Still much occupied; out almost all day and every day, either on horseback or in a motor. Much interest has been displayed in these parts in the visit of the King. I have passed the chateau where he is staying almost every day this past week. The district where we are now quartered is filled with refugees, among them some orphans from Loos. Some people about here have been terribly hit by the war, but some are reaping enormous profits out of it. Such is the caprice of fortune. All over this neighbourhood you see the names of Life Guards, Royal Horse Guards, Grenadiers, etc., carved on doors and panels. We are close to a large town which is an important point in the scheme of things. Events seem to be taking a remarkable turn. Who, at the start of the war, would have thought that we would have been able to land a military force in the Balkan Peninsula? It is really a remarkable position all round. Asquith's speech was frank if nothing else. There appears to have been discord in the Cabinet, so now we are about to have something like a "Committee of Public Safety." Marvellous race, the English! Lord Derby seems to be an outstanding personality just now. Have you noticed how each month of the war is marked by some new phase of public opinion? Optimism, pessimism, spies, Zeppelins, economy, pink forms, voluntaryism, conscription, munitions--each of these has been for a time the centre of public interest, and each has swiftly fallen from its pedestal to be replaced by some other phase. Curiously enough, the talk at home has not been influenced in any direct way by the real progress of the war, but by the effect on the popular imagination of trivial incidents, magnified out of all proportion by sensational journals. The war goes on, nevertheless, showing that the great British spirit is something far too strong and deep to be really influenced by the caprices of public opinion. It is amusing to see how the views of certain newspapers vary from month to month, and even more diverting to observe how all the amateur strategists claim that they had really predicted every phase of the military operations. Believe me, however, the war has been and is quite different from any ideas entertained in regard to it in the early weeks and months. It is a blend of grotesque incongruities that would be humorous were not one side of them so tragic and terrible. No one here seems to know anything definite about what is going on. One has considerable local knowledge but very little general information. Probably the latter is impossible to get in this sort of mix-up--the scale on which the war is being waged is so vast.