The Temps of Tuesday published two letters about the war
which Mr. Kipling wrote to a friend. Mr. Kipling says in the first
"I tell every one what every one tells me—that the war will last three years. But, personally, I can hardly believe it, because there is more fire than wood to burn. Then I ask myself how far the Burke will hold good when war reaches their territory. What Bocha newspapers write confirms me in the opinion. Their behaviour is not that with which a great people expresser ideas."
In the second letter he says that he is bewildered by German psychology. He had never believed in the possibility of a whole nation being in a state of frenzy. And through the mad horror of the incredible fact "there pierces something ridiculous and provincial to crown the horror ":--- "I cannot see the object of the German idea, unless it be to march with the goose-step across a series of philosophically con- structed hells with the purpose of self-adoration at noise made by their own harness. At least the Arabs offered a choice between Islam and the sword, but the Roche has no philosophy but the sword. It is, as you say, a problem of the mad dog, and one sees no hope except in the death of the unhappy animal."
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