As soon as I was able I went up to Bath and took Elspeth to Ilfracombe: there I heard Hemmerde calling for recruits--it was just like Amyas Leigh asking for another generation of Devon lads to help to beat the Spaniards. All the same it's different now. All the glamour and glory of war seem to have gone for ever: this is simply horrible, a massacre by machinery. Perhaps my mind is not attuned to it. I am still very weak, but the whole business seems preposterous. We went down to Portsmouth to see some friends who had just joined up and we saw the troopships, the searchlights at night, the coast defences, the trains full of cheering soldiers, the streets full of raw recruits. We went on to London and there were posters like advertisements for soap imploring every man to join up and save his country. Girls presented white feathers to any one in mufti, people in trains invariably asked each other fiercely why they weren't in khaki. By far the most violent of these interrogators were peaceful-looking old ladies and young, healthy parsons. I went down to Hampton Court to stay with Tony, who, of course, has gone into the Army. All Radchester was in camp at Aldershot when war broke out and the entire school went _en bloc_ to try to enlist. Those who were refused are crying with anger at the thought that they will have to go back to Radchester next term. There was some talk of the schools all being closed down. All the young masters on the staff at Marlton have gone, and every boy of eighteen and over and many a good deal younger. They needn't complain that the Public Schools aren't doing their part. Every single fit man in them joined at once. I wish I hadn't had my appendix out: then I could have gone. Elspeth says I couldn't, because of my incipient madness. I bet I would, though it would have been Hell to have left her. How I should have gloried in this war before I became engaged. All the Radcastrians are greatly "bucked" about it. At last adventure has come to them with arms full. _November 10, 1914_ Just when I ought to keep up my diary more accurately than ever I leave it for weeks. It's no good putting in all the news about the war: that is all seared into my soul. These three months have seen the deaths of all the men who seemed to me to matter when I was at Oxford. All the men of my age were killed off at once: they got out at the beginning. From the other side they tell me it's just an endless line of blood and mud, periods of intense boredom relieved by moments of fearful fright. Every one thought in August that it would be all over by Christmas. Kitchener gives it three years. My God! there'd be no England left after three years. I went up to London to lecture on the teaching of English and found the streets all darkened, which makes the town incredibly beautiful and eerie. I suppose the idea is to bring the war home to us more closely.