August 17, 1914. The war news always worse and worse, the whole of Germany and the whole of England are pitted against each other. The sweet summer earth has become one awful carnage pit. We in America can only agonize and try to help the stricken peoples with a little money, saved or earned, so that we are morally helped by our intense desire to serve those others. There are also great commercial opportunities, brought us now by the conditions of world struggle, and every day the press harks on the people to take advantage of the fact that we can supply the markets that, for the moment, neither of the fighting nations can supply. Still we seem to suffer, too. The prices of flour, sugar, beef, almost everything, except fruit, have gone up dreadfully. * * * * * September 24, 1914. The grim tragedy of the war settles more and more upon our spirits. The horror of horrors is that so many intelligent people feel that the peace movement and all the ideals of the higher civilization are proven to be all in vain, and that the world must and will, after this lesson, return to the more purely military attitude of an earlier time. What we call the higher civilization seems to these people merely a symptom of effete weakness. The word for the hour is “In time of peace prepare for war!” People talk most about our own unpreparedness. Roosevelt says in a recent speech that he has seen the plans of two foreign nations for the conquest of the United States; it is understood that Germany is one of these nations. His comment is: “Let them destroy our cities, but do not let us give a dollar for ransom.” The ransoms demanded by these modern Goths upon the cities of Belgium, the cheerful, hard-working, little nation, are enough to sicken the stoutest optimist. Laura and I are now glad that Mother has not lived to endure this pain. The worst of it is, the mildest people are turned into furies, even by the faint and distant echoes of the passions that are destroying Europe and England. I feel a savage exultation when I hear of so many Germans killed or wounded. Then comes remorse for the hateful feeling, the remembrance that those men are inspired by a passionate patriotism, that their wives and mothers love them as much as English wives and mothers love their men; but the ugly feeling was there, was uppermost before reflection seized and tried to down it. * * * * *