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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters of a Soldier, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Letters of a Soldier
+       1914-1915
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Commentator: A. Clutton-Brock
+               André Chevrillon
+
+Translator: V.M.
+
+Release Date: December 15, 2005 [EBook #17316]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF A SOLDIER ***
+
+
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+
+Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
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+
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS OF A SOLDIER
+
+         You do not know the things that are taught by him
+         who falls. I do know.
+
+         (_Letter of October 15, 1914._)
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS OF A SOLDIER
+
+1914-1915
+
+WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
+A. CLUTTON-BROCK
+
+AND A PREFACE BY
+ANDRÉ CHEVRILLON
+
+AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY
+V.M.
+
+LONDON
+CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD
+1917
+
+
+
+Printed in Great Britain
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                              PAGE
+INTRODUCTION                   vii
+
+PREFACE BY ANDRÉ CHEVRILLON      3
+
+LETTERS                         33
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+I have been asked to write an Introduction to these letters; and I do
+so, in spite of the fact that M. Chevrillon has already written one,
+because they are stranger to me, an Englishman, than they could be to
+him a Frenchman; and it seems worth while to warn other English readers
+of this strangeness. But I would warn them of it only by way of a
+recommendation. We all hope that after the war there will be a growing
+intimacy between France and England, that the two countries will be
+closer to each other than any two countries have ever been before. But
+if this is to happen we must not be content with admiring each other.
+Mere admiration will die away; indeed, some part of our present
+admiration of the French has come from our failure to understand them.
+There is a surprise in it which they cannot think flattering, and which
+ought never to have been. Perhaps they also have been surprised by us;
+for it is certain that we have not known each other, and have been
+content with those loose general opinions about each other which are the
+common result of ignorance and indifference.
+
+What we need then is understanding; and these letters will help us to
+it. They are, as we should have said before the war, very French, that
+is to say, very unlike what an Englishman would write to his mother, or
+indeed to any one. Many Englishmen, if they could have read them before
+the war, would have thought them almost unmanly; yet the writer
+distinguished himself even in the French army. But perhaps unmanly is
+too strong a word to be put in the mouth even of an imaginary and stupid
+Englishman. No one, however stupid, could possibly have supposed that
+the writer was a coward; but it might have been thought that he was
+utterly unfitted for war. So the Germans thought that the whole French
+nation, and indeed every nation but themselves, was unfitted for war,
+because they alone willed it, and rejoiced in the thought of it. And
+certainly the French had a greater abhorrence of war even than
+ourselves; how great one can see in these letters. The writer of them
+never for a moment tries or pretends to take any pleasure in war. His
+chief aim in writing is to forget it, to speak of the consolations which
+he can still draw from the memories of his past peaceful life, and from
+the peace of the sky and the earth, where it is still unravaged. He is,
+or was, a painter (one cannot say which, for he is missing), and the
+moment he has time to write, he thinks of his art again. It would hardly
+be possible for any Englishman to ignore the war so resolutely, to
+refuse any kind of consent to it; or, if an Englishman were capable of
+such refusal, he would probably be a conscientious objector. We must
+romanticise things to some extent if we are to endure them; we must at
+least make jokes about them; and that is where the French fail to
+understand us, like the Germans. If a thing is bad to a Frenchman, it is
+altogether bad; and he will have no dealings with it. He may have to
+endure it; but he endures gravely and tensely with a sad Latin dignity,
+and so it is that this Frenchman endures the war from first to last. For
+that reason the Germans, after their failure on the Marne, counted on
+the nervous exhaustion of the French. It was a favourite phrase with
+them--one of those formulæ founded on knowledge without understanding
+which so often mislead them.--Their formula for us was that we cared for
+nothing but football and marmalade.--But reading these letters one can
+understand how they were deceived. The writer of them seems to be
+always enduring tensely. It is part of his French sincerity never to
+accept any false consolation. He will not try to believe what he knows
+to be false, even so that he may endure for the sake of France. Yet he
+does endure, and all France endures, in a state of mind that would mean
+weakness in us and utter collapse in the Germans. The war is to him like
+an incessant noise that he tries to forget while he is writing. He does
+not write as a matter of duty, and so that his mother may know that he
+is still living; rather he writes to her so that he may ease a little
+his desire to talk to her. We are used to French sentiment about the
+mother; it is a commonplace of French eloquence, and we have often
+smiled at it as mere sentimental platitude; but in these letters we see
+a son's love for his mother no longer insisted upon or dressed up in
+rhetoric, but naked and unconscious, a habit of the mind, a need of the
+soul, a support even to the weakness of the flesh. Such affection with
+us is apt to be, if not shamefaced, at least a little off-hand. Often it
+exists, and is strong; but it is seldom so constant an element in all
+joy and sorrow. The most loving of English sons would not often rather
+talk to his mother than to any one else; but one knows that this
+Frenchman would rather talk to his mother than to any one else, and that
+he can talk to her more intimately than to any woman or man. One can see
+that he has had the long habit of talking to her thus, so that now he
+does it easily and without restraint. He tells her the deepest thoughts
+of his mind, knowing that she will understand them better than any one
+else. That foreboding which the mother felt about her baby in Morris's
+poem has never come true about him:
+
+      'Lo, here thy body beginning, O son, and thy soul and thy life,
+       But how will it be if thou livest and enterest into the strife,
+       And in love we dwell together when the man is grown in thee,
+       When thy sweet speech I shall hearken, and yet 'twixt thee and me
+       Shall rise that wall of distance that round each one doth grow,
+       And maketh it hard and bitter each other's thought to know?'
+
+This son has lived and entered into the strife indeed; but the wall of
+distance has not grown round him; and, as we read these letters, we
+think that no French mother would fear the natural estrangement which
+that English mother in the poem fears. The foreboding itself seems to
+belong to a barbaric society in which there is a more animal division of
+the sexes, in which the male fears to become effeminate if he does not
+insist upon his masculinity even to his mother. But this Frenchman has
+left barbarism so far behind that he is not afraid of effeminacy; nor
+does he need to remind himself that he is a male. There is a philosophy
+to which this forgetfulness of masculinity is decadence. According to
+that philosophy, man must remember always that he is an animal, a proud
+fighting animal like a bull or a cock; and the proudest of all fighting
+animals, to be admired at a distance by all women unless he condescends
+to desire them, is the officer. No one could be further from such a
+philosophy than this Frenchman; he is so far from it that he does not
+seem even to be aware of its existence. He hardly mentions the Germans
+and never expresses anger against them. The worst he says of them almost
+makes one smile at its naïve gentleness. 'Unfortunately, contact with
+the German race has for ever spoilt my opinion of those people.' They
+are to him merely a nation that does not know how to behave. He reminds
+one of Talleyrand, who said of Napoleon after one of his rages: 'What a
+pity that so great a man should have been so badly brought up.' But
+there was malice in that understatement of Talleyrand's; and there is
+none in the understatement of this Frenchman. He has no desire for
+revenge; his only wish is that his duty were done and that he could
+return home to his art and his mother. To the philosophy I have spoken
+of that would seem a pitiable state of mind. No one could be less like a
+Germanic hero than this French artist; and yet the Germans were in error
+when they counted on an easy victory over him and his like, when they
+made sure that a conscious barbarism must prevail over an unconscious
+civilisation.
+
+These letters reveal to us a new type of soldier, a new type of hero,
+almost a new type of man; one who can be brave without any animal
+consolations, who can endure without any romantic illusions, and, what
+is more, one who can have faith without any formal revelation. For there
+is nothing in the letters more interesting than the religion constantly
+expressed or implied in them. The writer is not a Catholic. Catholic
+fervour on its figurative side, he says, will always leave him cold. He
+finds the fervour of Verlaine almost gross. He seems afraid to give any
+artistic expression to his own faith, lest he should falsify it by
+over-expression, lest it should seem to be more accomplished than it is.
+He will not even try to take delight in it; he is almost fanatically an
+intellectual ascetic; and yet again and again he affirms a faith which
+he will hardly consent to specify by uttering the name of God. He is shy
+about it, as if it might be refuted if it were expressed in any dogmatic
+terms. So many victories seem to have been won over faith in the modern
+world that his will not throw down any challenge. If it is to live, it
+must escape the notice of the vulgar triumphing sceptics, and even of
+the doubting habits of his own mind. Yet it does live its own humble and
+hesitating life; and in its hesitations and its humility is its
+strength. He could not be acclaimed by any eager bishop as a lost sheep
+returning repentant to the fold; but he is not lost, nor is the
+universe to him anything but a home and the dear city of God even in the
+trenches.
+
+His expression of this faith is always vague, tentative, and
+inconclusive. He is certain of something, but he cannot say what; yet he
+knows that he is certain, although, if he were to try to express his
+certainty in any old terms, he would reject it himself. He knows; but he
+cannot tell us or himself what he knows. There are sentences in which,
+as M. Chevrillon says, he speaks like an Indian sage; but I do not think
+that Indian philosophy would have satisfied him, because it is itself
+satisfied. For he is in this matter of faith a primitive, beginning to
+build a very small and humble temple out of the ruins of the past. He
+has no science of theology, nothing but emotions and values, and a trust
+in them. They are for a reality that he can scarcely express at all; and
+yet he is the more sure of its existence because of the torment through
+which he is passing. He uses that word _torment_ more than once. The war
+is to him a martyrdom in which he bears witness to his love, not only
+for France, but also for that larger country which is the universe. The
+torment makes him more sure of it than ever before; it heightens his
+sense of values; and he knows that what matters to a man is not whether
+he is joyful or sorrowful, but the quality of his joy and his sorrow.
+There are times when, like an Indian sage, he thinks that all life is
+contemplation; but this thought is only the last refuge of the spirit
+against a material storm. He is not one of those who would go into the
+wilderness and lose themselves in the depths of abstract thought; he is
+a European, an artist, a lover, one for whom the visible world exists,
+and to whom the Christian doctrine of love is but the expression of his
+own experience. For a century or more our world, confident in its
+strength, its reason, its knowledge, has been undermining that doctrine
+with every possible heresy. In sheer wilfulness it has tried to empty
+life of all its values. It has made us ashamed of loving anything; for
+all love, it has told us, is illusion produced by the will to live, or
+the will to power, or some other figment of its own perverse thought.
+And now, as a result of that perversity, the storm breaks upon us when
+we seem to have stripped ourselves of all shelter against it. The
+doctrine of the struggle for life becomes a fact in this war; but, if it
+were true, what creature endowed with reason would find life worth
+struggling for? Certainly not the writer of these letters. He fought,
+not only for his country, but to maintain a contrary doctrine; and we
+see him and a thousand others passing through the fiercest trial of
+faith at the moment when the mind of man has been by its own perverse
+activity stripped most bare of faith. So he cannot even express the
+faith for which he is ready to die; but he is ready to die for it. A
+few years ago he would have been sneered at for the vagueness of his
+language, but no one can sneer now. The dead will not spoil the spring,
+he says No, indeed: for by their death they have brought a new spring of
+faith into the world.
+
+A. CLUTTON-BROCK.
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS OF A SOLDIER
+
+AUGUST 1914-APRIL 1915
+
+PREFACE BY ANDRÉ CHEVRILLON
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE BY ANDRÉ CHEVRILLON
+
+The letters that follow are those of a young painter who was at the
+front from September [1914] till the beginning of April [1915]; at the
+latter date he was missing in one of the battles of the Argonne. Are we
+to speak of him in the present tense or in the past? We know not: since
+the day when the last mud-stained paper reached them, announcing the
+attack in which he was to vanish, what a close weight of silence for
+those who during eight months lived upon these almost daily letters! But
+for how many women, how many mothers, is a grief like this to-day a
+common lot!
+
+In the studio and amid the canvases upon which the young man had traced
+the forms of his dreams, I have seen, piously placed in order on a
+table, all the little papers written by his hand. A silent presence--I
+was not then aware what manner of mind had there expressed
+itself--revisiting this hearth: a mind surely made to travel far abroad
+and cast its lights upon multitudes of men.
+
+It was the mind of a complete artist, but of a poet as well, that had
+lurked under the timid reserves of a youth who at thirteen years of age
+had left school for the studio, and who had taught himself, without help
+from any other, to translate the thoughts that moved him into such words
+as the reader will judge of. Here are tenderness of heart, a fervent
+love of Nature, a mystical sense of her changing moods and of her
+eternal language: all those things of which the Germans, professing
+themselves heirs of Goethe and of Beethoven, imagine they have the
+monopoly, but of which we Frenchmen have the true perception, and which
+move us in the words written by our young countryman for his most dearly
+beloved and for himself.
+
+It is singularly touching to find in the spiritual, grave, and religious
+temper of these letters an affinity to the spirit of many others written
+from the front. During those weeks, those endless months of winter in
+the mud or the frost of the trenches, in the daily sight of death, in
+the thought of that death coming upon them also, closing upon them to
+seal their eyes for ever, these boys seem to have faced the things of
+eternity with a deeper insight and a keener feeling, as each one, in the
+full strength of life and youth, dwelt upon the thought of beholding the
+world for the last time:
+
+          'Et le monde allait donc mourir
+           Avec mes yeux, miroir du monde.'
+
+Solemn thought for the man who has watched through a long night in some
+advance-post, and who, beyond the grey and silent plain where lurks the
+enemy, sees a red sun rise yet once more upon the world! 'O splendid
+sun, I wish I could see you again!' wrote once, on the evening of his
+advance upon French ground, a young Silesian soldier who fell upon the
+battlefield of the Marne, and whose Journal has been published. Suddenly
+breaks in this mysterious cry in the course of methodical German notes
+on food and drink, stages of the march, blistered feet, the number of
+villages set on fire. And in how many French letters too have we found
+it--that abrupt intuition! It is always the same, in many and various
+words: in those of the agriculturist of the Seine-et-Marne, whom I
+could name, and who for perhaps the first time in his life takes an
+interest in the sunset; in those of the young middle-class Parisian who
+had seemed incapable of speech save in terms of unbelief and burlesque;
+in those of the artist who utters his emotion in poetry and lifts it up
+to the heights of stoical philosophy. Through all unlikenesses, in the
+hearts of all--peasant, citizen, soldier, German schoolmaster--one
+prevailing thought is revealed; the living man, passing away, feels, at
+the approach of eternal night, an exaltation of his sense of the
+splendour of the world. O miracle of things! O divine peace of this
+plain, of these trees, of these hillsides! And how keenly does the ear
+listen for this infinite silence! Or we hear of the immensities of night
+where nothing remains except light and flame: far off, the smouldering
+of fires; far up, the sparkle of stars, the shapes of constellations,
+the august order of the universe. Very soon the rattle of machine-guns,
+the thunder of explosives, the clamour of attack will begin anew; there
+will again be killing and dying. What a contrast of human fury and
+eternal serenity! More or less vaguely, and for a brief moment, there
+comes into passing life a glimpse of the profound relation of the simple
+things of heaven and earth with the mind of him who contemplates them.
+Does man then guess that all these things are indeed himself, that his
+little life and the life of the tree yonder, thrilling in the shiver of
+dawn, and beckoning to him, are bound together in the flood of universal
+life?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the artist of whom we are now reading, such intuitions and such
+visions were the delight of long months in the trenches. Under the free
+sky, in contact with the earth, in face of the peril and the sight of
+death, life seemed to him to take a sudden and strange expansion. 'From
+our life in the open air we have gained a freedom of conception, an
+amplitude of thought, which will for ever make cities horrible to those
+who survive the war.' Death itself had become a more beautiful and a
+more simple thing; the death of soldiers on whose dumb shapes he looked
+with pious eyes, as Nature took them back into her maternal care and
+mingled them with her earth. Day by day he lived in the thought of
+eternity. True, he kept a feeling heart for all the horror, and
+compassion for all the pain; as to his duty, the reader will know how he
+did that. But, suffering 'all the same,' he took refuge in 'the higher
+consolations.' 'We must,' he writes to those who love him and whom he
+labours--with what constant solicitude!--to prepare for the worst, 'we
+must attain to this--that no catastrophe whatsoever shall have power to
+cripple our lives, to interrupt them, to set them out of tune. . . . Be
+happy in this great assurance that I give you--that up till now I have
+raised my soul to a height where events have had no empire over it.'
+These are heights upon which, beyond the differences of their teachings
+and their creeds, all great religious intuitions meet together; upon
+which illusions are no more, and the soul rejects the pretensions of
+self, in order to accept what _is_. 'Our sufferings come from our small
+human patience taking the same direction as our desires, noble though
+they may be. . . . Do not dwell upon the personality of those who pass
+away and of those who are left; such things are weighed only in the
+scales of men. We should gauge in ourselves the enormous value of what
+is better and greater than humanity.' In truth, death is impotent
+because it too is illusory, and 'nothing is ever lost.' So this young
+Frenchman, who has yet never forgone the language of his Christianity,
+rediscovers amid the terrors of war the stoicism of Marcus
+Aurelius--that virtue which is 'neither patience nor too great
+confidence, but a certain faith in the order of all things, a certain
+power of saying of each trial, "It is well."' And, even beyond stoicism,
+it is the sublime and antique thought of India that he makes his own,
+the thought that denies appearances and differences, that reveals to man
+his separate self and the universe, and teaches him to say of the one,
+'I am not _this_,' and of the other, '_that_, I am.' Wonderful encounter
+of thoughts across the distance of ages and the distance of races! The
+meditation of this young French soldier, in face of the enemy who is to
+attack on the morrow, resumes the strange ecstasy in which was rapt the
+warrior of the _Bhagavad Gita_ between two armies coming to the grapple.
+He, too, sees the turbulence of mankind as a dream that seems to veil
+the higher order and the Divine unity. He, too, puts his faith in that
+'which knows neither birth nor death,' which is 'not born, is
+indestructible, is not slain when this body is slain.' This is the
+perpetual life that moves across all the shapes it calls up, striving in
+each one to rise nearer to light, to knowledge, and to peace. And that
+aim is a law and a command to every thinking being that he should give
+himself wholly for the general and final good. Thence comes the grave
+satisfaction of those who devote themselves, of those who die, in the
+cause of life, in the thought of a sacrifice not useless. 'Tell ----
+that if fate strikes down the best, there is no injustice; those who
+survive will be the better men. You do not know the things that are
+taught by him who falls. I do know.' And even more complete is the
+sacrifice when the relinquishment of life, when the renunciation of
+self, means the sacrifice of what was dearer than self, and would have
+been a life's joy to serve. There was the 'flag of art, the flag of
+science,' that the boy loved and had begun to carry--with what a thrill
+of pride and faith! Let him learn to fall without regrets. 'It is enough
+for him to know that the flag will yet be carried.'
