The world which had hitherto bowed down before us middle-aged, influential, well-to-do people, simply because we were middle-aged and influential and well-to-do, suddenly found it had no use for us, and so cast us ruthlessly aside. It had heavier work on hand--work that was beyond our over-ripe powers. And the strange thing was that this casting aside did not hurt our pride as it would have done at another time, for the reason that our personal pride was dead, and in its place had come a newer and a better feeling, the sense of a corporate unity. The boys who were preferred before us were no rivals, but part of ourselves, because we were all part of one great and united Empire. For the first time in the memory of living men we knew experimentally what it meant to be members one of another. At the coming of the Great War old things passed away and all things were made new, and life was suddenly charged with a terrible and yet glorious meaning. Our very prayers were changed. For the first time for a century we comprehended the Litany, and offered it up with understanding hearts. The "hands of our enemies," which had for so long been merely figurative dangers, were now an actual and hideous menace: and because we believed we were fighting not for greed of gain nor for lust of power, but for love of abstract righteousness, we dared to raise from our hearts that solemn and compelling plea: "O Lord, arise, help us and deliver us for Thine honour." Naturally I passionately wanted to enlist, and equally naturally my age and short-sightedness rendered me unable to respond to my country's need: but for the first time in my life, failure had lost the power to hurt me. What mattered it that I was worthless, if there were younger and better men ready to take my place? The individual unit had ceased to signify. Time also had changed its values. Everything that had happened before the war was almost lost in the haze of a half-forgotten past: the trifling events of the last week of July seemed as far off as the happenings of my boyhood. A new era had begun on that fateful Fourth of August, nineteen hundred and fourteen. It was only a few weeks according to the old reckoning of time, though it seemed as if a long stretch of years had elapsed since the setting of the sun of peace, that another crushing blow fell, and I received the following letter from Isabel Chayford-- "My DEAR REGGIE, "I have terrible news to tell you--the very worst--and trying to break it gently is no good at all. I have seen Frank Wildacre, who has just come over from Belgium with a lot of Belgian refugees and he tells me that Fay is dead--killed by a shell at Louvain." I put the letter down as I could not see to read any more. A thick red mist was before my eyes, and my brain reeled. Fay dead--my beautiful, light-hearted little Fay! The thought was unthinkable.