... I fully agree with you about the Navy want of first-class Intellects. Concentration and Discipline combine to cramp the Sea Officer.... Great views don’t get grasped. Winston urges me to come back, but he forgets the greatest of all the great Napoleonic sayings: “_J’ordonne, ou je me tais._” Besides, you see, I was the First Violin. However, Winston is splendidly receptive. I can’t possibly write what has happened, _but he is a brave man_. And as 16 Admirals have been scrapped I am more popular than ever!!! A lovely woman two days ago sent me this riddle: “Why are you like Holland?” “Because you lie low and are dammed all round.” But there it is. Jellicoe will be Admiralissimo when Armageddon comes along, and _everything that was done revolved round that_, and _no one has seen it_. He has all the attributes of Nelson, and his age. [Illustration: [_By kind permission of “The Daily Express.”_ THE ANNIVERSARY OF TRAFALGAR. NELSON (_in Trafalgar Square_):--“I was on my way down to lend them a hand myself, but if Jacky Fisher’s taking on the job there’s no need for me to be nervous, I’ll get back on my pedestal.” Nelson looking up Sir John Fisher on his first day as First Sea Lord, Trafalgar Day, 1904.] * * * * * 1912. _March 7th._ NAPLES. You nearly saw me to-day, as a King’s Messenger roused me out the day before yesterday with papers I really thought I could not cope with by letter; but as obviously the object was to avoid the gossip my appearance in London would cause I did my best with my pen. But I see clearly I am in the middle of the whirlpool again and must force what I feel a great disinclination for and participate once more in the fight. I have had strangely intimate opportunities of learning the very inside of German feeling towards England. _It is bitterly intense and widespread._ Without any doubt whatever the Germans thought they were going to squeeze France out of Morocco. You can take that as a fact, no matter what lies are told by the German Foreign Minister; and Clemenceau’s unpublished speech would have proved it, but he said enough. And how treacherous to England was M. Caillaux.--What a dirty business! Anyhow, as a German Admiral of _high repute_ wrote confidentially and privately a few days since: “German public opinion is roused in a way I had not before thought possible.” And as far as I can make out, the very worst possible thing was Haldane’s visit--a British Cabinet Minister crawling up the back stairs of the German Foreign Office in carpet slippers! and judging from all that is told me, it has made the Germans worse than ever, and for a variety of quite opposite reasons, all producing the same result. Any more Heligolands would mean certain war. It’s very peculiar how we have