SOl'TffJBRX SPOBTS.

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idea of what a vast and comprehensive calamity invasion is than he
can ever get by reading books at the fireside.

At a club one evening, a gentleman turned to me and said, in an
aside—

* You notice, of course, that we are nearly always talking about
the war. It isn't because we
bavn't anything else to talk
about, but because nothing else
has so strong an interest for us.
And there is another reason :
In the war, each of us, in his
own person, seems to have
sampled all the different varie-
ties of human experience 3 as
a consequence, you can't men
tion an outside matter of uny
sort but it will certainly remind
some listener of something that
happened during the war—and
out he comes with it. Of
course that brings the talk
back to the war. You may
try all you want to, to keep
other subjects before the house,
and we may all join ia and
help, but there can be but
one result: the most random
topic would load every man up
with war reminiscences, and
shut him up, too; and talk
would be likely to stop pre- 4 WAW TALK,'

sently, because you can't talk

pale inconsequentialities when youVe got a crimson fact or fancy In
your head that you are burning to fetch out.'

The poet was sitting some little distance away; and presently he
began to speak—about the moon.

The gentleman who had been talking to me remarked in an