+
+A simple, a common obedience to the duty at hand is the practical
+conclusion of that high Indian wisdom when illusions are past. Not to
+retreat into the solitude, not to retire into the inaction, that he has
+known and prized; to fight at the side of his brothers, in his own rank,
+in his own place, with open eyes, without hope of glory or of gain, and
+because such is the law: this is the commandment of the god to the
+warrior Arjuna, who had doubted whether he were right in turning away
+from the Absolute to take part in the evil dream of war. 'The law for
+each is that he should fulfil the functions determined by his own state
+and being. Let every man accept action, since he shares in that nature
+the methods of which make action necessary.' Plainly, it is for Arjuna
+to bend his bow among the other Kshettryas. The young Frenchman had not
+doubted. But it will be seen by his letters how, in the horror of
+carnage, as in the tedious and patient duties of the mine and the
+trench, he too had kept his eyes upon eternal things.
+
+I would not insist unduly upon this union of thought. He had hardly
+gained, through a few extracts from the _Ramayana_, a glimpse of the
+august thought of ancient Asia. Yet, with all the modern shades of
+ideas, with all the very French precision of form, the soul that is
+revealed in these letters, like that of Amiel, of Michelet, of Tolstoi,
+of Shelley, shows certain profound analogies with the tender and
+mystical genius of the Indies. Strange is that affinity, bearing witness
+as it does not only to his profound need of the Universal and the
+Absolute, but to his intuitive sympathy with the whole of life, to his
+impulses of love for the general soul of fruitfulness and for all its
+single and multitudinous forms. 'Love'--this is one of the words most
+often recurring in these letters. Love of the country of battle; love of
+the plain over which the mornings and the evenings come and go as the
+emotions come and go over a sensitive face; love of the trees with their
+almost human gesture--of one tree, steadfast and patient in its wounds,
+'like a soldier'; love of the beautiful little living creatures of the
+fields which, in the silence of earliest morning, play on the edges of
+the trench; love of all things in heaven and earth--of that tender sky,
+of that French soil with its clear and severe outlines; love, above all,
+of those whom he sees in sufferings and in death at his side; love of
+the good peasants, the mothers who have given their sons, and who hold
+their peace, dry their tears, and fulfil the tasks of the vineyard and
+the field; love of those comrades whose misery 'never silenced laughter
+and song'--'good men who would have found my fine artistic robes a bad
+encumbrance in the way of their plain duty'; love of all those simple
+ones who make up France, and among whom it is good to lose oneself; love
+of all men living, for it is surely not possible to hate the enemy,
+human flesh and blood bound to this earth and suffering as we too
+suffer; love of the dead upon whom he looks, in the impassive beauty,
+silence, and mystery revealed beneath his meditative eyes.
+
+It is by his close attention to the interior and spiritual significance
+of things that this painter is proved to be a poet, a religious poet who
+has sight, in this world, of the essence of being, in ineffable
+varieties: painter, and poet, and musician also, for in the trenches he
+lives with Beethoven, Handel, Schumann, Berlioz, carrying in his mind
+their imaginings and their rhythms, and conceiving also within himself
+'the loveliest symphonies fully orchestrated.' Secret riches, intimate
+powers of consolation and of joy, able, in the gloomiest hours, in the
+dark and the mud of long nights on guard, to speak closely to the soul,
+or snatch it suddenly and swiftly to distances and heights. Schumann,
+Beethoven: between those two immortal spirits that made music for all
+human ears, and the harsh pedants, the angry protagonists of Germanism,
+who have succeeded in transforming a people into a war-machine, what
+likeness is there? Have we not made the genius of those two ours by
+understanding them as we understand them, and by so taking them into our
+hearts? Are they not friends of ours? Do they not walk with us in those
+blessed solitudes wherein our truest self awakens, and where our
+thoughts flow free?
+
+It is the greatest of all whom a certain group of our soldiers invoke in
+those days before the expected battle in which some of them are to fall.
+They are in the depths of a dug-out. 'There, in complete darkness,
+night was awaited for the chance to get out. But once my fellow
+non-commissioned officers and I began humming the nine symphonies of
+Beethoven. I cannot tell what great thrill woke those notes within us.'
+
+That almost sacred song, those heroic inspirations at such a moment--how
+do they not give the lie to German theories as to the limitations of
+French sensibility! And what poet of any other race than ours has ever
+looked upon Nature with more intimate eyes, with a heart more deeply
+moved, than his whose inner soul is here expressed?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These letters, despatched day by day from the trench or the billet,
+follow each other progressively as a poem does, or a song. A whole life
+unfolds, the life of a soul which we may watch through the monotony of
+its experiences, overcoming them all, or, again, rapt at the coming of
+supreme trials (as in February and in April) into perfect peace. It is
+well that we should trace the spiritual progress of such a dauntless
+will. No history of an interior life was ever more touching. That will
+is set to endurance, and terrible at times is the effort to endure; we
+divine this beneath the simple everyday words of the narrative. Here is
+an artist and a poet; he had chosen his life, he had planned it, by no
+means as a life of action. His whole culture, his whole self-discipline,
+had been directed to the further refining of a keen natural sensibility.
+Necessarily and intentionally he had turned towards solitude and
+contemplation. He had known himself to be purely a mirror for the world,
+tarnishable under the breath of the crowd. But now it was for him to
+lead a life opposed to his former law, contrary to his plan; and this
+not of necessity but by a completely voluntary act. That _ego_ he had so
+jealously sheltered, in face of the world yet out of the world, he was
+now to yield up, to cast without hesitation or regret into the thick of
+human wars; he was no longer to spend his days apart from the jostling
+and the shouldering and the breath of troops; he was to bear his part in
+the mechanism that serves the terrible ends of war. And the close of a
+life which he would have pronounced, from his former point of view, to
+be slavery--the close might be speedy death. He had to bring himself to
+look upon his old life--the life that was lighted by his visions and
+his hopes, the life that fulfilled his sense of universal existence--as
+a mere dream, perhaps never to be dreamed again.
+
+That is what he calls 'adapting himself.' And how the word recurs in his
+letters! It is a word that teaches him where duty lies, a duty of which
+the difficulty is to be gauged by the difference of the present from the
+past, of the bygone hope from the present effort. 'In the fulness of
+productiveness,' he confesses, 'at the hour when life is flowering, a
+young creature is snatched away, and cast upon a barren soil where all
+he has cherished fails him. Well, after the first wrench he finds that
+life has not forsaken him, and sets to work upon the new ungrateful
+ground. The effort calls for such a concentration of energy as leaves no
+time for either hopes or fears. And I manage it, except only in moments
+of rebellion (quickly suppressed) of the thoughts and wishes of the
+past. But I need my whole strength at times for keeping down the pangs
+of memory and accepting what is.'
+
+Indeed, strength was called for day by day. This 'adaptation' was no
+transformation. But by a continuous act of vital energy he assimilated
+all that he drew from his surroundings. Thus he fed his heart, and kept
+his own ideals. This was a way to renounce all things, and by
+renunciation to keep the one thing needful, to remain himself, to live,
+and not only to live but to flourish; to have a part in that universal
+life which produces flowers in nature, art and poetry in man. To gain so
+much, all that was needed was to treasure, unaltered by the terrors of
+war, a heart eager for all shapes of beauty. For this most religious
+poet, beauty was that divine spirit which shines more or less clearly in
+all things, and which raises him who perceives it higher than the
+accidents of individual existence. And he receives its full influence,
+and is rid of all anxiety, who is able to bid adieu to the present and
+the past, to regret nothing, to desire nothing, to receive from the
+passing moment that influence in its plenitude. 'I accept all from the
+hands of fate, and I have captured every delight that lurks under cover
+of every moment.' In this state of simplicity, which is almost a state
+of grace, he enters into communion with the living reality of the
+world. 'Let us eat and drink to all that is eternal, for to-morrow we
+die to all that is of earth.'
+
+That emancipation of the soul is not achieved in a day. The earlier
+letters are beautiful, but what they teach is learnt by nearly all our
+soldiers. In these he tells of the spirit of the men, their fire of
+enthusiasm, their imperious sense of duty, their resolve to carry 'an
+undefiled conscience as far as their feet may lead.' Yet already he is
+seeking to maintain control of his own private self amid all the
+excitement of numbers. And he succeeds. He guards himself, he separates
+himself, 'as much as possible,' in the midst of his comrades, he keeps
+his intellectual life intact. Meanwhile he is within barrack walls, or
+else he is jotting down his letters at a railway station, or else he is
+in the stages of an interminable journey, 'forty men to a truck.' But to
+know him completely, wait until you see him within the zone of war, in
+billets, in the front line, on guard, when he has returned to contact
+with the very earth. As soon as he breathes open air, his instincts are
+awake again, the instinct 'to draw all the beauty out,' and--in the
+shadow where the future hides--'to draw out the utmost beauty as quickly
+as may be.' 'I picked flowers in the mud; keep them in remembrance of
+me,' he will write in a day of foreboding. A most significant trait is
+this--in the tedium of trench days, or when imminent peril silences the
+idle tongues, he gathers the greatest number of these magical flowers.
+In those moments when speech fails, his soul is serene, it has free
+play, and we hear its own fine sounds. Hitherto we had heard the
+repetition of the word of courage and of brotherhood uttered by all our
+gathering armies. But here, in battle, face to face with the eternities,
+that spirit of his sounds like the chord of an instrument heard for the
+first time in its originality and its infinite sensibility. Nor are
+these random notes; they soon make one harmonious sound and acquire a
+most touching significance, until by daily practice he learns how to
+abstract himself altogether from the most wretched surroundings. A quite
+impersonal _ego_ seems then to detach itself from the particular _ego_
+that suffers and is in peril; it looks impartially upon all things, and
+sees its other self as a passing wave in the tide that a mysterious
+Intelligence controls. Strange faculty of double existence and of
+vision! He possesses it in the midst of the very battle in which his
+active valour gained him the congratulations of his commanding officer.
+In the furnace in which his flesh may be consumed he looks about him,
+and next morning he writes, 'Well, it was interesting.' And he adds,
+'what I had kept about me of my own individuality was a certain visual
+perceptiveness that caused me to register the setting of things--a
+setting that dramatised itself as artistically as in any
+stage-management. During all these minutes I never relaxed in my resolve
+to see _how it was_.' He then, too, became aware of the meaning of
+violence. His tender and meditative nature had always held it in horror.
+And, perhaps for that very reason, he sought its explanation. It is by
+violence that an imperfect and provisional state of things is shattered,
+and what was lax is put into action again. Life is resumed, and a better
+order becomes possible. Here again we find his acceptance, his
+submission to the Reason that directs the universe; confidence in what
+_takes place_--that is his conclusion.
+
+Such times for him are times of observation properly so called, of purer
+thought in which the impulses of the painter and the poet have no share.
+That kind of observation is not infrequent with him, when he is dealing
+with the world and with human action. It awakes at a war-spectacle, at a
+trait of manners, at the reading of a book, at a recollection of history
+or art; it is often to the Bible that he turns, and, amid the worst
+clamours, to the beautiful plastic images of Greece. Admirable is such
+serene energy of a spirit able to live purely as a spirit. It is
+admirable, but it is not unique; great intellectual activity is not
+uncommon with the French; others of our soldiers are philosophers among
+the shells. What does set these letters in a place apart is something
+more profound and more organic than thought, and that is sentiment;
+sentiment in its infinite and indefinite degrees, its relation to the
+aspects of nature--in a word, that poetic faculty which is akin to the
+musical, proceeding as they both do from the primitive ground-work of
+our being, and uniting in the inflexions of rhythm and of song. I have
+already named Shelley in connexion with the poet we are considering.
+And it is a Shelleyan union with the most intimate, the most
+inexpressible things in nature that is revealed in such a note as the
+following: 'A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the
+Spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening
+days; a sudden softening, a weakening of nature.' In describing this
+atmosphere, this too sudden softness, he uses a word frequent in the
+vocabulary of Shelley--'fainting.' In truth, like the great English
+poet, whom he seems not to have known, he seeks from the beauty of
+things a faculty of self-forgetfulness in lyrical poetry, an
+inexpressible and blissful passing of the poet's being into the thing he
+contemplates. What he makes his own in the course of those weeks, what
+he remembers afterwards, and what he would recall, never to lose it
+again, is the culminating moment in which he has achieved
+self-forgetfulness and reached the ineffable. The simplest of natural
+objects is able to yield him such a moment; see, for instance, this
+abrupt intuition: 'I had lapsed from my former sense of the benediction
+of God, when suddenly the beauty--all the beauty--of a certain tree
+spoke to my inmost heart; and then I understood that an instant of such
+contemplation is the whole of life.' And still more continuous, still
+more vibrant, is at times his emotion, as when the bow draws out to the
+utmost a long ecstatic tone from a sensitive violin. 'What joy is this
+perpetual thrill in the heart of Nature! That same horizon of which I
+had watched the awakening, I saw last night bathe itself in rosy light;
+and then the full moon went up into a tender sky, fretted by coral and
+saffron trees.' It is very nearly ecstasy with him in that astonishing
+Christmas night which no one then at the front can ever forget--a solemn
+night, a blue night, full of stars and of music, when the order and the
+divine unity of the universe stood revealed to the eyes of men who, free
+for a moment from the dream of hatred and of blood, raised one chant
+along six miles, 'hymns, hymns, from end to end.'
+
+Of the carnage in February there are a few precise notes, sufficient to
+suggest the increasing horror. The narrative grows quicker; the reader
+is aware of the pulse and the impetus of action, the imperious summons
+of duty; the young sergeant is in charge of men, and has to execute
+terrible tasks. But ever across the tumult and the slaughter, there are
+moments of recollection and of compassion; and, in the evening of a day
+of battle, what infinite tranquillity among the dead! At this period
+there are no more notes of landscape effects; the description is of the
+war, technical; otherwise the writer's thought is not of earth at all.
+Once only, towards the end, we find a sorrowful recollection of himself,
+a profound lamentation at the remembrance of bygone hopes, of bygone
+work, of the immensity of the sacrifice. 'This war is long, too long for
+those who had something else to do in the world! Why am I so sacrificed,
+when so many others, not my equals, are spared? Yet I had something
+worth doing to do in the world!' Most touching is that sigh, even more
+touching than the signs of greatness in his soul, for it suddenly
+breathes an anguish long controlled. It is a human weakness--our own
+weakness--that is at last confessed, on the eve of a Passion, as in the
+Divine example. At rare times such a question, in the constant sight of
+death, in fatigue and weariness, in the long distress of rain and mud,
+checks in him the impulse of life and of spiritual desire. He was
+himself the young plant of which he writes, growing, creating fragrance
+and breaking into flower, sure of God, feeling Him alive within itself.
+But all at once it knows frost is coming and the threat of unpitying
+things. What if the universe were void, what if in the infinity of the
+exterior world there were nothing, across the splendid vision, but an
+insensate fatality? What if sacrifice itself were also a delusion? 'Dark
+days have come upon me, and nothingness seems the end of all, whereas
+all that is in my being had assured me of the plenitude of the
+universe.' And he asks himself the anxious question, 'Is it even sure
+that moral effort bears any fruit?' It is something like abandonment by
+God. But that darkening of his lights passes quickly away. He comes
+again to the regions of tranquil thought, and leaves them thenceforward
+only for the work in hand. 'I hope,' he writes, 'that when you think of
+me you will have in mind all those who have left everything behind, and
+how their nearest and dearest think of them only in the past, and say
+of them, "We had once a brother, who, many years ago, withdrew from this
+world."' How strange is the serenity of these lofty thoughts, how
+entirely detached from self and from all human things is this spirit of
+contemplation. Two slight traits give us signs: One night, on a
+battlefield 'scattered with fragments of men' and with burning
+dwellings, under a starry sky, he makes his bed in an excavation, and
+lies there watching the crescent moon, and waits for dawn; now and again
+a shell bursts, earth falls about him, and then silence returns to the
+frozen soil: 'I have paid the price, but I have had moments of solitude
+full of God.' Again, one evening, after five days of horror ('we have no
+officers left--they all died as brave men'), he suddenly comes upon the
+body of a friend; 'a white body, splendid under the moon. I lay down
+near him.' In the quietness, by the side of the dead man, nothing
+remains but beauty and peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These letters are to be anonymous, at least so long as any hope remains
+that he who was lost may return. It is enough to know that they were
+written by a Frenchman who, in love and faith, bore his part in the
+general effort, the common peril, glad to renounce himself in the pain
+and the devotion of his countrymen. By a happy fortune that he did not
+foresee when he left his clean solitude for the sweat, the servitude,
+and the throng, he no doubt produced the best of himself in these
+letters; and it may be doubted whether, in the course of a successful
+artist's life, it would have been given to him to express himself with
+so much completeness. This is a thought that may strengthen those who
+love him to accept whatever has come to pass. His soul is here, a more
+essential soul perhaps, and a more beautiful, than they had known. It
+was in war that Marcus Aurelius also wrote his thoughts. Possibly the
+worst is needful for the manifestation of the whole of human greatness.
+We marvel how the soul can so discover in itself the means to oppose
+suffering and death. Thus have many of our sons revealed themselves in
+the day of trial, to the wonder of France, until then unaware of all
+that she really was. That is how these pages touch us so closely. He who
+wrote them had attuned himself with his countrymen. Through the more
+mystical acts of his mind we perceive the sublime message sent to us
+from the front, more or less explicitly, by others of our brothers and
+our sons--the high music that goes up still from the whole of France at
+war. In all his comrades assembled for the great task, he too had
+recognised the best and the deepest things that his own heart held, and
+so he speaks of them constantly--especially of the simplest of the
+men--with so great respect and love. Far from ordinary ambitions and
+cares, the things that this rough life among the eternities brings into
+all hearts with a heretofore unknown amplitude are serenity of
+conscience and a freshness of feeling in perpetual touch with the
+harmonies of nature. These men do but reflect nature. Since they have
+renounced themselves and given themselves, all things have become simple
+for them. They have the transparence of soul and the lights of
+childhood. 'We spend childish days. We are children.' . . .
