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But I was destined not to see him again. Very soon after my return to England he got into trouble with reference to something libellous that he had published in Modern Society. He was kept in prison, if I remember rightly, for about a month. I sought permission to visit him there, but was refused, and I was staying in Oxford when he was released.

Soon after the war broke out he wrote me the following letter from Paris:—

23, Avenue duBois deBoulogne, Paris,

29th Aug. ’14.

My dear Cumberland,—I’m just back from the frontier.... This war of nations is going to test every man as by fire before it’s over. It will be long in spite of MrKipps and Bernard Shaw. The Russian masses will hardly come decisively into action (they have scarcely any railways and no good roads) till next May or June, and long before then, or rather in a couple of months from now, the French will be pressed back to within twenty miles of besieged Paris, when I hope the English forces on the flank will stop the German advance. Then will begin the slow process of driving the Germans home, which will be quickened by the Russian weight behind Cossack pricks. Fancy one man having the power to set 400 millions of men fighting for their lives. And then they talk of man as a rational animal!!