and cowardly imagination. It is the case of the whole modern world. You shut your eyes and wrap the mantles of your abstract ideas around you and lie down in the midst of horrible realities to pleasant dreams. You can't stand the gaff. Consider how you and other nice men and women shudder away from the deformed and malodorous results of the conflict of your own ideas in these times. I concede that your self-protective idealism has its uses in a crisis. It was the stimulant which made you enter and endure the conflict. It is the opiate which dulls your sense of its pains. It is as busy to-day as the robins that covered the babes in the woods, weaving a pleasant shroud for dreadful things, hiding them away from the eyes of men for fear of what they might do to the heart if they reached it rawly through the senses."
"Be a little more specific."
"Very well. The only son has given his life for his country. Do not ask for the details. They are distressing. What is left of the only son is brought home for burial. The good clergyman tactfully fixes the attention of father and mother upon the spiritual values preserved by his sacrifice. Over the shattered face the coffin lid is closed. Over the coffin the great flag is draped. Over the grave, smelling too