+
+This new youthfulness of heart under the contemned menace of death, this
+innocence in the daily fulfilment of heroic duty, is assured by a
+spiritual state akin to sanctity.
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS OF A SOLDIER
+
+
+_August 6, 1914._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--These are my first days of life at war, full of
+change, but the fatigue I actually feel is very different from what I
+foresaw.
+
+I am in a state of great nervous tension because of the want of sleep
+and exercise. I lead the life of a government clerk. I belong to what is
+called the dépôt, I am one of those doing sedentary work, and destined
+eventually to fill up the gaps in the fighting line.
+
+What we miss is news; there are no longer any papers to be had in this
+town.
+
+
+_August 13._
+
+We are without news, and so it will be for several days, the censorship
+being of the most rigorous kind.
+
+Here life is calm. The weather is magnificent, and all breathes quiet
+and confidence. We think of those who are fighting in the heat, and this
+thought makes our own situation seem even too good. The spirit among
+the reservists is excellent.
+
+
+_Sunday, August 16._
+
+To-day a walk along the Marne. Charming weather after a little rain.
+
+A welcome interlude in these troubled times. We are still without news,
+like you, but we have happily a large stock of patience. I have had some
+pleasure in the landscape, notwithstanding the invasion of red and blue.
+These fine men in red and blue have given the best impression of their
+_moral_. Great levies will be made upon our dépôts, to be endured with
+fortitude.
+
+
+_August 16_ (from a note-book).
+
+The monotony of military life benumbs me, but I don't complain. After
+nine years these types are to be rediscovered, a little less marked,
+improved, levelled down. Just now every one is full of grave thoughts
+because of the news from the East.
+
+The ordinary good-fellowship of the mess has been replaced by a finer
+solidarity and a praiseworthy attempt at adaptation. One of the
+advantages of our situation is that we can, as it were, play at being
+soldiers with the certainty of not wasting our time. All these childish
+and easy occupations, which are of immediate result and usefulness,
+bring back calm to the mind and soothe the nerves. Then the great stay
+which supports the men is a profound, vague feeling of brotherhood which
+turns all hearts towards those who are fighting. Each one feels that the
+slight discomfort which he endures is only a feeble tribute to the
+frightful expense of all energy and all devotedness at the front.
+
+
+_August 25._
+
+This letter will barely precede our own departure. The terrible conflict
+calls for our presence close to those who are already in the midst of
+the struggle. I leave you, grandmother and you, with the hope of seeing
+you again, and the certainty that you will approve of my doing all that
+seems to me my duty.
+
+Nothing is hopeless, and, above all, nothing has changed our idea of the
+part we have to play.
+
+Tell all those who love me a little that I think of them. I have no time
+to write to any one. My health is of the best.
+
+. . . After such an upheaval we may say that our former life is dead.
+Dear mother, let us, you and I, with all our courage adapt ourselves to
+an existence entirely different, however long it may last.
+
+Be very sure that I won't go out of my way to do anything that endangers
+our happiness, but that I'll try to satisfy my conscience, and yours. Up
+till now I am without cause for self-reproach, and so I hope to remain.
+
+
+_August 25_ (2nd letter).
+
+A second letter to tell you that, instead of our regiment, it was
+Pierre's that went. I had the joy of seeing him pass in front of me when
+I was on guard in the town. I accompanied him for a hundred yards, then
+we said good-bye. I had a feeling that we should meet again.
+
+It is the gravest of hours; the country will not die, but her
+deliverance will be snatched only at the price of frightful efforts.
+
+Pierre's regiment went covered with flowers, and singing. It was a deep
+consolation to be together till the end.
+
+It is fine of André[1] to have saved his drowning comrade. We don't
+realise the reserve of heroism there is in France, and among the young
+intellectual Parisians.
+
+In regard to our losses, I may tell you that whole divisions have been
+wiped out. Certain regiments have not an officer left.
+
+As for my state of mind, my first letter will perhaps tell you better
+what I believe to be my duty. Know that it would be shameful to think
+for one instant of holding back when the race demands the sacrifice. My
+only part is to carry an undefiled conscience as far as my feet may
+lead.
+
+[Footnote 1: Second Lieutenant André Cadoux, who died gloriously in
+battle on April 13, 1915.]
+
+
+_August 26._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--I was made happy by Maurice Barrés's fine article,
+'l'Aigle et le Rossignol,' which corresponds in every detail with what I
+feel.
+
+The dépôts contain some failures, but also men of fine energy, among
+whom I dare not yet count myself, but with whom I hope to set out. The
+major had dispensed me from carrying a knapsack, but I carry it for
+practice and manage quite well.
+
+The only assurance which I can give you concerns my own moral and
+physical state, which is excellent. The true death would be to live in a
+conquered country, above all for me, whose art would perish.
+
+I isolate myself as much as I can, and I am really unaffected, from the
+intellectual point of view. Besides, the atmosphere of the mess is well
+above that of normal times: the trouble is that the constant moving and
+changing drags us about from place to place, and growing confidence
+falters before the perpetually recurring unknown.
+
+
+_August 30._
+
+. . . My little mother, it is certain that though we did not leave
+yesterday, it is yet only a question of hours. I won't say to you
+anything that I have already said, content only that I have from you the
+approval of which I was certain.
+
+. . . In the very hard march yesterday only one man fell out, really ill.
+France will come out of this bad pass.
+
+I can only repeat to you how well I am prepared for all eventualities,
+and that nothing can undo our twenty-seven years of happiness. I am
+resolved not to consider myself foredoomed, and I fancy the joy of
+returning, but I am ready to go to the end of my strength. If you knew
+the shame I should endure to think that I might have done something
+more!
+
+In the midst of all this sadness we live through magnificent hours, when
+the things that used to be most strange take on an august significance.
+
+
+_September 4, 6 o'clock_
+(_on the way, in the train_).
+
+We have had forty hours of a journey in which the picturesque outdoes
+even the extreme discomfort. The great problem is sleep, and the
+solution is not easy when there are forty in a cattle-truck.
+
+The train stops every instant, and we encounter the unhappy refugees.
+Then the wounded: fine spectacle of patriotism. The English army. The
+artillery.
+
+We no longer know anything, having no more papers, and we can't trust
+the rumours which fly among the distraught population.
+
+Splendid weather.
+
+
+_Saturday, September 5_ (_at the end
+of 60 hours in a cattle-truck:
+40 men to a truck_).
+
+On the same day we skirted the Seine opposite the forest of
+Fontainebleau and the banks of the Loire. Saw the château de Blois and
+the château d'Amboise. Unhappily the darkness prevented us from seeing
+more. How can I tell you what tender emotions I felt by these
+magnificent banks of the Loire!
+
+Are you bombarded by the frightful aeroplanes? I think of you in such
+conditions and above all of poor Grandmother, who indeed had little need
+to see all this! However, we must hope.
+
+We learn from wounded refugees that in the first days of August mistakes
+were made in the high command which had terrible consequences. It falls
+to us now to repair those mistakes.
+
+Masses of English troops arrive. We have crossed numbers of crowded
+trains.
+
+Well, this war will not have been the mere march-past which many
+thought, but which I never thought, it would be; but it will have
+stirred the good in all humanity. I do not speak of the magnificent
+things which have no immediate connection with the war,--but nothing
+will be lost.
+
+
+_September 5, 1914_ (_1st halting-place,
+66 hours in the cage without being
+able to stretch_).
+
+Still the same jolting and vibration, but three times after the horrible
+night there has come the glory of the morning, and all fatigue has
+disappeared.
+
+We have crossed the French country in several directions, from the
+rather harsh serenity, full of suggestiveness, of Champagne, to the rich
+robust placidity of Brittany. On the way we followed the full and noble
+banks of the Loire, and now . . .
+
+O my beautiful country, the heart of the world, where lies all that is
+divine upon earth, what monster sets upon you--a country whose offence
+is her beauty!
+
+I used to love France with sincere love, which was more than a little
+_dilettante_; I loved her as an artist, proud to live in the most
+beautiful of lands; in fact, I loved her rather as a picture might love
+its frame. It needed this horror to make me know how filial and profound
+are the ties which bind me to my country. . . .
+
+
+_September 7_
+(from a note-book).
+
+. . . We are embarked on the adventure, without any dominant feeling
+except perhaps a sufficiently calm acceptance of this fatality. But
+sensibility is kept awake by the sight of the victims, particularly the
+refugees. Poor people, truly uprooted, or rather, dead leaves in the
+storm, little souls in great circumstances.
+
+Whole trains of cattle-trucks, which can hardly be said to have changed
+their use! Trains in which is heaped up the desolation of these people
+torn from their homes, and how quickly become as beasts! Misery has
+stripped them of all their human attributes. We take them food and
+drink, and that is how they become exposed: the man drinks without
+remembering his wife and children. The woman thinks of her child. But
+other women take their time, unable to share in the general haste. Among
+these waifs there is one who assails my heart,--a grandmother of
+eighty-seven, shaken, tossed about by all these blows, being by turns
+hoisted into and let down from the rolling cages. So trembling and
+disabled, so lost. . . .
+
+
+_September 10_ (from a note-book).
+
+We arrive in a new part of the country on the track of good news: the
+strong impression is that France's future is henceforth assured.
+Everything corroborates this feeling, from the official report which
+formally announces a complete success down to the most fantastic
+rumours.
+
+
+_September 13_ (from a note-book).
+
+This is war; here are we approaching the place of horror. We have left
+behind the French villages where peace was still sleeping. Now there is
+nothing but tumult. And here are direct victims of the war.
+
+The soldiers: blood, mud and dirt. The wounded. Those whom we pass at
+first are the least suffering--wounds in arms, in hands. In most of them
+can clearly be seen, in the midst of their fatigue and distress, great
+relief at having been let off comparatively easily.
+
+Farther on, towards the ambulances, the burying of the dead: there are
+six, stretched on two waggons. Smoothed out, and covered with rags, they
+are taken to an open pit at the foot of a Calvary. Some priests conduct,
+rather than celebrate, the service, military as they have become. A
+little straw and some holy water over all, and so we pass on. After all,
+these dead are happy: they are cared-for dead. What can be said of those
+who lie farther on and who have passed away after nights of the throes
+of death and abandonment.
+
+. . . From this agony there will remain to us an immense yearning for pity
+and brotherhood and goodness.
+
+
+_Wednesday, September 16, 1914._
+
+In the horror-zone.
+
+The rainy twilight shadows the road, and suddenly, in a ditch--the dead!
+They have dragged themselves here from the battlefield--they are all
+corrupt now. The coming of darkness makes it difficult to distinguish
+their nationality, but the same great pity envelops them all. Only one
+word for them: poor boy! The night for these ignominies--and then again
+the morning. The day rises upon the swollen bodies of dead horses. In
+the corner of a wood, carnage, long cold.
+
+One sees only open sacks, ripped nose-bags. Nothing that looks like life
+remains.
+
+Among them some civilians, whose presence is due to the German
+proceeding of making French hostages march under our fire.
+
+If these notes should reach any one, may they give rise in an honest
+heart to horror of the foul crime of those responsible for this war.
+There will never be enough glory to cover all the blood and all the
+mud.
+
+
+_September 21, 1914._
+
+War in rain.
+
+It is suffering beyond what can be imagined. Three days and three nights
+without being able to do anything but tremble and moan, and yet, in
+spite of all, perfect service must be rendered.
+
+To sleep in a ditch full of water has no equivalent in Dante, but what
+can be said of the awakening, when one must watch for the moment to kill
+or to be killed!
+
+Above, the roar of the shells drowns the whistling of the wind. Every
+instant, firing. Then one crouches in the mud, and despair takes
+possession of one's soul.
+
+When this torment came to an end I had such a nervous collapse that I
+wept without knowing why--late, useless tears.
+
+
+_September 25._
+
+Hell in so calm and pastoral a place. The autumnal country pitted and
+torn by cannon!
+
+
+_September 27._
+
+If, apart from the greater lessons of the war, there are small immediate
+benefits to be had, the one that means most to me is the contemplation
+of the night sky. Never has the majesty of the night brought me so much
+consolation as during this accumulation of trials. Venus, sparkling, is
+a friend to me. . . .
+
+I am now familiar with the constellations. Some of them make great
+curves in the sky as if to encircle the throne of God. What glory! And
+how one evokes the Chaldean shepherds!
+
+O constellations! first alphabet!. . .
+
+
+_October 1._
+
+I can say that, as far as the mind goes, I have lived through great days
+when all vain preoccupations were swept away by a new spirit.
+
+If there should ever be any lapse so that only one of my letters reaches
+you, may it be one that says how beneficial, how precious have these
+torments been!
+
+
+_October 1_ (from a note-book).
+
+It follows from this that our suffering, every moment of it, should be
+considered as the most marvellous source of feeling and of progress for
+the conscience.
+
+I now know into what domain my destiny leads me. No longer towards the
+proud and illusory region of pure speculation, but in the way of all
+little daily things--it is there that I must carry the service of an
+ever-vigilant sensibility.
+
+I see how easily an upright nature may dispense with the arts of
+expression in order to be helpful in act and in influence. Precious
+lesson, which will enable me, should I return, to suffer less if fate no
+longer allows me to paint.
+
+
+_October 9._
+
+It seems that we have the order to attack. I do not want to risk this
+great event without directing my thoughts to you in the few moments of
+quiet that are left. . . . Everything here combines to maintain peace in
+the heart: the beauty of the woods in which we live, the absence of
+intellectual complications. . . . It is paradoxical, as you say, but the
+finest moments of my moral life are those that have just gone by. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Know that there will always be beauty on earth, and that man will never
+have enough wickedness to suppress it. I have gathered enough of it to
+store my life. May our destiny allow me time later to bring to fruit all
+that I have gathered now. It is something that no one can snatch from
+us, it is treasure of the soul which we have amassed.
+
+
+_October 12._
+
+Up till now your love and Providence do not forsake me. . . . We are
+still in the magnificent devastated woods, in the midst of the finest
+autumn. Nature brings many joys which dominate these horrors. Profound
+and powerful hope, whatever suffering still awaits us.
+
+
+_October 14._
+
+It is true, dear mother, that some renunciation costs a great deal of
+effort, but be sure that we both possess the necessary strength of soul
+to live through these difficult hours without catching our breath in
+painful longing at the idea of the return we both crave for.
+
+The great thing is to know the value of the present moment and to make
+it yield all that it has of good and beauty and edification. For the
+rest, no one can guarantee the future, and it would be vain and futile
+torment to live wondering what might happen to us. Don't you think that
+life has dispensed us many blessings, and that one of the last, and the
+greatest, is that we have been able to communicate with each other and
+to feel our union? There are many unfortunate people here who do not
+know where their wives and children are, who have been for three months
+isolated from all. You see that we are still among the lucky ones.
+
+Dear mother, less than ever ought we to despair, for never shall we be
+more truly convinced that all this agitation and delirium of mankind's
+are nothing in view of the share of eternity which each one carries
+within himself, and that all these monstrosities will end in a better
+future. This war is a kind of cataclysm which succeeds to the old
+physical upheavals of our globe; but have you not noticed that, in the
+midst of all this, a little of our soul is gone from us, and that we
+have lost something of our conviction of a Higher Order? Our sufferings
+come from our small human patience taking the same direction as our
+desires, noble though they may be. But as soon as we set ourselves to
+question things in order to discover their true harmony, we find rest
+unto our souls. How do we know that this violence and disorder are not
+leading the universal destinies towards a final good?
+
+Dear mother, still cherishing the firmest and most human hope, I send my
+deepest love to you and to my beloved grandmother.
+
+Send also all my love to our friends who are in trouble. Help them to
+bear everything: two crosses are less heavy to carry than one. And
+confidence in our eternal joy.
+
+
+_October 15, 7 o'clock._
+
+I have received your card of the 1st. What joy it gives me that we
+should be at last in touch with each other. Certainly, our thoughts have
+never been apart. You tell me of Marthe's misfortune, and I am happy
+that you can be useful to her. Dear mother, that is the task that
+belongs to us both: to be useful at the present moment without reference
+to the moment that is to follow.
+
+Yes, indeed, I feel deeply with you that I have a mission in life. But
+one must act in each instant as though that mission was having immediate
+fulfilment. Do not let us keep back one single small corner of our
+hearts for our small hopes. We must attain to this--that no catastrophe
+whatsoever shall have power to cripple our lives, to interrupt them, to
+set them out of tune. That is the finest work, and it is the work of
+this moment. The rest, that future which we must not question--you will
+see, mother dear, what it holds of beauty and goodness and truth. Not
+one of our faculties must be used in vain, and all useless anxiety is a
+harmful expense.
+
+Be happy in this great assurance that I give you--that up till now I
+have raised my soul to a height where events have had no empire over it,
+and I promise you that my effort will be still to make ready my soul as
+much as I can.
+
+Tell M---- that if fate strikes down the best, there is no injustice:
+those who survive will be the better men. Let her accept the sacrifice,
+knowing that it is not in vain. You do not know the things that are
+taught by him who falls. I do know.
+
+To him who can read life, present events have broken all habit of
+thought, but they allow him more glimpses than ever before of eternal
+beauty and order.
+
+Let us recover from the surprise of this laceration, and adapt ourselves
+without loss of time to the new state of things which turns us into
+people as privileged as Socrates and the Christian martyrs and the men
+of the Revolution. We are learning to despise all in life that is merely
+temporary, and to delight in that which life so seldom yields: the love
+of those things that are eternal.
+
+
+_October 16._
+
+We are living for some days in comparative calm; between two storms my
+company is deserving of special rest. Also I am thoroughly enjoying this
+month of October. Your fine letter of October 2 reaches me, and I am now
+full of happiness, and there is profound peace.
+
+Let us continue to arm ourselves with courage, do not let us even speak
+of patience. Nothing but to accept the present moment with all the
+treasures which it brings us. That is all there is to do, and it is
+precisely in this that all the beauty of the world is concentrated.
+There is something, dear mother, something outside all that we have
+habitually felt. Apply your courage and your love of me to uncovering
+this, and laying it bare for others.
