rse, had lodging there also. It
occurred to Roger that he owed Andrew a letter, and putting aside his
notes for the bookseller's collegiate oration, he began to write:

THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP
163 Gissing Street, Brooklyn,
November 30, 1918.

MY DEAR ANDREW:

It is scandalous not to have thanked you sooner for the annual cask of
cider, which has given us even more than the customary pleasure. This
has been an autumn when I have been hard put to it to keep up with my
own thoughts, and I've written no letters at all. Like everyone else I
am thinking constantly of this new peace that has marvellously come
upon us. I trust we may have statesmen who will be able to turn it to
the benefit of humanity. I wish there could be an international peace
conference of booksellers, for (you will smile at this) my own
conviction is that the future happiness of the world depends in no
small measure on them and on the librarians. I wonder what a German
bookseller is like?

I've been reading The Education of Henry Adams and wish he might have
lived long enough to give us his thoughts on the War. I fear it would
have bowled him over. He thought that this is not a world "that
sensitive and timid natures can regard without a shudder." What would
he have said of the four-year shambles we have watched with sickened
hearts?

You remember my favourite poem--old George Herbert's Church
Porch--where he says--

By all means use sometimes to be alone;
Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear;
Dare to look in thy chest, for 'tis thine own,
And tumble up and down what thou find'st there--

Well, I've been tumbling my thoughts up and down a good deal.
Melancholy, I suppose, is the curse of the thinking classes; but I
confess my soul wears a great uneasiness these days! The sudden and
amazing turnover in human affairs, dramatic beyond anything in history,
already seems to be taken as a matter of course. My great fear is that
humanity will forget the atrocious sufferings of the war, which have
never been told. I am hoping and praying that men like Philip Gibbs
may tell us what they really saw.

You will not agree with me on what I am about to say, for I know you as
a stubborn Republican; but I thank fortune that Wilson is going to the
Peace Conference. I've been mulling over one of my favourite books--it
lies beside me as