We publish elsewhere the first of a, series of articles
on "The Mechanism of War" which will be contributed to our columns by "Linesman," the writer on the war who, though he prefers to keep his anonymity inviolate, has become under his pseudonym well known to thousands of men and women throughout the Empire. The brilliant papers which he contributed to Blackwood during the past year — papers which have since been reprinted by Messrs. Blackwood in volume form—may be said to have opened up a new epoch in military narrative. But there is, in truth, no need to draw attention to the poignancy and power of " Linesman's " work, Or to point out its reality and vividness, It smites like an arrow, and he must indeed have a cold heart or a dull head who is not moved even when " Linesman " deals not with the pomp and circumstances of war, but, as in the present paper, with war on its metaphysical side. When he is describ- ing our soldiers in the field, say in that wonderful description of the soldiers at tea under fire in his "Words by an Eye. Witness," one can only say, with Coleridge-
" I see no longer,.! myself am there,
Sit on the green sward, and the banquet share."
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