+
+This new beauty has no reference to the ideas expressed in the words
+health, family, country. One perceives it when one distinguishes the
+share of the eternal which is in everything. But let us cherish this
+splendid presentiment of ours--that we shall meet again: it will not in
+any way impede our task. Tell M---- how much I think of her. Alas! her
+case is not unique. This war has broken many a hope; so, dear mother,
+let us put our hope there where the war cannot attain to it, in the deep
+places of our heart, and in the high places of our soul.
+
+
+_October 17, 3 o'clock._
+
+To write to you and to know that my letters reach you is a daily
+paradise to me. I watch for the hour when it is possible to write.
+
+Yes, beloved mother, you must feel a revival of courage and desire to
+live; never must a single affection, however good, be counted as a
+pretext for life. No accident should make us forget the reason we are
+alive. Of course, we can prefer this or that mission in life, but let us
+accept the one which presents itself, however surprising or passing it
+may be. You feel as I do, that happiness is in store for us, but let us
+not think of it. Let us think of the actions of to-day, of all the
+sacrifices they imply.
+
+
+_October 22._
+
+I accept all from the hands of fate, and I have captured every delight
+that lurks under cover of every moment.
+
+Ah! if men only knew how much peace they squander, and how much may be
+contained in one minute, how far less would they suffer from this
+seeming violence. No doubt there are extreme torments that I do not yet
+know, and which perhaps test the soul in a way I do not suspect, but I
+exert all the strength of my soul to accept each moment and each test.
+What is necessary is to recognise love and beauty triumphant over
+violence. No few seasons of hate and grief will have the power to
+overthrow eternal beauty, and of this beauty we all have an imperishable
+store.
+
+
+_October 23._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--I have re-read Barrés's article, 'l'Aigle et le
+Rossignol.' It is still as beautiful, but it no longer seems in complete
+harmony. Now nothing exists outside the absolute present; everything
+else is like ornaments put to one side until the holiday, the far-off,
+uncertain holiday. But what does it matter!--the ornaments are treasured
+up in safety. Thus do I cherish the treasures of affection, of
+legitimate ambition, of praiseworthy aspiration. All of these I have
+covered over, and I live but in the present moment.
+
+This morning, under the fine sky, I remembered the music of yesterday: I
+was full of happiness. Forgive me for not living in an anguish of
+longing to return. I believe that you approve of my giving back our
+dearest hopes into other hands than ours.
+
+
+_October 27._
+
+If, as I hope intensely, I have the joy of seeing you again, you will
+know the miraculous way in which I have been led by Providence. I have
+only had to bow before a power and a beneficence which surpassed all my
+proud conceptions.
+
+I can say that God has been within me as I am within God, and I make
+firm resolves always to feel such a communion.
+
+You see, the thing is to put life to good account, not as we understand
+it, even in our noblest affections, but in saying to ourselves: Let us
+eat and drink to all that is eternal, for to-morrow we die to all that
+is of earth. We acquire an increase of love in that moment when we
+renounce our mean and anxious hopes.
+
+
+_October 28._
+
+This is nearly the end of the third month of a terrible trial, from
+which the lessons will be wide and salutary not only to him who will
+know how to listen, but to all the world, and therein lies the great
+consolation for those who are involved in this torment. Let it also be
+the consolation of those whose hopes are with the combatants.
+
+This consolation consists especially in the supernaturally certain
+conviction that all divine and immortal energy, working through mankind,
+far from being enfeebled, will, on the contrary, be exalted and more
+intensely effectual at the end of these storms.
+
+Happy the man who will hear the song of peace as in the 'Pastoral
+Symphony,' but happy already he who has foreknowledge of it amid the
+tumult! And what does it matter in the end that this magnificent
+prophecy is fulfilled in the absence of the prophet! He who has guessed
+this has gleaned great joy upon earth. We can leave it to a higher being
+to pronounce if the mission is accomplished.
+
+
+_October 28_ (2nd letter, almost
+at the same hour).
+
+MY DEAR, DEAR MOTHER,--Another welcome moment to spend with you. We can
+never say any but the same thing, but it is so fine a thing that it can
+always be said in new ways.
+
+To-day we are living under a sky of great clouds as swift and cold as
+those of the Dutch landscape painters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dear, I dare not wish for anything--it must not be. I must not even
+consider a partial relaxation. I assure you that the effort for
+endurance is less painful than certain times of intensive preparation
+that we have passed through. Only we can each moment brace ourselves in
+a kind of resistance against what is evil in us, and leave every door
+open to the good which comes from without.
+
+. . . I am glad that you have read Tolstoi: he also took part in war. He
+judged it; he accepted its teaching. If you can glance at the admirable
+_War and Peace_, you will find pictures that our situation recalls. It
+will make you understand the liberty for meditation that is possible to
+a soldier who desires it.
+
+As to the disability which the soul might be supposed to suffer through
+the lack of all material well-being, do not believe in it. We lead the
+life of rabbits on the first day of the season's shooting, and,
+notwithstanding that, we can enrich our souls in a magnificent way.
+
+
+_October 30._
+
+I write to you in a marvellous landscape of grey autumn lashed by the
+wind. But for me the wind has always been without sadness, because it
+brings to me the spirit of the country beyond the hill. . . .
+
+The horrible war does not succeed in tearing us from our intellectual
+habitation. In spite of moments of overwhelming noise, one more or less
+recovers oneself. The ordinary course of our present existence gives us
+a sensibility like that of a raw wound, aware of the least breath.
+Perhaps after this spoliation of our moral skin a new surface will be
+formed, and those who return will be for the time brutally insensitive.
+Never mind: this condition of crisis for the soul cannot remain without
+profit.
+
+Yesterday we were in a pretty Meuse village, all the more charming in
+contrast with the surrounding ruins.
+
+I was able to have a shirt washed, and while it dried I talked to the
+excellent woman who braves death every day to maintain her hearth. She
+has three sons, all three soldiers, and the news she has of them is
+already old. One of them passed within a few kilometres of her: his
+mother knew it and was not able to see him. Another of these Frenchwomen
+keeps the house of her son-in-law who has six children. . . .
+
+For you, duty lies in acceptance of all and, at the same time, in the
+most perfect confidence in eternal justice.
+
+Do not dwell upon the personality of those who pass away and of those
+who are left; such things are weighed only with the scales of men. We
+must gauge in ourselves the enormous value of what is better and greater
+than humanity.
+
+Dear mother, absolute confidence. In what? We both already know.
+
+
+_October 30, 10 o'clock._
+
+Up till now I have possessed the wisdom that renounces all, but now I
+hope for a wisdom that accepts all, turning towards what may be to come.
+What matter if the trap opens beneath the steps of the runner. True, he
+does not attain his end, but is he wiser who remains motionless under
+the pretext that he might fall?
+
+
+_November 1, All Saints', 8 o'clock._
+
+Last night I received your card of 24-25th. While you were looking at
+that moon, clouded from us, you were very wrong to feel yourself so
+helpless; how much reason had you to hope! At that very moment I was
+being protected by Providence in a way that rebukes all pride.
+
+The next day we had the most lovely dawn over the deeply coloured autumn
+woods in this country where I made my sketches of three years ago; but
+just here the landscape becomes accentuated and enlarged and acquires a
+pathetic majesty. How can I tell you the grandeur of the horizon! We are
+remaining in this magnificent place, and this is All Saints' Day!
+
+At the moment, I write to you in the silvery light of a sun rising over
+the valley mists; we are conscious of the sleeping country for forty
+kilometres around, and battle hardly disturbs the religious gravity of
+the scene.
+
+Do love my proposed picture! It makes a bond with my true career. If it
+is vouchsafed to me to return, the form of the picture may change, but
+its essence is contained in the sketch.
+
+_Mid-day._--Splendid All Saints' Day profaned by violence.
+
+Glory of the day. . . .
+
+
+_November 2, All Souls'._
+
+Splendid feast of sun and of joy in the glorious beauty of a Meusian
+landscape. Hope confines itself in the heart, not daring to insult the
+grief of those for whom this day is perhaps the first day of
+bereavement.
+
+Dear beloved mother, twenty-eight years ago you were in a state of
+mourning and hope to-day, the agony is as full of hope as then. It is at
+a different age that these new trials occur, but a whole life of
+submission prepares the way to supreme wisdom.
+
+What joy is this perpetual thrill in the heart of Nature! That same
+horizon of which I had watched the awakening, I saw last night bathe
+itself in rosy light; then the full moon went up into a tender sky,
+fretted by coral and saffron trees.
+
+Dear, the frightful record of martyrdom of the best French youth cannot
+go on indefinitely. It is impossible that the flower of a whole race can
+disappear.
+
+There must be some nobler task than war for the nation's genius! I have
+a secret conviction of a better near future. May our courage and our
+union lead us to this better thing. Hope, hope always! I received
+grandmother's dear letter and M.R.'s kind and affectionate card.
+
+Dear, have you this beautiful sun to-day? How noble is the country and
+how good is Nature! To him who listens she says that nothing will ever
+be lost.
+
+
+_November 4, 10 o'clock._
+
+I live only through your thoughts and in the blessings of Nature. This
+morning our chiefs menaced us with a march of twenty kilometres, and
+this threat fulfilled itself in the form of a charming walk in the
+landscape that I love so much.
+
+Exquisite vapours, which we see lifting hour by hour at the call of a
+temperate sun; and, yonder, those high plateaux which command a vast
+panorama, where everything is finely drawn, or rather is just felt in
+the mist. . . .
+
+There are hills furnished with bare trees holding up their charming
+profiles. I think of the primitives, of their sensitive and
+conscientious landscapes. What scrupulous majesty, of which the first
+sight awes with its grandeur, and the detail is profoundly moving!
+
+You see, dear mother, how God dispenses blessings that are far greater
+than griefs. It is not even a question of patience, since time has no
+longer any meaning for us, for it is not a matter of any calculable
+duration. But then, what richness of emotion in each present minute!
+
+This then is our life, of which I wrote to you that not one event must
+make of it something unachieved, interrupted; and I hope to preserve
+this wisdom. But at the same time I want to ally it with another wisdom
+which looks to the future, even if the future is forbidden to us. Yes,
+let us take all from the hands of the present (and the present brings us
+so many treasures!), but let us also prepare for the future.
+
+
+_November 5, 8 o'clock._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--Do not hide from me anything of what happens in Paris, of
+your cares, or your occupations. All that you will decide is for the
+best. My own happiness, in the midst of all this, lies just in that
+security I have in thinking of your spirit.
+
+The weather is still exquisite and very soft. To-day, without leaving
+the beautiful region to which we came on September 20th, we have
+returned to the woods. I like that less than the wide open view, but
+there is prettiness here too. And then the sky, now that the leaves have
+fallen, is so beautiful and so tender.
+
+I have written to C----. I will write to Mme. C----. I hope for a letter
+from you. If you knew how much the longer is a day without news! It is
+true I have your old letters, but the new letter has a fragrance which I
+now can't do without.
+
+
+_November 6._
+
+Yesterday, without knowing why, I was a little sad: what soldiers call
+_avoir le cafard_. My sadness arose from my having parted the day before
+with a book of notes which I had decided to send to you in a package.
+The events of the day before yesterday, albeit pacific, had so hustled
+me that I was not able to attend to this unfortunate parcel as I should
+have liked. Also, I was divided between two anxieties: the first, lest
+the package should not reach you, and lest these notes, which have been
+my life from the 1st to the 20th of October, should be lost. The second,
+on the contrary, was lest it should reach you before the arrival of
+explaining letters, which might seem strange to you, the sending-off
+having probably been done in another name, and the cover of my copybook
+bearing my directions that the notes should be forwarded to you if
+necessary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+. . . To-day we are living in the most intimate and delicate Corot
+landscape.
+
+From the barn where we have established our outpost, I see, first, the
+road with puddles left by the rain; then some tree-stumps; then, beyond
+a meadow, a line of willows beside a charming running stream. In the
+background, a few houses are veiled in a light mist, keeping the
+delicate darks which our dear landscape-painter felt so nobly.
+
+Such is the peace of this morning. Who would believe that one has but to
+turn one's head, and there is nothing but conflagration and ruin!. . .
+
+
+_November 7, 8 A.M._
+
+I have just had your card of the 30th announcing the sending-off of a
+packet. How kind this is! how much thought is given to us! All this
+sweetness is appreciated to the full.
+
+Yesterday, a delicious November day. This morning, too much fog for the
+enjoyment of nature. But yesterday afternoon!
+
+Delicate, refined weather, in which everything is etched as it were on a
+misty mirror. The bare shrubs, near our post, have been visited by a
+flock of green birds, with white-bordered wings; the cocks have black
+heads with a white spot. How can I tell you what it was to hear the
+solitary sound of their flight in this stillness!--That is one good
+thing about war: there can be only a certain amount of evil in the
+world; now, all of this being used by man against man, beasts at any
+rate are so much the better off--at least the beasts of the wood, our
+customary victims.
+
+If you could only see the confidence of the little forest animals, such
+as the field-mice! The other day, from our leafy shelter I watched the
+movements of these little beasts. They were as pretty as a Japanese
+print, with the inside of their ears rosy like a shell. And then another
+time we watched the migration of the cranes: it is a moving thing to
+hear them cry in the dusk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+. . . What a happiness to see that you are drawing. Yes, do this for us
+both. If you knew how I itch to express in paint all our emotions! If
+you have read my letters of all this time you will know my privation,
+but also my happiness.
+
+_Monday, November 9, 7 o'clock._
+
+. . . We have returned to the wide open view that I love so much.
+Unfortunately we can only catch a glimpse of it through mouse-holes.
+Well, it is always so!. . .
+
+. . . All these days I have been feeling the charm of a country lying in
+autumn sweetness. This peace was troubled yesterday by the poignant
+sight of a burning village. It is not the first we have seen, and yet we
+have not grown used to it.
+
+We had taken up our observation-posts; it was still dark. From our
+height we saw the tremendous flare and, at daybreak, the charming
+village, sheltering in the valley, was nothing but smoke. This, in the
+silvery nimbus of a glorious morning.
+
+From our mouse-trap we had looked to the distance with its prettily
+winding road, its willow-bordered stream, its Calvary: all this harmony
+to end in the horror of destruction.
+
+The Germans had set fire to it by hand in the night; they had been
+dislodged from it after two nights of fierce fighting: their action may
+be interpreted as an intention to retreat at this point. This
+proceeding, generally detested by our soldiers, is, I think, forced by
+strategic necessity. When a village is destroyed it is very difficult
+for us in the rear to make any kind of use of it. All day we have been
+witnessing this devastation, while above our heads the little field-mice
+are taking advantage of the straw in which we are to sleep.
+
+Our existence, as infantry, is a little like that of rabbits in the
+shooting season. The more knowing of us, at any rate, are perpetually on
+the look-out for a hole. As soon as we are buried in it, we are ordered
+not to move again. These wise orders are unfortunately not always given
+with discrimination; thus, yesterday there were four of us in an
+advance-trench situated in a magnificent spot and perfectly hidden
+beneath leaves. We should have been able to delight in the landscape but
+for the good corporal, who was afraid to allow us even a little
+enjoyment of life. Later the artillery came up with a tremendous din and
+showed us the use of these superlative precautions.
+
+None the less, I have been able to enjoy the landscape--alas! a scene of
+smoke and tragedy yesterday. Be sure, beloved mother, that I do not wish
+to commit a single imprudence, but certainly this war is the triumph of
+Fate, of Providence and Destiny.
+
+I pray ardently to deserve the grace of return, but apart from a few
+moments of only human impatience, I can say that the greater part of my
+being is given up to resignation.
+
+
+_November 10, 11 o'clock._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--What shall I say to you to-day--a day monotonous
+with fog. Occupations that are stupefying, not in themselves, but
+because of the insipid companionship. I fall back on myself. Yesterday I
+wrote you a long letter, telling you among other things how dear your
+letters are to me. When I began to write on this sheet I was a little
+weary and troubled, but now that I am with you I become happy, and I
+immediately remember whatever good fortune this day has brought me.
+
+This morning the lieutenant sent me to get some wire from headquarters,
+in a devastated village which we have surrounded for six weeks. I went
+down through the orchards full of the last fallen plums. A few careless
+soldiers were gathering them up into baskets. A charming scene, purely
+pastoral and bucolic, in spite of the red trousers--very faded after
+three months' campaign. . . .
+
+I am happy in the affection of Ch---- R----. His is a nature according
+in all its elements with my own. I am sure that he will not be cross
+with me for not writing, especially if you give a kind message from me
+to his wife.
+
+The little task confided to me meant walking from nightfall until nine
+o'clock, but I occasionally lay down in a shelter or in a barn instead
+of getting back to the trenches for the night.
+
+I do not have good nights of reading now, but sometimes when S---- and I
+are lying side by side in the trench, you would not believe what a
+mirage we evoke and what joy we have in stirred-up memories. Ah, how
+science and intellectual phenomena lead us into a very heaven of
+legends, and what pleasure I get from the marvellous history of this
+metal, or that acid! For me the thousand and one nights are renewing
+themselves. And then at waking, sometimes, the blessing of a dawn. That
+is the life I have led since the 13th or 14th of October. I ask for
+nothing, I am content that in such a war we should have relatively a
+great deal of calm.
+
+You cannot imagine what a consolation it is to know that you give your
+heart to what concerns me. What pleasure I have in imagining you
+interested in my books, looking at my engravings!. . .
+
+_November 12, 3 o'clock._
+
+. . . To-day we have had a march as pleasant as the first one, in weather
+of great beauty. We saw, in the blue and rosy distance, the far-off peak
+of the Metz hills, and the immense panorama scattered over with
+villages, some of which gathered up the morning light, while others were
+merely suggested.
+
+This is the broad outline of our existence: for three days we stay close
+to the enemy, living in well-constructed shelters which are improved
+each time; then we spend three days a little way back; and then three
+days in billets in a neighbouring village, generally the same. We even
+gradually form habits--very passing ones, but still, we have a certain
+amount of contact with the civil population which has been so sorely
+tried. The woollen things are very effectual and precious.
+
+. . . We have good people to deal with. The dear woman from whose dwelling
+I write to you, and with whom I stayed before, wears herself to death
+to give us a little of what reminds us of home.
