André Suarès
ÉMILE-RENÉ MÉNARD
FIGURE
FROM A SKETCH IN COLOURED CRAYON
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
WORDSWORTH’S VALLEY IN WAR-TIME
August 8ᵗʰ, 1915. It is now four days since, in this village of Grasmere, at my feet, we attended one of those anniversary meetings, marking the first completed year of this appalling war, which were being called on that night over the length and breadth of England. Our meeting was held in the village schoolroom; the farmers, tradesmen, innkeeper and summer visitors of Grasmere were present, and we passed the resolution which all England was passing at the same moment, pledging ourselves, separately and collectively, to help the war and continue the war, till the purposes of England were attained, by the liberation of Belgium and northern France, and the chastisement of Germany.
A year and four days, then, since the war began, and in a remote garden on the banks of the Forth, my husband and I passed, breathless, to each other, the sheets of the evening paper brought from Edinburgh by the last train, containing the greater part of Sir Edward Grey’s speech delivered in the House of Commons that afternoon—War for Belgium—for national honour—and, in the long run, for national existence! War!—after these long years of peace; war, with its dimly foreseen horrors, and its unfathomed possibilities:—England paused and shivered as the grim spectre stepped across her path.