At least it kept off the fiends of memory.
Tom, anxious to keep Elsley's mind employed on some subject which should not be painful, began chatting about the war and its prospects.

Elsley soon caught the cue, and talked with wild energy and pathos, opium-fed, of the coming struggle between despotism and liberty, the arising of Poland and Hungary, and all the grand dreams which then haunted minds like his.
"By Jove!" said Tom, "you are yourself again now.

Why don't you put all that into a book!" "I may perhaps," said Elsley proudly.
"And if it comes to that, why not come to the war, and see it for yourself?
A new country--one of the finest in the world.

New scenery, new actors,--Why, Constantinople itself is a poem! Yes, there is another 'Revolt of Islam' to be written yet.

Why don't you become our war poet?
Come and see the fighting; for there'll be plenty of it, let them say what they will.