"Who dies if England lives?"
"He gives twice who gives quickly—join at once."
"'More men and still more until the enemy is crushed.'—Lord Kitchener."
And many more of the same tenor. Beyond these you will see little evidence in the London streets of an empire at war. Hotels are largely empty; managers very polite; restaurants must close at 10. P.M.; no after-theater supper at the hotels unless you are a guest. Men in khaki uniforms are more conspicuous; and bandaged heads, slung arms, and legs assisted by crutches are more noticeable than formerly.
The searchlights flash above the city; the street lights are shaded overhead in foolish fancy as a protection from aeroplanes or dirigibles. Curtains are closely drawn by police orders, in the houses and railway trains.
Yet one of the airmen who had been over London at night told me that the city was just as conspicuous as though it were wide open in illumination. Indeed, there is a general call among the Londoners for the police to let up and permit electric signs, lighted windows, and more light in the streets. But the only answer that came early in December was orders to turn down the lights further!
In Paris they turned on the lights, illuminated the streets, closed up the museums and galleries, buried their art and sent the Venus de Milo on a walk to some storage vault along with the banks' reserve gold. London's museums and picture galleries are wide open, and the endeavor to protect the streets from Germans peering down from above looks childish. The great strategy of the Germans consists of talking across the Channel about their plans for raiding England. I suspect that the English military authorities do not object. It encourages enlistment. When enlistment gets dull, the Germans stimulate it with some shells thrown on the English coast.
There are only two or three new plays in London this season; the great war-plays and dramas, and indeed the literature of this war, have yet to be written. Nearly all the new presentations for which London is so famous were set back on the shelf when the business of war started. Most of the theater programs are revivals of old favorites, and a few of the theaters are still closed. All that are open begin promptly at 8 P.M. Five hundred English actors have gone to the front.
You have to make the circuit to find the heart of England at war, but you find it—horse, foot, and dragoons; men, women, and children. "Are we downhearted?" answered by a thunderous "No!" Then again silence, and turning down of the lights, and the steady work! work! work!
"Have you a bed here?" said Kitchener when he entered the War Office.
"Never heard of such a thing here," was the response.