If ever men presented a spectacle of sheer inanity it is now—when, having at last triumphed in their struggle to subordinate to their welfare the unconquered element, they have straightway commenced to defile that element, so heroically mastered, by filling it with engines of destruction. If ever the gods were justified of their ironic smile—by the gods, it is now! Is there any thinker alive watching this still utterly preventable calamity without horror and despair? Horror of what must come of it if not promptly stopped; despair that men can be so blind, so hopelessly and childishly the slaves of their own marvellous inventive powers. Was there ever so patent a case for scotching at birth a hideous development of the black arts of warfare; ever such an occasion for the Powers in conference to ban once and for all a new and ghastly menace? A little reason, a grain of common sense, a gleam of sanity before it is too late; before vested interests and the chains of a new habit have enslaved us too hopelessly. If this fresh devilry be not quenched within the next few years, it will be too late. Water and earth are wide enough for men to kill each other on. For the love of the sun, and stars, and the blue sky, that have given us all our aspirations since the beginning of time, let us leave the air to innocence! Will not those who have eyes to see, good-will, and the power to put that good-will into practice, bestir themselves while there is yet time, and save mankind from this last and worst of all its follies? THE WAR VALLEY OF THE SHADOW (From the _Nation_, 1915.) God, I am travelling out to death’s sea, I, who exulted in sunshine and laughter, Thought not of dying—death is such waste of me!— Grant me one comfort: Leave not the hereafter Of mankind to war, as though I had died not— I, who in battle, my comrade’s arm linking, Shouted and sang—life in my pulses hot Throbbing and dancing! Let not my sinking In dark be for naught, my death a vain thing! God, let me know it the end of man’s fever! Make my last breath a bugle call, carrying Peace o’er the valleys and cold hills, for ever! CREDO (From the _Neutral Press_, 1914.) To love peace with all one’s heart. To feel that war is a black stain on the humanity and fame of man. To hate militarism. To go any length to avoid war for material interests, war that involves no great principle, distrusting profoundly the common meaning of the phrase “national honour”—all this is my belief.