+
+But, dear mother, what reminds me of home is here in my heart. It is not
+eating on plates or sitting on a chair that counts. It is your love,
+which I feel so near. . . .
+
+
+_November 14._
+
+Since half-past eight on the evening of the 12th we have been dragged
+about from place to place in the prospect of our taking part in a
+violent movement. We left at night, and in the calm of nature my
+thoughts cleared themselves a little, after the two days in billets
+during which one becomes a little too material. Our reinforcement went
+up by stealth. We awaited our orders in a barn, where we slept on the
+floor. Then we filed into the woods and fields, which the day, breaking
+through grey, red, and purple clouds, slowly lit up, in surroundings the
+most romantic and pathetic that could be imagined. In the full daylight
+of a charming morning we learnt that the troops ahead of us had
+inflicted enormous losses on the enemy, and had even made a very slight
+advance. We then returned to our usual posts, and here I am again,
+beholding once more the splendour of the French country, so touching in
+this grey, windy, and impassioned November, with sunshine thrown in
+patches upon infinite horizons.
+
+Dear mother, how beautiful it is, this region of spacious dignity, where
+all is noble and proportioned, where outlines are so beautifully
+defined!--the road bordered with trees diminishing towards the frontier,
+hills, and beyond them misty heights which one guesses to be the German
+Vosges. There is the scenery, and here is something better than the
+scenery. There is a Beethoven melody and a piece by Liszt called
+'Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude.' Certainly we have no solitude,
+but if you turn the pages of Albert Samain's poems you will find an
+aphorism by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam: 'Know that there will always be
+solitude on earth for those who are worthy of it.' This solitude of a
+soul that can ignore all that is not in tune with it. . . .
+
+I have had two letters from you, of the 6th and 7th. Perhaps this
+evening I shall have another. Do not let us allow our courage to be
+concerned only with the waiting for letters from each other. But the
+letters are our life, they are what bring us our joys, our happiness, it
+is through them that we take delight in the sights of this world and of
+this time.
+
+If your eyes are not strong, that is a reason for not writing, but apart
+from your health do not by depriving me of letters hold back your heart
+from me.
+
+
+_November 14_ (2nd letter).
+
+DEAR MOTHER WHOM I LOVE,--Here we are again in our usual billet, and my
+heart is full of thoughts all tending towards you. I cannot tell you all
+that I feel in every moment, yet how much I should like to share with
+you the many pleasures that come one by one even in this monotonous life
+of ours, as a broken thread drops its pearls.
+
+I should like to be able to admire with you this lovely cloud, this
+stretch of country which so fills us with reverence, to listen with you
+to the poetry of the wind from beyond the mountain, as when we walked
+together at Boulogne. But here a great many prosaic occupations prevent
+me from speaking to you as I feel.
+
+I sent you with my baggage my note-book from August 18 to October 20.[2]
+These notes were made when we could easily get at our light bags, in the
+calm of our trench-days, when our danger stopped our chattering, and I
+could let my heart speak. I found a happiness more intense, wider and
+fuller, to write to you about. That was a time of paradise for me. But I
+don't like the billets, because the comfort and the security, relaxing
+our minds, bring about a great deal of uproar which I don't like. You
+know how much I have always needed quiet and solitude. Still, I have
+excellent friends, and the officers are very kind.
+
+But with a little patience and a few thoughts about you I can be happy.
+How kind this first half of November has been! I have not suffered once
+from cold. And how lovely it was! That All Saints' Day was nothing but a
+long hymn--from the night, with its pure moonlight on the dark amber of
+the autumn trees, to the tender twilight. The immense rosy dream of
+this misty plain, stretching out towards the near hills. . . . What a
+song of praise! and many days since then have sung the glory of God.
+Coeli ennarrant. . . .
+
+That is what those days brought to me.
+
+[Footnote 2: Part of this note-book has already been given.]
+
+
+_November 15, 7 o'clock._
+
+Yesterday the wild weather, fine to see from the shelter of our billet,
+brought me apprehensions for to-night's departure, but when I woke the
+sky was the purest and starriest that one could dream of! How grateful I
+felt!
+
+What we fear most is the rain, which penetrates through everything when
+we are without fire or shelter. The cold is nothing--we are armed
+against it beforehand.
+
+. . . In spite of all, how much I appreciated the sight of this vast plain
+upon which we descended, lashed by the great wind. Above the low horizon
+was the wide grey sky in which, here and there, pale rents recalled the
+vanished blue.--A black, tragic Calvary in silhouette--then some
+skeleton trees! What a place! This is where I can think of you, and of
+my beloved music. To-day I have the atmosphere that I want.
+
+. . . I should like to define the form of my conviction of better things
+in the near future, resulting from this war. These events prepare the
+way to a new life: that of the United States of Europe.
+
+After the conflict, those who will have completely and filially
+fulfilled their obligation to their country will find themselves
+confronted by duties yet more grave, and the realisation of things that
+are now impossible. Then will be the time for them to throw their
+efforts into the future. They must use their energies to wipe out the
+trace of the shattering contact of nations. The French Revolution,
+notwithstanding its mistakes, notwithstanding some backsliding in
+practice, some failure in construction, did none the less establish in
+man's soul this fine theory of national unity. Well! the horrors of the
+1914 war lead to the unity of Europe, to the unity of the race. This new
+state will not be established without blows and spoliation and strife
+for an indefinite time, but without doubt the door is now open towards
+the new horizon.
+
+
+To Madame C----.
+
+_November 16._
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--How much pleasure and comfort your letter gives me, and
+how your warm friendship sustains my courage!
+
+What you say to me about my mother binds me closer to existence. Thank
+you for your splendid and constant affection.
+
+. . . What shall I tell you of my life? Through the weariness and the
+vicissitudes I am upheld by the contemplation of Nature which for two
+months has been accumulating the emotion and the pathos of this
+impassioned season. One of my habitual stations is on the heights which
+overlook the immense Woëvre plain. How beautiful it is! and what a
+blessing to follow, each hour of the day and evening, the kindling
+colours of the autumn leaves! This frightful human uproar cannot succeed
+in troubling the majestic serenity of Nature! There are moments when man
+seems to go beyond anything that could be imagined; but a soul that is
+prepared can soon perceive the harmony which overlooks and reconciles
+all this dissonance. Do not think that I remain insensible to the agony
+of scenes that we behold all too often: villages wiped out by the
+artillery that is hurled upon them; smoke by day, light by night; the
+misery of a flying population under shell-fire. Each instant brings some
+shock straight to one's heart. That is why I take refuge in this high
+consolation, because without some discipline of the heart I could not
+suffer thus and not be undone.
+
+
+_November 17, in the morning._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,-- . . . I write to you in the happiness of the dawn over my
+dear village. The night, which began with rain, has brought us again a
+pure and glorious sky. I see once more my distant horizons, my peaked
+hills, the harmonious lines of my valleys. From this height where I
+stand who would guess that agricultural and peaceful village to be in
+reality nothing but a heap of ruins, in which not a house is spared, and
+in which no human being can survive the hell of artillery!
+
+As I write, the sun falls upon the belfry which I see framed in the
+still sombre tree close beside me, while far away, beneath the last
+hills, the last swelling of the ground, the plain begins to reveal its
+precious detail in the rosy and golden atmosphere.
+
+
+_November 17, 11 o'clock._
+
+The splendid weather is my great consolation. I live rather like an
+invalid sent to some magnificent country, whom the treatment compels to
+unpleasant and fatiguing occupations. Between Leysin and the trench
+where I am at present there has been only uncertainty. Nothing new has
+happened to our company since October 13.
+
+This is a strange kind of war. It is like that between neighbours on bad
+terms. Consider that some of the trenches are separated from the enemy
+by hardly 100 metres, and that the combatants fling projectiles across
+with their hands: you see that these neighbours make use of violent
+methods.
+
+As for me, I really live only when I am with you, and when I feel the
+splendour of the surroundings.
+
+Even in the middle of conversations, I am able to preserve the
+sensation of solitude of thought which is necessary to me.
+
+
+_November 18._
+
+This morning, daylight showed us a country covered with hoar-frost, a
+universal whiteness over hills and forest. My little village looks
+thoroughly chilled.
+
+I had spent the greater part of the night in a warm shelter, and I could
+have stayed there, thanks to the kindness of my superiors, but I am
+foolish and timid, and I rejoined my comrades from 1 o'clock till
+half-past 4.
+
+Curiously enough, we can easily bear the cold: an admirable article of
+clothing, which nearly all of us possess, is a flour-sack which can be
+worn, according to the occasion, as a little shoulder-cape, or as a bag
+for the feet. In either case it is an excellent preserver of heat.
+
+
+_11 o'clock._
+
+For the moment there runs in my mind a pretty and touching air by
+Handel. Also, an allegro from our organ duets: joyful and brilliant
+music, overflowing with life. Dear Handel! Often he consoles me.
+
+Beethoven comes back only rarely to my mind, but when his music does
+awake in me, it touches something so vital that it is always as though a
+hand were drawing aside a curtain from the mystery of the Creation.
+
+Poor dear Great Masters! Shall it be counted a crime against them that
+they were Germans? How is it possible to think of Schumann as a
+barbarian?
+
+Yesterday this country recalled to my mind what you played to me ten
+years ago, the Rheingold: 'Libre étendu sur la hauteur.' But the outlook
+of our French art had this superiority over the beautiful music of that
+wretched man--it had composure and clarity and reason. Yes, our French
+art was never turbid.
+
+As for Wagner, however beautiful his music, and however irresistible and
+attractive his genius, I believe it would be a less substantial loss to
+French taste to be deprived of him than of his great classical
+compatriots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I can say with truth that in those moments when the idea of a possible
+return comes to me, it is never the thought of the comfort or the
+well-being that preoccupies me. It is something higher and nobler which
+turns my thoughts towards this form of hope. Can I say that it is even
+something different from the immense joy of our meeting again? It is
+rather the hope of taking up again our common effort, our association,
+of which the aim is the development of our souls, and the best use we
+can make of them upon earth.
+
+
+_November 19, in the morning._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--To-day I was wakened at dawn by a violent
+cannonade, unusual at that hour. Just then some of the men came back
+frozen by a night in the trenches. I got up to fetch them some wood, and
+then, on the opposite slope of the valley, the fusillade burst out
+fully. I mounted as high as I could, and I saw the promise of the sun in
+the pure sky.
+
+Suddenly, from the opposite hill (one of those hills I love so much), I
+heard an uproar, and shouting: 'Forward! Forward!' It was a bayonet
+charge. This was my first experience of one--not that I saw anything;
+the still-dark hour, and, probably, the disposition of the ground,
+prevented me. But what I heard was enough to give me the feeling of the
+attack.
+
+Up till then I had never imagined how different is the courage required
+by this kind of anonymous warfare from the traditional valour in war, as
+conceived by the civilian. And the clamour of this morning reminds me,
+in the midst of my calm, that young men, without any personal motive of
+hate, can and must fling themselves upon those who are waiting to kill
+them.
+
+But the sun rises over my country. It lightens the valley, and from my
+height I can see two villages, two ruins, one of which I saw ablaze for
+three nights. Near to me, two crosses made of white wood. . . . French
+blood flows in 1914. . . .
+
+
+_November 20._
+
+From the window near which I write I see the rising sun. It shines upon
+the hoar-frost, and gradually I discover the beautiful country which is
+undergoing such horrors. It appears that there were many victims in the
+bayonet charge which I heard yesterday. Among others, we are without
+tidings of two sections of the regiment which formed part of our
+brigade. While these others were working out their destiny, I was on the
+crest of the most beautiful hill (I was very much exposed also at other
+times). I saw the daybreak; I was full of emotion in beholding the peace
+of Nature, and I realised the contrast between the pettiness of human
+violence and the majesty of the surroundings.
+
+That time of pain for you, from September 9th to October 13th,
+corresponds exactly with my first phase of war. On September 9th I
+arrived, and detrained almost within reach of the terrible battle of the
+Marne, which was in progress 35 kilometres away. On the 12th I rejoined
+the 106th, and thenceforward led the life of a combatant. On October
+13th, as I told you, we left the lovely woods, where the enemy artillery
+and infantry had done a lot of mischief among us, especially on the 3rd.
+Our little community lost on that day a heart of gold, a wonderful boy,
+grown too good to live. On the 4th, an excellent comrade, an
+architectural student, was wounded fairly severely in the arm, but the
+news which he has since sent of himself is good. Then until the 13th,
+terrible day, we lived through some hard times, especially as the
+danger, real enough, was exaggerated by the feeling of suffocation and
+of the unknown which hemmed us round in those woods, so fine at any
+other time.
+
+The important thing is to bear in mind the significance of every moment.
+The problem is of perpetual urgency. On one side the providential
+blessing, up till the present, of complete immunity. On the other, the
+hazards of the future. That is how our wish to do good should be applied
+to the present moment. There is no satisfaction to be had in questioning
+the future, but I believe that every effort made now will avail us then.
+It is a heroic struggle to sustain, but let us count not only on
+ourselves but on another force so much more powerful than our human
+means.
+
+
+_November 21._
+
+To-day we lead a _bourgeoise_ life, almost too comfortable. The cold
+keeps us with the extraordinary woman who lodges us whenever we visit
+the village where we are billeted three days out of nine.
+
+I will not tell you about the pretty view from the window where I write,
+but I will speak of the interior which shelters many of our days. By day
+we live in two rooms divided by a glass partition, and, looking through
+from one room to another, we can admire either the fine fire in the
+great chimney-place or the magnificent wardrobe and the Meuse beds made
+of fine old brass. All the delicate life of these two old women (the
+mother, 87 years old, and the daughter) is completely disorganised by
+the roughness, the rudeness, the kind hearts and the generosity of the
+soldiers. These women accept all that comes and are most devoted.
+
+As for Spinoza, whose spirit you already possess, I think that you can
+go straight to the last theorems. You will be sure to have intuitive
+understanding of what he says about the soul's repose. Yes, those are
+moments experienced by us too rarely in our weakness, but they suffice
+to let us discover in ourselves, through the blows and buffetings of our
+poor human nature, a certain tendency towards what is permanent and
+what is final; and we realise the splendid inheritance of divinity to
+which we are the heirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dear mother, what a happy day I have just spent with you.
+
+There were three of us: we two and the pretty landscape from my window.
+
+Seen from here, winter gives a woolly and muffled air to things. Two
+clouds, or rather mists, wrap the near hillside without taking any
+delicacy from the drawing of the shrubs on the crest; the sky is light
+green. All is filtered. Everything sleeps. This is the time for
+night-attacks, the cries of the charge, the watch in the trenches. Let
+our prayers of every moment ask for the end of this state of things. Let
+us wish for rest for all, a great amends, recompense for all grief and
+pain and separation.
+
+YOUR SON.
+
+
+_Sunday, November 22, 9.30._
+
+I write to you this morning from my favourite place, without anything
+having happened since last night that is worth recording--save perhaps
+the thousand flitting nothings in the landscape. I got up with the sun,
+which now floods all the space with silver. The cold is still keen, but
+by piling on our woollen things we get the better of it on these nights
+in billets. There is only this to say: that to-morrow we go to our
+trenches in the second line, in the woods that are now thin and
+monotonous. Of our three stations, that is the one I perhaps like the
+least, because the sky is exiled behind high branches. It is more a
+landscape for R----, but flat, and spoilt by the kind of existence that
+one leads there.
+
+Hostilities seem to be recommencing in our region with a certain amount
+of energy. This morning we can hear a violent fusillade, a thing very
+rare in this kind of war, in which attacks are generally made at night,
+the day being practically reserved for artillery bombardments.
+
+Dear mother, let us put our hope in the strength of soul which will make
+petition each hour, each minute. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+. . . Yes, it gives me pleasure to tell you about my life; it is a fine
+life in so many ways. Often, at night, as I walk along the road where
+my little duty takes me, I am full of happiness to be able thus to
+communicate with the greatness of Nature, with the sky and its
+harmonious pattern of stars, with the large and gracious curves of these
+hills; and though the danger is always present, I think that not only
+your courage, your consciousness of the eternal, but also your love for
+me will make you approve of my not stopping perpetually to puzzle over
+the enigma.
+
+So my present life brings extreme degrees of feeling, which cannot be
+measured by time. Feeling produced, for instance, by beautiful leafage,
+the dawn, a delicate landscape, a touching moon. These are all things in
+which qualities at once fleeting and permanent isolate the human heart
+from all preoccupations which lead us in these times either to
+despairing anxiety, or to abject materialism, or again to a cheap
+optimism, which I wish to replace by the high hope that is common to us
+all, and which does not rely on human events.
+
+All my tenderness and constant love for grandmother; for you, courage,
+calm, perfect resignation without effort.
+
+
+_November 23._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--Here we are arrived in our shelters in the second line. We
+lodge in earth huts, where the fire smokes us out as much as it warms
+us. The weather, which during the night was overcast, has given us a
+charming blue and rosy morning. Unfortunately the woods have less to say
+to me than the marvellous spaces of our front lines. Still, all is
+beautiful here.
+
+Yesterday my day was made up of the happiness of writing to you; I went
+into the village church without being urged by a single romantic feeling
+nor any desire for comfort from without. My conception of divine harmony
+did not need to be supported by any outward form, or popular symbol.
+
+Then I had the great good fortune to go with a carriage into the
+surrounding country. Oh, the marvellous landscape--still of blue and
+rosy colour, paled by the mist! All this rich and luminous delicacy
+found definite accents in the abrupt spots made by people scattered
+about the open. My landscape, always primitive in its precision, now
+took on a subtlety of nuances, a richness of variety essentially modern.
+
+One moment I recalled the peculiar outer suburbs of Paris with their
+innumerable notes and their suppressed effects. But here there is more
+frankness and candour. Here everything was simply rose and blue against
+a pale grey ground.
+
+My driver, getting into difficulty with his horse, entrusted the whip to
+me to touch up the animal: I must have looked like a little mechanical
+toy.
+
+We passed by the Calvaries which keep guard over the Meuse villages, a
+few trees gathered round the cross.
+
+
+_November 24, 3.30_
+(back from the march).
