If the war-poets would confine themselves to real and tangible things like this, they might well express the experience through which we are now passing. But they seem unhappily obsessed with the idea of expressing an obstreperous valour and self-confidence and bluster which the nation is very far from feeling. The nation, so far as I can gauge it, is showing an obstinate, workmanlike silence and does not either make light of, or grumble at, the hardships it has to suffer: the baggage-train of which I have spoken was a very adequate symbol of this. But no one is ever so greatly out of touch with the people as a popular poet. At the beginning of the war, the musical in London were shocked by an announcement that no German or Austrian music would be played at the famous Queen’s Hall Promenade Concerts. We were naturally a little upset, as we depend on these performances for solid and regular entertainment: and it seemed hard and unnecessary to renounce Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and even Schönberg. Luckily good sense and humour killed the absurd idea, but not before a French and Russian programme had been substituted for the first Wagner night. Now, much as I shrink from the thought of having to hear Tschaikowsky instead of Wagner, I do believe that we have a cause for national resentment against the second of these composers. His ridiculous and windy prose-works have been among the writings which have provoked the war. With Nietzsche, and with the renegade Englishman, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, he has encouraged the notion that there is a special Teutonic culture which is superior to any other and which deserves to be spread at any cost. Such an idea has never appealed to the true Germans (e. g., Goethe, who knew what he owed to France and England), but it has been useful to the Prussian soldiers, who have debased and vulgarized true German culture. Perhaps I am exceeding the duties of a London letter-writer and becoming an advocate; but I think I am giving you an accurate account of the feelings of those here who admire German poetry and music. I am not a Chauvinist in art—few people are. I read Goethe impenitently in the public trains and trams, to the disgust of my neighbours, and I continue to sing German songs, a little out of tune: unless my Territorial uniform is served out to me very soon, I shall probably be arrested as a spy. New York Letter GEORGE SOULE