January 25th, 1918.
My Dear Friend,
A letter to-day on my birthday from an eminent Engineer, cheers me up by saying that never has France been so vigorously governed as she is now by her present Prime Minister, Clemenceau, and that he is my age, 77.
The Conduct of the War, both by Sea and Land, has been perilously effete and wanting in Imagination and Audacity since May, 1915.
I know these words of mine give you the stomachache, but so did Jeremiah the Jews when he kept on telling them in his chapter v., verse 31:
“The prophets prophesy falsely,
And the priests [the unfit] bear rule by their means,
And my people love to have it so,
And what will ye do in the end thereof?”
(Why! Send for Jephthah!)