+
+I have just received a letter of the 16th and a card, and a dear letter
+of the 18th. These two last tell me of the arrival of my packet. How
+glad I am to hear that! For a moment I asked myself whether I was right
+to send you these impressions, but, between us two, life has never been
+and can never be anything but a perpetual investigation in the region
+of eternal truths, fervent attention to the truth each earthly spectacle
+presents. And so I do not regret sending you those little notes.
+
+My worst sufferings were during the rainy days of September. Those days
+are a bitter memory to every one. We slept interlocked, face against
+face, hands crossed, in a deluge of water and mud. It would be
+impossible to imagine our despair.
+
+To crown all, after these frightful hours, they told us that the enemy
+was training his machine-guns upon us, and that we must attack him.
+However, we were relieved; the explosion was violent.
+
+As for my still unwritten verse, '_Soleil si pale_,' etc., it relates to
+the 11th, 12th, and 13th of October, and, generally, to the time of the
+battle in the woods, which lasted for our regiment from September 22nd
+to October 13th. What struck me so much was to see the sun rise upon the
+victims.
+
+Since then I have written nothing, but for a prayer which I sent you
+five or six days ago. I composed it while I was on duty on the road.
+
+
+_November 25, in the morning._
+
+. . . Yesterday, in the course of that march, I lived in a picture by my
+beloved primitives. Coming out of the wood, as we went down a long road,
+we had close by us a large farm-house, plumed by a group of bare trees
+beside a frozen pool.
+
+Then, in the under-perspective so cleverly used by my dear painters with
+their air of simplicity, a road, unwinding itself, with its slopes and
+hills, bound in by shrubs, and some solitary trees: all this precise,
+fine, etched, and yet softened. A little bridge spanning a stream, a man
+on horseback passing close to the little bridge, carefully silhouetted,
+and then a little carriage: delicate balance of values, discreet, yet
+well maintained--all this in front of a horizon of noble woods. A kind
+of grey weather which has replaced the enchantment, so modern in
+feeling, of the nuances of last Sunday, takes me back to that incisive
+consciousness which moves us as a Breughel and the other masters, whose
+names escape me. Like this, too, the clear and orderly thronging in
+Albert Dürer backgrounds.
+
+
+_November 26._
+
+DEAREST MOTHER,--I didn't succeed in finishing this letter yesterday. We
+were very busy. And now to-day it is still dark. From my dug-out, where
+I have just arrived in the front line, I send you my great love; I am
+very happy. I feel that the work I am to do in future is taking shape in
+myself. What does it matter if Providence does not allow me to bring it
+to light? I have firm hope, and above all I have confidence in eternal
+justice, however it may surprise our human ideas. . . .
+
+
+_November 28._
+
+The position we occupy is 45 metres away from the enemy. The roads of
+approach are curious and even picturesque in their harshness, emphasised
+by the greyness of the weather.
+
+Our troops, having dodged by night the enemy's vigilance, and come up
+from the valley to the mid-heights where the rising ground protects them
+from the infantry fire, find shelters hollowed from the side of the
+hill, burrows where those who are not on guard can have some sleep and
+the warmth of an Improvised hearth. Then, farther on, just where the
+landscape becomes magnificent in freedom, expanse, and light, the
+winding furrow, called the communication trench, begins. Concealed thus,
+we arrive in the trench, and it is truly a spectacle of war, severe and
+not without grandeur--this long passage which has a grey sky for
+ceiling, and in which the floor is covered over with recent snow. Here
+the last infantry units are stationed--units, generally, of feeble
+effective. The enemy is not more than a hundred metres away. From there
+continues the communication trench, more and more deep and winding, in
+which I feel anew the emotion I always get from contact with newly
+turned earth. The excavating for the banking-up works stirs something in
+me: it is as if the energy of this disembowelled earth took hold of me
+and told me the history of life.
+
+Two or three sappers are at work lengthening the hollows, watched by the
+Germans who, from point to point, can snipe the insufficiently protected
+places. At this end the last sentry guards about forty metres.
+
+You can picture the contrast between all this military organisation and
+the peace that used to reign here. Think what an astonishment it is to
+me to remember that where I now look the labourer once walked behind his
+plough, and that the sun, whose glory I contemplate as a prisoner
+contemplates liberty, shone upon him freely on these heights.
+
+Then, too, when at dusk I come out into the open, what an ecstasy! I
+won't speak to you of this, for I feel I must be silent about these
+joys. They must not be exposed: they are birds that love silence. . . .
+Let us confine our speech to that essential happiness which is not
+easily affrighted--the happiness of feeling ourselves prepared equally
+for all.
+
+_November 29, in the morning_
+(from a billet).
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--Yesterday evening I left the first line trenches
+in broken weather which, in the night, after my arrival here, turned
+into rain. I watch it falling through the fog from my favourite window.
+If you like I will tell you of the wonders I saw yesterday.
+
+From the position described in my letter of yesterday, can be seen, as
+I have often written to you, the most marvellous horizon. Yesterday a
+terrible wind rent a low veil of clouds which grew red at their summits.
+Perhaps the background of my 'Haheyna' will give you a faint idea of
+what it was. But how much more majestic and full of animation was the
+emotion I experienced yesterday.
+
+The hills and valleys passed in turn from light to shade, now defined,
+now veiled, according to the movement of the mists. High up, blue spaces
+fringed with light.
+
+Such was the beauty of yesterday. Shall I speak of the evenings that
+went before, when, on my way along the road, the moon brought out the
+pattern of the trees, the pathetic Calvaries, the touching spectacle of
+houses which one knew were ruins, but which night seemed to make stand
+forth again like an appeal for peace.
+
+I am glad to see you like Verlaine. Read the fine preface by Coppée to
+the selected works, which you will find in my library.
+
+His fervour has a spontaneity, I might almost say a grossness, which
+always repels me a little, just because it belongs to that kind of
+Catholic fervour which on its figurative side will always leave me cold.
+But what a poet!
+
+He has been my almost daily delight both here and when I was in Paris;
+often the music of his _Paysages Tristes_ comes back to me, exactly
+expressing the emotion of certain hours. His life is as touching as that
+of a sick animal, and one almost wonders that a like indignity has not
+withered the exquisite flowers of his poetry. His conversion, that of an
+artist rather than of a thinker, followed on a great upsetting of his
+existence which resulted from grave faults of his. (He was in prison.)
+
+In the _Lys Rouge_ Anatole France has drawn a striking portrait of him,
+under the name of Choulette; perhaps you will find we have this book.
+
+In _Sagesse_ the poems are fine and striking because of the true impulse
+and sincerity of the remorse. A little as though the cry of the _Nuit de
+Mai_ resounded all through his work.
+
+Our two great poets of the last century, Musset and Verlaine, were two
+unhappy beings without any moral principle with which to stake up their
+flowers of thought--yet what magnificent and intoxicating flowers.
+
+Perhaps I tire you when I speak thus on random subjects, but to do so
+enables me to plunge back into my old life for a little while. Since I
+had the happiness of getting your letters, I have not taken note of
+anything. Do not think that distractions by the way make me forgetful of
+our need and hope, but I believe it is just the beautiful adornment of
+life which gives it, for you and me, its value.
+
+I am still expecting letters from you after that of the 22nd, but I am
+sure to get them here in this billet. Thank you for the parcel you
+promise: poor mothers, what pains they all take!
+
+
+_December 1, in the morning_
+(from a billet).
+
+I remember the satisfaction I felt in my freedom when I was exempted
+from my military duties. It seemed to me that if, at twenty-seven years
+old, I had been obliged to return to the regiment, my life and career
+would have been irretrievably lost. And here I am now, twenty-eight
+years old, back in the army, far from my work, my responsibilities, my
+ambitions--and yet never has life brought me such a full measure of
+finer feelings; never have I been able to record such freshness of
+sensibility, such security of conscience. So those are the blessings
+arising out of the thing which my reasonable human foresight envisaged
+as disaster. And thus continues the lesson of Providence which,
+upsetting all my fears, makes good arise out of every change of
+situation.
+
+The two last sunrises, yesterday and to-day, were lovely. . . .
+
+I feel inclined to make you a little sketch of the view from my
+window. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is done from memory; in your imagination you must add streaks of
+purple colour, making the most dramatic effect, and an infinite stretch
+of open country to right and left. This is what I have been able again
+and again to look upon, during this time. At this moment, the soft sky
+brings into harmony the orchards where we work. My little job dispenses
+me from digging for the time. Such are the happinesses which, from afar,
+had the appearance of calamities.
+
+
+_December 1_ (2nd letter).
+
+I have just received your letters of the 25th, 26th, and 27th, as well
+as a dear letter from Grandmother, so valiant, so full of spirit, and so
+clear-minded. It gave me great pleasure, and brings me a dear hope, of
+which I accept the augury with joy. Each one of your beloved letters,
+too, gives me the best of what life holds for me. My first letter of
+to-day replies to what you say about the acceptation of trials and the
+destruction of idols.
+
+You will see that I think absolutely as you do, and I trust that there
+is in this hour no impeding idol in my heart. . . .
+
+I think that my last prayer is in fact very simple. The spirit of the
+place could not have borne to be clothed in an art that was overloaded.
+God was everywhere, and everywhere was harmony: the road at night, of
+which I speak to you so often, the starry sky, the valley full of the
+murmuring of water, the trees, the Calvaries, the hills near and far.
+There would not have been any room for artifice. It is useless for me to
+give up being an artist, but I hope always to be sincere and to use art
+as it were only for the clothing of my conscience.
+
+
+_December 5, in the morning._
+
+. . . We have come out of our burrows, and three days of imprisonment are
+followed by a morning in the open. It would be impossible to imagine
+such a state of mud.
+
+Your pretty aluminium watch is the admiration of everybody.
+
+Is André's wound serious? The mothers endure terrible agony in this war,
+but courage--nothing will be lost. As for me, I get on all right, and am
+as happy as one may be.
+
+A terrific wind to-day, chasing the fine clouds. Keen air, in which the
+branches thrive. Beautiful moonlight on all these nights, all the more
+appreciated if one has been cheated of the day.
+
+Dear, I am writing badly to-day because we are bewildered by the full
+daylight after those long hours of darkness, but my heart goes out to
+you and rests with you.
+
+. . . Let us bring to everything the spirit of courage. Let us have
+confidence in God always, whatever happens. How much I feel, as you do,
+that one can adore Him only with one's spirit! And like you I think that
+we must avoid all pride which condemns the ways of other people. Let our
+love lead us in union towards the universal Providence. Let us, in
+constant prayer, give back our destiny into His hands. Let us humbly
+admit to Him our human hopes, trying at every moment to link them to
+eternal wisdom. It is a task which now seems full of difficulty, but
+difficulty is in everything in life.
+
+
+_Sunday, December 6._
+
+I am happy to see you so determinedly courageous. We have need of
+courage, or, rather, we have need of something difficult to obtain,
+which is neither patience nor overconfidence, but a certain belief in
+the order of things, the power to be able to say of every trial that it
+is well.
+
+Our instinct for life makes us try to free ourselves from our
+obligations when they are too cruel, too oft-repeated, but, as I am
+happy to know, you have been able to see what Spinoza understood by
+human liberty. Inaccessible ideal, to which one must cling
+nevertheless. . . .
+
+. . . Dear mother, these trials that we must accept are long, but
+notwithstanding their unchanging form one cannot call them monotonous,
+since they call upon courage which must be perpetually new. Let us unite
+together for God to grant us strength and resource in accepting
+everything. . . .
+
+You know what I call religion: that which unites in man all his ideas of
+the universal and the eternal, those two forms of God. Religion, in the
+ordinary sense of the word, is but the binding together of certain moral
+and disciplinary formulas with the fine poetic imagery of the great
+biblical and Christian philosophies.
+
+Do not let us offend any one. Looked at properly, religious formulas,
+however apart they may remain from my own habit of mind, seem to me
+praiseworthy and sympathetic in all that they contain of aspiration and
+beauty and form.
+
+Dear mother whom I love, let us always hope: trials are legion, but
+beauty remains. Let us pray that we may long continue to contemplate
+it. . . .
+
+
+_Monday, December 7._
+
+MY BELOVED MOTHER,--I am writing this in the night . . . by six o'clock
+in the morning military life will be in full swing.
+
+My candle is stuck on a bayonet, and every now and then a drop of water
+falls on to my nose. My poor companions try to light a reluctant fire.
+Our time in the trenches transforms us into lumps of mud.
+
+The general good humour is admirable. However the men may long to
+return, they accept none the less heroically the vicissitudes of the
+situation. Their courage, infinitely less 'literary' than mine, is so
+much the more practical and adaptable; but each bird has its cry, and
+mine has never been a war-cry. I am happy to have felt myself responsive
+to all these blows, and my hope lies in the thought that they will have
+forged my soul. Also I place confidence in God and whatever He holds in
+store for me.
+
+I seem to foresee my work in the future. Not that I build much on this
+presentiment, for all artists have conceived work which has never come
+to light. Mozart was about to make a new start when he died, and
+Beethoven planned the 'Tenth Symphony' in ignorance of the all too brief
+time that was to be allowed him by destiny.
+
+It is the duty of the artist to open his flowers without dread of frost,
+and perhaps God will allow my efforts to fulfil themselves in the
+future. My very various attempts at work all have an indescribable
+immaturity about them still, a halting execution, which consorts badly
+with the real loftiness of the intention. It seems to me that my art
+will not quite expand until my life is further advanced. Let us pray
+that God will allow me to attain. . . .
+
+As for what is in your own heart, I have such confidence in your courage
+that this certainty is my great comfort in this hour. I know that my
+mother has gained that freedom of soul which allows contemplation of the
+universal scheme of things. I know from my own experience how
+intermittent is this wisdom, but even to taste of it is already to
+possess God. It is the security I derive from knowledge of your soul and
+your love, that enables me to think of the future in whatever form it
+may come.
+
+
+_December 9._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--P---- L----, in his charming letter, tells me he would
+willingly exchange his philosophers for a gun. He is quite wrong. For
+one thing, Spinoza is a most valuable aid in the trenches; and then it
+is those who are still in a position to profit by culture and progress
+who must now carry on French thought. They have an overwhelmingly
+difficult task, calling for far more initiative than ours. We are free
+of all burden. I think our existence is like that of the early monks:
+hard, regular discipline and freedom from all external obligations.
+
+
+_December 10_
+(a marvellous morning).
+
+Our third day in billets brings us the sweetness of friendly weather.
+The inveterate deluge of our time in the first line relents a little,
+and the sun shows itself timidly.
+
+Our situation, which has been pleasant enough during the last two
+months, may now be expected entirely to change.
+
+The impregnability of the positions threatens to make the war
+interminable; one of the two adversaries must use his offensive to
+unlock the situation and precipitate events. I think the high command
+faces this probability--and I hardly dare tell you that I cannot regret
+anything that increases the danger.
+
+Our life, of which a third part is flatly bourgeois and the two other
+parts present just about the same dangers as, say, chemical works do,
+will end by deadening all sensibility. It is true we shall be grieved to
+leave what we are used to, but perhaps we were getting too accustomed to
+a state of well-being which could not last.
+
+My own circumstances are perhaps going to change. I shall probably lose
+my course, being mentioned for promotion to the rank of corporal, which
+means being constantly in the trenches and various duties in the first
+line. I hope God will continue to bless me.
+
+. . . I feel that we have nothing to ask. If there should be in us
+something eternal which we must still manifest on earth, we may be sure
+that God will let us do it.
+
+
+_December_ 10 (2nd letter).
+
+Happily you and I live in a domain where everything unites us without
+our having to write our thoughts. . . .
+
+The weather is overcast again and promises us a wet time in the first
+and second lines.
+
+The day declines, and a great melancholy falls too upon everything. This
+is the hour of sadness for those who are far away, for all the soldiers
+whose hearts are with their homes, and who see night closing down upon
+the earth.
+
+I come to you, and immediately my heart grows warm. I can feel your
+attentive tenderness, and the wisdom which inspires your courage.
+Sometimes I am afraid of always saying the same thing, but how can I
+find new words for my poor love, tossed always through the same
+vicissitudes? Now that we are going to set out, perhaps we shall have to
+leave behind many cherished keepsakes, but the soul should not be
+strongly tied to fetiches. We are fond of clinging to many things, but
+love can do without them.
+
+
+_December 12, 10 o'clock_ (card).
+
+A soft day under the rain. All goes well in our melancholy woods. In
+various parts of the neighbourhood there has been a terrible cannonade.
+
+Received your letters of the 4th and 6th. They brought me happiness:
+they are the true joy of life. I am glad you visited C----. I hope to
+write to you at greater length. It is not that I have less leisure than
+usual, but I am going through a time when I am less sensible to the
+beauty of things. I long for true wisdom. . . .
+
+
+_December 12, 7 o'clock._
+
+To-day, in spite of the changing beauty of sun and rain, I did not feel
+alive to Nature. Yet never was there such grace and goodness in the
+skies.
+
+The landscape, with the little bridge and the man on horseback of which
+I have told you, softened under the splendour of the clouds. But I had
+lapsed from my former sense of the benediction of God, when suddenly
+the beauty, all the beauty, of a certain tree spoke to my inmost heart.
+It told me of fairness that never fails; of the greenness of ivy and the
+redness of autumn, the rigidity of winter in the branches;--and then I
+understood that an instant of such contemplation is the whole of life,
+the very reward of existence, beside which all human expectation is
+nothing but a bad dream.
+
+
+_Sunday, December 13._
+
+. . . After a refreshing night I walked to-day in these woods where for
+three months the dead have strewn the ground. To-day the vanishing
+autumn displayed its richness, and the same beauty of mossy trunks spoke
+to me, as it did yesterday, of eternal joy.
+
+I am sure it needs an enormous effort to feel all this, but it must be
+felt if we are to understand how little the general harmony is disturbed
+by that which intolerably assails our emotions.
+
+We must feel that all human uprooting is only a little thing, and what
+is truly ourselves is the life of the soul.
+
+
+_December 14_ (splendid weather,
+with all the calm returned).
+
+We are still here in the region of the first line, but in a place where
+we can lift our heads and behold the charm of my Meusian hills, clearing
+in the delicate weather.
+
+Above the village and the orchards I see the lines of birches and firs.
+Some have their skeletons coloured with a diaphanous violet marked with
+white. Others build up the horizon with stronger lines.
