[ 15] 



With what a howl of righteous indigna- 

 tion the slaughter of our innocent women 

 and children by the bombing of open towns 

 was received ! It was a dirty and bloody 

 business, worthy of the Oxydracians by 

 means of Levin-bolts and Thunders and 

 more horrible, more frightful, more dia- 

 bolical, maiming, breaking, tearing, and 

 slaying more folk and confounding men's 

 senses and throwing down more walls than 

 would a hundred thunderbolts. 1 



Against reprisals there was at first a 

 strong feeling. Early in 1916 1 wrote to the 

 "Times": "The cry for reprisals illus- 

 trates the exquisitely hellish state of mind 

 into which war plunges even sensible men. 

 Not a pacifist, but a ■ last-ditcher, ' yet I re- 

 fuse to believe that as a nation, how bitter 

 soever the provocation, we shall stain our 

 hands in the blood of the innocent. In this 

 matter let us be free from bloodguiltiness, 



1 Rabelais, Book iv, ch. lxi. 



