e news which is still fresh as I finish this
letter--(June 11th)--of the victory of Messines; perhaps the most
complete, the most rounded success--so far--that has fallen to the
British armies in the war! Last year, in three months' fighting on the
Somme, we took the strongly fortified Albert ridge, and forced the
German retreat of last February. On April 8th of this year began the
battle of Arras which gave us the Vimy Ridge, and a free outlook over
the Douai plain. And finally, on June 7th, four days ago, the Messines
ridge, which I saw last year on March 2nd--apparently impregnable and
inaccessible!--from a neighbouring hill, with the German trenches scored
along its slopes, was captured by General Plumer and his splendid army
in a few hours, after more than twelve months' preparation, with lighter
casualties than have ever fallen to a British attack before, with heavy
losses to the enemy, large captures of guns, and 7,000 prisoners. Our
troops have since moved steadily forward; and the strategic future is
rich in possibilities. The Germans have regained nothing; and the German
press has not yet dared to tell the German people of the defeat. Let us
remember also the victorious campaign of this year in Mesopotamia; and
the welcome stroke of the past week in Greece, by which King "Tino" has
been at last dismissed, and the Liberal forces of the Greek nation
set free.

* * * * *

Aye, we do consider--we do remember--these things! We feel that the goal
is drawing slowly but steadily nearer, that ultimate victory is certain,
and with victory, the dawn of a better day for Europe. But who, least of
all a woman, can part from the tragic spectacle of this war without
bitterness of spirit?

_"Who will give us back our children?"_

Wickedness and wrong will find their punishment, and the dark Hours now
passing, in the torch-race of time, will hand the light on to Hours of
healing and of peace. But the dead return not. It is they whose
appealing voices seem to be in the air to-day, as we think of America.

Among the Celts of ancient Brittany there was a belief which still
survives in the traditions of the Breton peasants and in the name of
part of the Breton coast. Every All Souls' Night, says a story at least
as old as the sixth century, the souls of the dead gather on the cliffs
of Brittany, above that bay which is still called the "Bai des
Trepasses," waiting for their departure across the o