+
+I have been strengthened by the splendid lesson given me by a beautiful
+tree during a march. Ah, dear mother, we may all disappear and Nature
+will remain, and the gift I had from her of a moment of herself is
+enough to justify a whole existence. That tree was like a soldier.
+
+You would not believe how much harm has been done to the forests about
+here: it is not so much the machine-guns as the frightful amount of
+cutting necessary for making our shelters and for our fuel. Ah well, in
+the midst of this devastation something told me that there will always
+be beauty, in man and in tree.
+
+For man also gives this lesson, though in him it is less easily
+distinguished: it is a fine thing to see the splendid vitality of all
+this youth, whose force no harvest can diminish.
+
+
+_December 15, morning._
+
+I have had your dear letter of the 9th, in which you speak of our home.
+It makes me happy to feel how fine and strong is the force of life which
+soon adjusts itself to each separation and uprooting. It makes me happy,
+too, to think that my letters find an echo in your heart. Sometimes I
+was afraid of boring you, because though our life is so fine in many
+ways, it is certainly very primitive, and there are not many salient
+things to relate.
+
+If only I could follow my calling of painter I could have recourse to
+these wonderful visions that lie before me, and I could find vent for
+all the pent-up artist's emotion that is within me. As it is, in trying
+to speak of the sky, the tree, the hill, or the horizon, I cannot use
+words as subtle as they, and the infinite variety of these things can
+only be named in the same general terms, which I am afraid of constantly
+repeating. . . .
+
+
+_December 15._
+
+One must adapt oneself to this special kind of life, which is indigent
+as far as intellectual activity goes, but marvellously rich in emotion.
+I suppose that in troubled times for many centuries there have been men
+who, weary of luxury, have sought in the peace of the cloister the
+contemplation of eternal things; contemplation threatened by the crowd,
+but a refuge even so. And so I think our life is like that of the monks
+of old, who were military too, and more apt at fighting than I could
+ever be. Among them, those who willed could know the joy which I now
+find.
+
+To-day I have a touching letter from Madame M----, whose spirit I love
+and admire.
+
+Changeable but very beautiful weather.
+
+It is impossible to say more than we have already said about the
+attitude we must adopt in regard to events. The important thing is to
+put this attitude in practice. It is not easy, as I have learnt in these
+last days, though no new difficulty had arisen to impede my path towards
+wisdom.
+
+. . . Tormenting anxiety can sometimes be mistaken for an alert
+conscience.
+
+
+_December 16._
+
+Yesterday in our shelter I got out your little album--very much damaged,
+alas--and I tried to copy some of the lines of the landscape. I was
+stopped by the cold, and I was returning dissatisfied when I suddenly
+had the idea of making one of my friends sit for me. How can I tell you
+what a joy it was to get a good result! I believe that my little pencil
+proved entirely successful. The sketch has been sent away in a letter to
+some friend of his. It was such a true joy to me to feel I had not lost
+my faculty.
+
+
+_December 17_ (in a new billet).
+
+. . . Last night we left behind all that was familiar when we came out of
+the first-line trenches after three days of perfect peace there. We were
+told off to the billet which we occupied on October 6th and 7th. One
+can feel in the air the wind of change. I don't know what may come, but
+the serenity of the weather to-day seems an augury of happiness.
+
+These have been days of marvellous scenes, which I can appreciate better
+now than during those few days of discouragement, which came because I
+allowed myself to reckon things according to our miserable human
+standards.
+
+I write to you by a window from which I watch the sunset. You see that
+goodness is everywhere for us.
+
+
+_3 o'clock._
+
+. . . I take up this letter once more in the twilight of an exceptional
+winter: the day fades away as calmly as it came. I am watching the women
+washing clothes under the lines of trees on the river bank; there is
+peace everywhere--I think even in our hearts. Night falls. . . .
+
+
+_December 19_ (in a billet).
+
+A sweet day, ending here round the table. Quiet, drawing, music. I can
+think with calm of the length of the days to come when I realise how
+swift have been these days that are past. Half the month is gone, and
+Christmas comes in the midst of war. The only thing for me is to adapt
+myself entirely to these conditions of existence, and, owing to my union
+with you, to gain a degree of acceptance which is of an order higher
+than human courage.
+
+
+_December 21, morning._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--I have told you freely in my letters of my
+happiness; but the rock ahead of happiness is that poor humanity is in
+perpetual fear of losing it. In spite of all experience, we do not
+realise that in the eternal scheme of things a new happiness always
+grows at the side of an old one.
+
+For myself, I have not to look for a new one. I have only to try to
+reconcile two wisdoms. One, which is human, prompts me to cultivate my
+happiness, but the other teaches me that human happiness is a most
+perishable flower.
+
+We may say: Let us make use of the joys chosen by an upright conscience;
+but let us never forget how swiftly these pass.
+
+Yes, the Holy Scriptures contain the finest and most poetical
+philosophy. I think they owe it to their affiliation to the oldest
+philosophies. There are many disputable things in Edouard Schuré, but
+what remains is the divination which made him climb through all doctrine
+to the infinitely distant Source of human wisdom.
+
+Do you know that those touching traditions of the Good Shepherd and the
+Divine Mother, so happily employed in our Christian religions, are the
+creations of the oldest symbolism? The Greeks derived them from their
+own spiritual ancestors; with them the good shepherd was called Hermes,
+the god of the migration of souls. In the same way, the type of our
+Madonna is the great Demeter, the mother who bears an infant in her
+arms.
+
+One feels that all religions, as they succeeded each other, transmitted
+the same body of symbols, renewed each time by humanity's
+perpetually-young spirit of poetry.
+
+
+_December 23_ (in the dark).
+
+I had begun this letter yesterday, when I was forced to leave off. It
+was then splendid weather, which has lasted fairly well. But we are now
+back again in our first lines. This time we are occupying the village
+itself, our pretty Corot village of two months ago. But our outpost is
+situated in a house where we are obliged to show no sign of life, so as
+to conceal our presence from the enemy. And so here we are at nine
+o'clock in the morning, in a darkness that would make it seem to be late
+on Christmas eve.
+
+Your dear letter lately received has given me great joy. It is true that
+Grace and Inspiration are two names for the same thing.
+
+If you are going to see the pictures of the great poet Gustave Moreau,
+you will see a panel called _La vie de l'humanité_ (I believe). It
+consists of nine sections in three divisions, called _l'Age d'or, l'Age
+d'argent, l'Age de fer_. Above is a pediment from which Christ presides
+over this human panorama. But this is where this great genius has the
+same intuition as you had: each of the three parts bears the name of a
+hero--Adam, Orpheus, and Cain, and each one represents three periods.
+Now, the periods of the golden age are called Ecstasy, Prayer, and
+Sleep, while the periods of the silver age are called Inspiration, Song,
+and Tears.
+
+Ecstasy is the same as Grace, because the picture shows Adam and Eve in
+the purity of their souls, in a scene of flowers, and in the enjoyment
+of divine contemplation. The harmony of Nature itself urges them on in
+their impulse towards God.
+
+In the silver age, Inspiration is still Grace, but just beginning to be
+complicated by human artifice. The poet Orpheus perpetually contemplates
+God, but the Muse is always at his elbow, the symbol of human art is
+already born; and that great human manifestation of God, Song, brings
+with it grief and tears.
+
+Following out the cycle and coming to human evil, Gustave Moreau shows
+the iron age--Cain condemned to labour and sorrow.
+
+This work shows that the divine moment may be seized, but is fugitive
+and can never remain with man. It explains our failures. People say that
+the picture is too literary, but it touches the heart of those who wish
+to break through the ice with which all human expression is chilled.
+
+Undoubtedly Rembrandt was the Poet of genius _par excellence_, at the
+same time as he was pure Painter. But let us grant that ours is a less
+rich time, our temperaments less universal; and let us recognise the
+beauty of Gustave Moreau's poem, of which, in two words, you expressed
+the spirit.
+
+YOUR SON.
+
+
+_December 24, morning._
+
+Our first day in the outpost passed away in the calm of a country
+awaiting snow. It came in the night.
+
+In the back gardens, which lie in sight of the Germans, I went out to
+see it, where it emphasised and ennobled the least of things. Then I
+came back to my candle, and I write on a table where my neighbour is
+grating chocolate. So that is war.
+
+Military life has some amusing surprises. We had to come to the first
+line before two non-commissioned officers found a bath and could bathe
+themselves. As for me, I have made myself a water-jug out of a part of a
+75.
+
+. . . I will not speak of patience, since a reserve of mere patience may
+be useless preparation for the unknown quantity. But I must say that the
+time goes extremely quickly.
+
+We spend child-like days; indeed we are children in regard to these
+events, and the benefit of this war will have been to restore youth to
+the hearts of those who return.
+
+Dear mother, our village has just had a visit from two shells. Will they
+be followed by others? May God help us! The other day they sent us a
+hundred and fifteen, to wound one man in the wrist!
+
+A house in which a section of our company is living is in flames. We
+have not seen a soul stirring. We can only hope that it is well with
+them.
+
+I am deeply happy to have lived through these few months. They have
+taught me what one can make of one's life, in any circumstances.
+
+My fellow-soldiers are splendid examples of the French spirit. . . .
+They swagger, but their swagger is only the outer form of a deep and
+magnificent courage.
+
+My great fault as an artist is that I am always wanting to clothe the
+soul of the race in some beautiful garment painted in my own colours.
+And when people irritate me it is that they are soiling these beautiful
+robes; but, as a matter of fact, they would find them a bad encumbrance
+in the way of their plain duty.
+
+
+_Christmas Morning._
+
+What a unique night!--night without parallel, in which beauty has
+triumphed, in which mankind, notwithstanding their delirium of
+slaughter, have proved the reality of their conscience.
+
+During the intermittent bombardments a song has never ceased to rise
+from the whole line.
+
+Opposite to us a most beautiful tenor was declaiming the enemy's
+Christmas. Much farther off, beyond the ridges, where our lines begin
+again, the _Marseillaise_ replied. The marvellous night lavished on us
+her stars and meteors. Hymns, hymns, from end to end.
+
+It was the eternal longing for harmony, the indomitable claim for order
+and beauty and concord.
+
+As for me, I cherished old memories in meditating on the sweetness of
+the Childhood of Christ. The freshness, the dewy youthfulness of this
+French music, were very moving to me. I remembered the celebrated
+_Sommeil des Pèlerins_ and the shepherds' chorus. A phrase which is sung
+by the Virgin thrilled me: '_Le Seigneur, pour mon fils, a béni cet
+asile_.' The melody rang in my ears while I was in that little house,
+with its neighbour in flames, and itself given over to a precarious
+fate.
+
+I thought of all happinesses bestowed; I thought that you were perhaps
+at this moment calling down a blessing upon my abode. The sky was so
+lovely that it seemed to smile favourably upon all petition; but what I
+want strength to ask for perpetually is consistent wisdom--wisdom which,
+human though it may be, is none the less safe from anything that may
+assail it.
+
+The sun is flooding the country and yet I write by candle-light; now and
+then I go out into the back gardens to see the sun. All is light, peace
+falling from on high upon the deserted country.
+
+I come back to our room, where the brass of the pretty Meusian beds and
+the carved wood of the cupboards shine in the half-light. All these
+things have suffered through the rough use the soldiers put them to, but
+we have real comfort here. We have found table-implements and a
+dinner-service, and for two days running we made chocolate in a
+soup-tureen. Luxury!
+
+O dear mother, if God allows me the joy of returning, what youth will
+this extraordinary time have brought back to me! As I wrote to my friend
+P----, I lead the life of a child in the midst of people so simple that
+even my rudimentary existence is complicated in comparison with my
+surroundings.
+
+Mother dear, the length of this war tries our power of passive will, but
+I feel that everything is coming out as I was able to foresee. I think
+that these long spells of inactivity will give repose to the
+intellectual machine. If I ever have the happiness of once more making
+use of mine, it is sure to take a little time to get moving again, but
+with what new vigour! My last work was one of pure thought, and my
+ambition, which all things justify, is to give a more plastic form to my
+thought as it develops.
+
+
+_Sunday, December 27, 9 o'clock_
+(5th day in the first line).
+
+It appears that the terrible position, courageously held by us on
+October 14th, and immediately lost by our successors, has been retaken,
+and 200 metres more, but at the price of a hundred casualties.
+
+Dear mother, want of sleep robs me of all intelligence. True, one needs
+little of that for the general run of existence here, but I should have
+liked to speak to you. The only consolation is that our love needs no
+expression.
+
+Very little to tell you. I was quite stupefied by the day's work
+yesterday, spent entirely in darkness. From my place I had only a
+glimpse of a pretty tree against the sky.
+
+To-day, in the charming early morning I saw a beautiful and extremely
+brilliant star. I had gone to fetch some coal and water, and on the way
+back, when daylight had already come, that extraordinary star still
+persisted. My corporal, who, like me, was dodging from bush to bush back
+to our house, said:
+
+'Do you know what that star is? It is the sign for the enemy's patrol to
+rally.'
+
+It was true, and at first I felt outraged at this profanation of the
+sky, and then (apart from the ingenuity of the thing) I told myself that
+this star meant, for those poor creatures on the other side, that they
+could take the direction of safety. I felt less angry about it then. The
+sign had given me so much joy as a star that I decided to stick to my
+first impression.
+
+
+_December 30._
+
+Your Christmas letter came last night. Perhaps in this very hour when I
+am writing to you, mine of the same day is reaching you. At that time,
+in spite of the risk, I was enjoying all the beauty, but to-day I
+confess it is poisoned for me by what we hear of the last slaughter.
+
+On the 26th we were made to remain on duty, in positions occupied only
+at night as a rule. Our purely defensive position was lucky that day,
+for we were exposed only to slight artillery fire; but on our right a
+regiment of our division, in one of the terrible emplacements of
+October 14th, received an awful punishment, of which the inconclusive
+result cost several hundred lives. Here in our great village, where our
+kind hostess knew, as we did, the victims, all is sadness.
+
+
+_Same day._
+
+. . . Nothing attacks the soul. The torture can certainly be very great,
+especially the apprehension, but questions coming from the distance can
+be silenced by acceptation of what is close. The weather is sweet and
+soft, and Nature is indifferent. The dead will not spoil the spring. . . .
+
+And then, once the horror of the moment is over, when one sees its place
+taken by only the memory of those who have gone, there is a kind of
+sweetness in the thought of what _really exists_. In these solemn woods
+one realises the inanity of sepulchres and the pomp of funerals. The
+souls of the brave have no need of all that. . . .
+
+
+_4 o'clock._
+
+I have just finished the fourth portrait, a lieutenant in my company. He
+is delighted. Daylight fades. I send you my thoughts, full of
+cheerfulness. Hope and wisdom.
+
+
+_January 3, 1915._
+
+. . . Yesterday, after the first satisfaction of finding myself freed
+from manual work, I contemplated my stripes, and I felt some
+humiliation, because instead of the great anonymous superiority of the
+ordinary soldier which had put me beyond all military valuation, I had
+now the distinction of being a low number in military rank!
+
+But then I felt that each time I looked at my little bits of red wool I
+should remember my social duty, a duty which my leaning towards
+individualism makes me forget only too often. So I knew I was still free
+to cultivate my soul, having this final effort to demand of it.
+
+
+_January 4, despatched on the 7th_
+(in a mine).
+
+I am writing to you at the entrance to an underground passage which
+leads under the enemy emplacement. My little job is to look out for the
+safety of the sappers, who are hollowing out and supporting and
+consolidating an excavation about twelve metres deep already. To get to
+this place we have to plunge into mud up to our thighs, but during the
+eight hours we spend here we are sheltered by earthworks several metres
+thick.
+
+I have six men, with whom I have led an existence of sleeplessness and
+privation for three days: this is the benefit I derive from the joyful
+event of my new status; but as a matter of fact I am glad to take part
+in these trials again.
+
+Besides, in a few days the temporary post which I held before may be
+given to me altogether. Horrible weather, and to make matters worse, I
+burnt an absolutely new boot, and am soaking wet, like the others, but
+in excellent health.
+
+Dear, I am now going to sleep a little.
+
+
+_January 6, evening._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--Here we are in a billet after seventy-two consecutive
+hours without sleep, living in a nameless treacly substance--rain and
+filth.
+
+I have had several letters from you, dear beloved mother; the last is
+dated January 1. How I love them! But before speaking of them I must
+sleep a little.
+
+
+_January 7, towards mid-day._
+
+This interrupted letter winds up at the police-station, where my section
+is on guard. The weather is still horrible. It's unspeakable, this
+derangement of our whole existence. We are under water: the walls are of
+mud, and the floor and ceiling too.
+
+
+_January 9._
+
+. . . My consolations fail me in these days, on account of the weather.
+This horrible mess lets me see nothing whatever. I close with an ardent
+appeal to our love, and in the certainty of a justice higher than our
+own. . . .
+
+Dear mother, as to sending things, I am really in need of nothing.
+Penury now is of another kind, but courage, always! Yet is it even sure
+that moral effort bears any fruit?
+
+
+_January 13, morning_ (in the trench).
+
+I hope that when you think of me you will have in mind all those who
+have left everything behind: their family, their surroundings, their
+whole social environment; all those of whom their nearest and dearest
+think only in the past, saying, 'We had once a brother, who, many years
+ago, withdrew from this world, we know nothing of his fate.' Then I,
+feeling that you too have abandoned all human attachment, will walk
+freely in this life, closed to all ordinary relations.
+
+I don't regret my new rank; it has brought me many troubles but a great
+deal of experience, and, as a matter of fact, some ameliorations.
+
+So I want to continue to live as fully as possible in this moment, and
+that will be all the easier for me if I can feel that you have brought
+yourself to the idea that my present life cannot in any way be lost.
+
+I did not tell you enough what pleasure the _Revues Hebdomadaires_ gave
+me. I found some extracts from that speech on Lamartine which I am
+passionately fond of. Circumstances led this poet to give to his art
+only the lowest place. Life in general closed him round, imposing on his
+great heart a more serious and immediate task than that which awaited
+his genius.
+
+
+_January 15_ (in a new billet), 12.30 P.M.
+
+We no longer have any issue whatever in sight.
+
+My only sanction is in my conscience. We must confide ourselves to an
+impersonal justice, independent of any human factor, and to a useful and
+harmonious destiny, in spite of the horrors of its form.
