training were passed at the military camp of Petewawa on
the Ottawa River. There his family was able to meet him in the July of
1916. While we were with him he was selected, with twenty-four other
officers, for immediate service in France; and at the same time his two
younger brothers enlisted in the Naval Patrol, then being recruited in
Canada by Commander Armstrong.

The letters in this volume commence with