Ten years after.... The memory of the war days is fading from the
mind of the world. The ten million dead lie in their graves, but
life goes marching on. Self-preservation, vital interests, new and
exciting problems, the human whirligig, are too absorbing for a
continual hark-back to the thought of that mortality. We are no longer
conscious of any gap in the ranks of youth, torn out by the machinery
of destruction. We do not realise the loss of all that spirit, genius,
activity and blood, except in private remembrance of some dead boy
whose portrait in uniform stands on the mantelshelf. A new generation
of youth has grown up since the beginning of the war. Boys of ten at
that time of history are now twenty, and not much interested in that
old tale. Girls who were twelve are now mothers of babes. The war!
Bother the war! Let’s forget it and get on with life. In that youth is
right. It is not in its nature nor in moral health to dwell on morbid
memories. But it is hard on those whose service is forgotten—so soon.
In England—ten years after—there are still 58,000 wounded soldiers in
the hospitals—and in France great numbers more; but they are hidden
away, as a painful secret of things that happened. Only now and again
the sight of their hospital blue in some quiet country lane, near
their hiding places, shocks one with a sharp stab of remorse. We had
forgotten all that. We hate to be reminded of it.