To return to Anne, I should not discourage that early love affair if I were you. Some girls need such for their education.
From what you tell me about the boy, the experience is not likely to seriously endanger her future settlement in life.
Don't worry, because she doesn't talk to you about it. You are the very last person in the world she will make a confidant of in such an affair. You are too near of an age, yet not near enough. Besides, you are her mother. Don't bully poor George. He can't help it. Fathers can't bring up girl-children; they only make it more difficult for the mother. He can't do anything; and that he isn't worrying should reassure you, I think. We have to admit that a man sees further and gets a grip of the whole, while we are handling sections. Leave it at that. I mustn't close without explaining why I am here in the midst of the great camps stretching right through the heart of Surrey to the sea.
Scenes of unimagined beauty have either disappeared or become so horribly disfigured as to be unrecognisable. As I ride through the wind and rain between the long lines of tin and wooden huts, see the felled timber, the burned heather, all the ugly features of the military camp, I chalk up more and more against the makers of war.
I feel sorry for all the people who have built lovely homes and lordly dwelling places among these matchless hills and downs. They have been so good about it, never grumbling or standing in the way.
I am talking every day to the boys. Last night I was at Bramshott. But, oh, my dear, it is not the same; the glow and the glory have departed. Those who radiated that white heat of splendour are sleeping in quiet graves in France, or Flanders, or on Eastern sands.
I am not suggesting that the stuff here is not as good—in some respects, it might even be better.
But youth has gone—these men have the deep eyes of seeing men, and their mouths are grimly set. They are here because they have no choice. I think your draft bill is splendid, but oh, I hoped great America would come in on the volunteer basis. There is something different about it, something more finely subtle. I am conscious of the mighty difference every time I stand up to speak to them. They are not less determined that the fight shall be to a finish, but they question more.
They are asking some explanation at the hands of those who claim the sacrifice of their homes and lives and all men hold dear. Who is to answer their righteous questioning?
Sometimes in my dreams I see a great Judgment seat where Kings and Emperors, and diplomats, and politicians, and wire pullers and profiteers will have to answer to the blood stained hosts they summoned to fight and die, for what?