social amenities, without barbers, florists, and motor cars, partly
because there are not men enough to keep these things going, and partly
because, even if there were, la patrie comes first, so that thrifty
self-denial has become the duty of every good citizen. If the telephone
breaks down, (as it usually does,) there is no one to repair it, so the
subscriber goes without; if the trains and trams cease running on
regular schedules the Parisian accepts the fact and stays at home.

In normal times life is made up of the sum of little things, but at
great moments the little things cease to count. How true this is in
Paris today one may judge from the correspondence and records of the
"Secours National"; they reveal an intense and widespread impulse of
personal pride in self-denial, and prove that the heart of the Parisian
bourgeoisie is sound to the core.

To a foreigner, accustomed to the Paris of literary and artistic
traditions, perhaps the most remarkable feature in the life of the city
today lies in the absence of articulate public opinion, and apparently
of public interest, in everything outside the immediate issues of the
war. With one or two exceptions, such as the Temps and the Debats, the
press of the capital practically confines itself to recording the events
and progress of the campaign; nothing else matters. So far as Paris is
concerned, all the rest of the world, from China to Peru, might be
non-existent. Neither the political nor the economic consequences of the
war are seriously examined or discussed; the sole business of the
newspapers consists in supplementing, to the best of their abilities,
the meagre war news supplied through official channels. Some interest
attaches, of course, to the attitude of Italy; but, beyond that, all
things sublunary seem to have faded into a remote distance of
unreality--sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

The explanation [Transcriber: original 'explaantion'] of this attitude
of complete detachment lies, no doubt, chiefly in the fact that the men
who make and exchange political opinions have gone to Bordeaux, while
most of those who create and guide public (as distinct from political)
opinion, have exchanged the pen for the sword. Just as Paris, for want
of bakers, has only one kind of bread, so, for want of the men who
usually inspire public opinion, her press has concentrated upon one
absorbing idea, ecraser les allemands. Moreover, for want of printers
and of