book.” Garvinly speaking, “it is a timely, wise and nobly-inspired book”--you see I haven’t a newspaper of my own in which to blow my own small trumpet, so I catch the silvery echo of Garvin’s glorious and mellow horn and trust to my readers to catch the sound and the meaning thereof! So read _The Young Diana_!--if she had only been at the Peace Conference all would have been well! _Diana_ is a book “which will leave the reader with a better hope of the future”--(vide _Observer_)--yes, indeed, it will! Women will radiate under its influence; beauty will have no fear of perishing; life will be “a joy for ever,” and all this for six shillings and ninepence! Think of it! Had I a journal of my own I would have out-Garvined Garvin in self-adulation, but this is only a reply to my numerous correspondents who ask, “Why did you write _The Young Diana_?” and my answer is because, like Garvin, I seek to re-invigorate, reform, and re-establish the world! Amen! IN THE HUSH OF THE DAWN A THOUGHT Silence now where so lately the guns thundered their terrific message,--silence, beautiful and wonderful, where just a while ago the bursting bombs and shrieking shells tore the air on their errands of doom. Silence!--peace!--the hush of the dawn before the rising of the sun! Nothing in nature is perhaps more impressive than this dumb spell which precedes approaching morning,--when every blade of grass, every leaf on every tree seems to wait attentively for the day. And nothing in the condition of human affairs is more awe-inspiring to the thinker and idealist than the dramatic pause of a break between battles,--an armistice, which may or may not lead to lasting peace. We feel, as it were, the slow passing of mist and cloud across the sky--we watch pale glimmerings of gold and rose in the lightening east--we think we see the morning glory on the distant hills! For those who view the pageant of history with living interest, and notably for us who are permitted to witness the most marvellous scene ever enacted in it, this is not a time for wild whirling to and fro in a round of social excitement and foolish chattering,--it is far more a time for prayer. Even as the Eastern worshipper prostrates himself on the earth and waits for the rising of the sun, so should we both spiritually and intellectually prostrate ourselves in humility before the shining hope of the wonderful Light which promises to illumine the world’s darkness,--the light of peace and unity which shall make war impossible. For, though we may dance and sing and shout “Victory!” at the top of our voices, that Light does not as yet shine,--that sun has not yet risen! Men are not yet of one straight mind. A great majority “love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.” Could we call our nation one of absolute unity in purpose, resolved to put aside personal prejudices and interests for the good of the whole State, we should be certain of a real “sunrise”--we should almost touch