+
+
+_January 17, afternoon_ (in a billet).
+
+What shall I say to you on this strange January afternoon, when thunder
+is followed by snow?
+
+Our billet provides us with many commodities, but above all with an
+intoxicating beauty and poetry. Imagine a lake in a park sheltered by
+high hills, and a castle, or, rather, a splendid country house. We lodge
+in the domestic offices, but I don't need any wonderful home comforts
+to perfect the dream-like existence that I have led here for three days.
+Last night we were visited by some singers. We were very far from the
+music that I love, but the popular and sentimental tunes were quite able
+to replace a finer art, because of the ardent conviction of the singer.
+The workman who sang these songs, which were decent, in fact moral (a
+rather questionable moral, perhaps, but still a moral), so put his soul
+into it that the timbre of his voice was altogether too moving for our
+hostesses. Here are the ideal people: perhaps their ideal may be said
+not to exist and to be purely negative, but months of suffering have
+taught me to honour it.
+
+I have just seen that Charles Péguy died at the beginning of the war.
+How terribly French thought will have been mown down! What surpasses our
+understanding (and yet what is only natural) is that civilians are able
+to continue their normal life while we are in torment. I saw in the _Cri
+de Paris_, which drifted as far as here, a list of concert programmes.
+What a contrast! However, mother dear, the essential thing is to have
+known beauty in moments of grace.
+
+The weather is frightful, but one can feel the coming of spring. At a
+time like this nothing can speak of individual hope, only of great
+general certainties.
+
+
+_January 19._
+
+We have been since yesterday in our second line positions; we came to
+them in marvellous snow and frost. A furious sky, with charming rosy
+colour in it, floated over the visionary forest in the snow; the trees,
+limpid blue low down, brown and fretted above, the earth white.
+
+I have received two parcels; the _Chanson de Roland_ gives me infinite
+pleasure--particularly the Introduction, treating of the national epic
+and of the Mahabharata which, it seems, tells of the fight between the
+spirits of good and evil.
+
+I am happy in your lovely letters. As for the sufferings which you
+forebode for me, they are really very tolerable.
+
+But what we must recognise, and without shame, is that we are a
+_bourgeois_ people. We have tasted of the honey of civilisation--poisoned
+honey, no doubt. But no, surely that sweetness is true, and we should
+not be called upon to make of our ordinary existence a preparation for
+violence. I know that violence may be salutary to us, especially if in
+the midst of it we do not lose sight of normal order and calm.
+
+Order leads to eternal rest. Violence makes life go round. We have, for
+our object, order and eternal rest; but without the violence which lets
+loose reserves of energy, we should be too inclined to consider order as
+already attained. But anticipated order can only be a lethargy which
+retards the coming of positive order.
+
+Our sufferings arise only from our disappointment in this delay; the
+coming of true order is too long for human patience. In any case,
+however suffering, we would rather not be doers of violence. It is as
+when matter in fusion solidifies too quickly and in the wrong shape: it
+has to be put to the fire again. This is the part violence plays in
+human evolution; but that salutary violence must not make us forget what
+our æsthetic citizenship had acquired in the way of perdurable peace and
+harmony. But our suffering comes precisely from the fact that we do not
+forget it!
+
+
+_January 20, morning._
+
+Do not think that I ever deprive myself of sleep. In that matter our
+regiment is very fitful: one time we sleep for three days and three
+nights; another time, the opposite.
+
+Now Nature gives me her support once more. The frightful spell of rain
+is interrupted by fine cold days. We live in the midst of beautiful
+frost and snow; the hard earth gives us a firm footing.
+
+My little grade gets me some solitude. I no longer have my happy walks
+by night, but I have them in the day; my exemption from the hardest work
+gives me time to realise the beauty of things.
+
+Yesterday, an unspeakable sunset. A filmy atmosphere, with shreds of
+tender colour; underneath, the blue cold of the snow.
+
+Dear mother, it is a night of home-sickness. These familiar verses came
+to me in the peace:
+
+          'Mon enfant, ma soeur,
+           Songe à la douceur
+           D'aller là-bas vivre ensemble
+           Au pays qui te ressemble.'
+
+Yes, Beaudelaire's _Invitation au voyage_ seemed to take wing in the
+exquisite sky. Oh, I was far from war. Well, to return to earthly
+things: in coming back I nearly missed my dinner.
+
+
+_January 20, evening._
+
+Acceptation always. Adaptation to the life which goes on and on, taking
+no notice of our little postulations.
+
+
+_January 21._
+
+We are in our first-line emplacements. The snow has followed us, but
+alas, the thaw too. Happily, in this emplacement we don't live in water
+as we do in the trenches.
+
+Can any one describe the grace of winter trees? Did I already tell you
+what Anatole France says in the _Mannequin d'Osier_? He loves their
+delicate outlines and their intimate beauty more when they are uncovered
+in winter. I too love the marvellous intricate pattern of their branches
+against the sky.
+
+From my post I can see our poor village, which is collapsing more and
+more. Each day shells are destroying it. The church is hollowed out, but
+its old charm remains in its ruins; it crouches so prettily between the
+two delicately defined hills.
+
+We were very happy in the second line. That time of snow was really
+beautiful and clement. I told you yesterday about the sunset the other
+day. And, before that, our arrival in the marvellous woods. . . .
+
+
+_January 22._
+
+. . . I have sent you a few verses; I don't know what they are worth,
+but they reconciled me to life. And then our last billet was really
+wonderful in its beauty. Water running over pebbles . . . vast, limpid
+waters at the end of the park. Sleeping ponds, dreaming walks, which
+none of this brutality has succeeded in defiling. To-day, sun on the
+snow. The beauty of the snow was deeply moving, though certainly we had
+some bad days, days on which there was nothing for us but the wretched
+mud.
+
+It seems that we won't be coming back to this pretty billet. Evidently
+they are making ready for something; the regularity of our winter
+existence has come to an end.
+
+
+_2 o'clock._
+
+Splendid weather, herald of the spring, and we can make the most of it,
+because in this place we are allowed to put our noses out of doors.
+
+I write badly to-day. I can only send you my love. This war is long, and
+I can't even speak of patience.
+
+My only happiness is that during these five and a half months I have so
+often been able to tell you that everything was not ugliness. . . .
+
+
+_January 23._
+
+. . . As for me, I have no desires left. When my trials are really hard to
+bear, I rest content with my own unhappiness, without facing other
+things.
+
+When they become less hard, then I begin to think, to dream, and the
+past that is dear to me seems to have that same remote poetry which in
+happier days drew my thoughts to distant countries. A familiar street,
+or certain well-known corners, spring suddenly to my mind--just as in
+other days islands of dreams and legendary countries used to rise at the
+call of certain music and verse. But now there is no need of verse or
+music; the intensity of dear memories is enough.
+
+I have not even any idea of what a new life could be; I only know that
+we are making life here and now.
+
+For whom, and for what age? It hardly matters. What I do know, and what
+is affirmed in the very depths of my being, is that this harvest of
+French genius will be safely stored, and that the intellect of our race
+will not suffer for the deep cuts that have been made in it.
+
+Who will say that the rough peasant, comrade of the fallen thinker, will
+not be the inheritor of his thoughts? No experience can falsify this
+magnificent intuition. The peasant's son who has witnessed the death of
+the young scholar or artist will perhaps take up the interrupted work,
+be perhaps a link in the chain of evolution which has been for a moment
+suspended. This is the real sacrifice: to renounce the hope of being
+the torch-bearer. To a child in a game it is a fine thing to carry the
+flag; but for a man, it is enough to know that the flag will yet be
+carried. And that is what every moment of great august Nature brings
+home to me. Every moment reassures my heart: Nature makes flags out of
+anything. They are more beautiful than those to which our little habits
+cling. And there will always be eyes to see and cherish the lessons of
+earth and sky.
+
+
+_January 26._
+
+Your dear letter of the 20th reached me last night. You must not be
+angry with me if occasionally, as in my letter of the 13th, I lack the
+very thing I am always forcing myself to acquire. But I ask you to
+consider what can be the thoughts of one who is young, in the fulness of
+productiveness, at the hour when life is flowering, if he is snatched
+away, and cast upon barren soil where all he has cherished fails him.
+
+Well, after the first wrench he finds that life has not forsaken him,
+and sets to work upon the new ungrateful ground. The effort calls for
+such a concentration of energy as leaves no time for either hopes or
+fears. It is the constant effort at adaptation, and I manage it, except
+only in moments of the rebellion (quickly suppressed) of the thoughts
+and wishes of the past. But I need my whole strength at times for
+keeping down the pangs of memory and accepting what is.
+
+I was thinking of the sad moments that you too endure, and that was why
+I encouraged you to an impersonal idea of our union. I know how strong
+you are, and how prepared for this idea. Yes, you are right, we must not
+meet the pain half-way. But at times it is difficult to distinguish
+between the real suffering that affects us, and that which is only
+possible or imminent.
+
+Mind you notice that _I have perfect hope_ and that I count on
+prevailing grace, but, caring more than anything to be an artist, I am
+occupied in drawing all the beauty out, in drawing out the utmost
+beauty, as quickly as may be, none of us knowing how much time is meted
+to us.
+
+
+_January 27, afternoon._
+
+After two bad nights in the billet owing to the lack of straw, the third
+night was interrupted by our sudden departure for our emplacement in the
+second line.
+
+Superb weather, frost and sun.
+
+Great Nature begins again to enfold me, and her voice, which is now
+powerful again, consoles me.--But, dear, what a hole in one's existence!
+Yes, since my promotion I have lived through moments which, though less
+terrible, recalled the first days of September, but with the addition of
+many blessings. I accept this new life, with no forecast of the future.
+
+
+_January 28, in the morning sun._
+
+The hard and splendid weather has this marvellous good--that it leaves
+in its great pure sky an open door for poetry. Yes, all that I told you
+of that beautiful time of snow came from a heart that was comforted by
+such triumphant beauty.
+
+In the Reviews you send me I have read with pleasure the articles on
+Molière, on the English parliament, on Martainville, and on the
+religious questions of 1830. . . .
+
+Did I tell you that I learnt from the papers of the death of
+Hillemacher? That dear friend was killed in this terrible war.
+
+
+_February 1._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--I have your dear letters of the 26th and 27th;
+they do bring new life to me.
+
+Up till now, our first-line emplacement, which this time is in the
+village, has been favoured with complete calm, and I have known once
+more those hours of grace when Nature consoles me.
+
+My situation has this special improvement, that the drudgery I do now is
+done at the instance of the general good, and no longer at the dictation
+of mere routine.
+
+
+_February 2._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--I go on with this letter in the billet, where the great
+worry of accumulated work fills up the void which Melancholy would make
+her own.
+
+Dark days have come upon me, and nothingness seems the end of all,
+whereas all that is in my being had assured me of the plenitude of the
+universe. Yes, devotion, not to individuals but to the social ideal of
+brotherhood, sustains me still. Oh, what a magnificent example is to be
+found in Jesus and in the poor. That righteous aristocrat, showing by
+His abhorrent task the infinite obligation of altruistic duty, and
+teaching, above all, that no return of gratitude should be demanded. . . .
+To my experience of men and things I owe this tranquillity of
+expecting nothing from any one. Thus duty takes an abstract form,
+deprived of a human object.
+
+An unspeakable sunrise to-day! Another spring draws near. . . . I want
+to tell you about our three days in the first line.
+
+Snow and frost. We went down the slopes leading to our emplacement in
+the village. The night was then so beautiful that it moved the heart of
+every soldier to see it. I could never say enough about the fine
+delicacy of this country. How can I explain to you the chiselled effect,
+allied to the dream-like mists, with the moon soaring above? For three
+days my night-service took me straight to the heart of this purity,
+this whiteness.
+
+Tarnished gold-work of the trees. And, in spite of the mist, many
+colours, rose and blue.
+
+There are hours of such beauty that those who take them to themselves
+can hardly die. I was well in front of the first lines, and never did I
+feel better protected. This morning, when I came, a pink and green
+sunrise over the blue and rosy snow; the open country marked with woods
+and covered fields; far off, the distance, in which the silvery Meuse
+fades away. O Beauty, in spite of all!
+
+
+_February 2._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--Your letter of the 29th has this moment come to
+the billet. A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the
+spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening
+days; a sudden softening, a weakening of Nature. Alas, how sweet this
+emotion would be if it could be felt outside this slavery, but the
+weakness which comes ordinarily with spring only serves here to make
+burdens heavier.
+
+Dear mother, how glad I am to feel the sympathy of those who are far
+away. Ah, what sweetness there is!
+
+I am delighted by the Reviews; in an admirable article on Louis Veuillot
+I noticed this phrase: 'O my God, take away my despair and leave my
+grief!' Yes, we must not misunderstand the fruitful lesson taught by
+grief, and if I return from this war it will most certainly be with a
+soul formed and enriched.
+
+I also read with pleasure the lectures on Molière, and in him, as
+elsewhere, I have viewed again the solitude in which the highest souls
+wander. But I owe it to my old sentimental wounds never to suffer again
+through the acts of others. My dearly loved mother, I will write to you
+better to-morrow.
+
+
+_February 4._
+
+Last night, on coming back to the barn, drunkenness, quarrels, cries,
+songs and yells. Such is life!. . . But when morning came and the
+wakening from sleep still brought me memories of this, I got up before
+the time, and found outside a friendly moon, and the great night taking
+wing, and a dawn which had pity on me. The blessed spring day gilds
+everything and scatters its promises and hopes.
+
+Dear, I was reflecting on Tolstoi's title, _War and Peace_. I used to
+think that he wanted to express the antithesis of these two states, but
+now I ask myself if he did not connect these two contraries in one and
+the same folly--if the fortunes of humanity, whether at war or at peace,
+were not equally a burden to his mind. By all means let us keep faithful
+to our efforts to be good; but in spite of ourselves we take this
+precept a little in the sense of the placards: 'Be good to animals.' How
+hard it is, in the midst of daily duties, to keep guard upon oneself.
+
+
+_February 5._
+
+A sleepless night. Hateful return to the barn. Such a fearful row that
+the corporals had to complain. Punishments.
+
+In the morning, on the march, and, in order to rest us, work to-night!
+
+
+_February 6._
+
+MY DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--After the sleepless night in our billet, we had
+to supply a working-party all the following night. So I have been
+sleeping up till the very moment of writing to you. Sleep and Night are
+refuges which give life still one attraction.
+
+Mother dear, I am living over again the lovely legend of Sarpedon; and
+that exquisite flower of Greek poetry really gives me comfort. If you
+will read this passage of the _Iliad_ in my beautiful translation by
+Lecomte de l'Isle, you will see that Zeus utters in regard to destiny
+certain words in which the divine and the eternal shine out as nobly as
+in the Christian Passion. He suffers, and his fatherly heart undergoes a
+long battle, but finally he permits his son to die, and Hypnos and
+Thanatos are sent to gather up the beloved remains.
+
+Hypnos--that is Sleep. To think that I should come to that, I for whom
+every waking hour was a waking joy, I for whom every moment of action
+was a thrill of pride. I catch myself longing for the escape of Sleep
+from the tumult that besets me. But the splendid Greek optimism shines
+out as in those vases at the Louvre. By the two, Hypnos and Thanatos,
+Sarpedon is lifted to a life beyond his human death; and assuredly Sleep
+and Death do wonderfully magnify and continue our mortal fate.
+
+Thanatos--that is a mystery, and it is a terror only because the urgency
+of our transitory desires makes us misconceive the mystery. But read
+over again the great peaceful words of Maeterlinck in his book on death,
+words ringing with compassion for our fears in the tremendous passage of
+mortality.
+
+
+_February 7._
+
+MOST DEAR AND MOST BELOVED,--I have your splendid letter of the first.
+Please don't hesitate to write what you think I would call mere chatter.
+Your love and the absolute identity of our two hearts appear in all your
+letters. And that is all I really care for. Yet they tell me a thousand
+things that interest me too.
+
+We are living through hours of heavy labour. My rank gives me respite
+now and then; but for the men it means five nights at a time without
+sleep, and this repeatedly.
+
+
+_February 9._
+
+Another breathing-space in which, almost at my last gasp, I get a brief
+peace. The little reviving breath comes again. I have had the good luck
+to be appointed corporal on guard in delightful quarters, where I am in
+command. Perfect spring weather. And what can I say of this Nature?
+Never before have I so fully felt her amplitude of life. Hours and
+seasons following one another surely, infallibly, unalterably, in
+unchanging unity; the looker-on has a glimpse of the immensity of the
+force that first set them afoot.
+
+I had often known the delight of watching the nearer coming of a season,
+but it had not before been given to me to live in that delight moment by
+moment. It is so that one learns, without the help of any kind of
+science, a certain intuition, vague perhaps, but altogether
+indisputable, of the Absolute. There was a man of science, possibly a
+great one, who declared that he had not discovered God under his
+scalpel. What a shocking mistake for an able mind to make! Where was the
+need of a scalpel, when the joy and the thrill of our senses are
+all-sufficient to convince us of the purpose commanding our whole
+evolution? The poet watches the coming of the seasons as it were great
+ships that will, he knows, set sail again. At times the storm may delay
+them, but at their next coming they will bring with them the rich
+fragrance of the unknown coasts. A season coming again to our own shores
+seems to bring us delights which it has learnt by long travel.
+
+Ah, dearest mother, if one could have again a retreat for the soul! O
+solitude, for those worthy to possess it! How seldom is it inviolate!
+
+
+_February 11._
+
+It may possibly be a great intended privilege for our generation to be a
+witness of these horrors, but what a terrible price to pay! Well, faith,
+eternal faith, is over all. Faith in an evolution, an Order, beyond our
+human patience.
+
+
+_February 11_ (2nd day in
+the front line).
+
+In such hours as these one must perforce take refuge in the extra-human
+principle of sacrifice; it is impossible for mere humanity to go
+further.
+
+Let go all poor human hope. Seek something beyond; perhaps you have
+already found it. As for me, I feel myself to be unworthy in such days
+to be anything more than a memory. I picked some flowers in the mud.
+Keep them in remembrance of me.
+
+
+_5 o'clock._
+
+Courage through all, courage in spite of all.
+
+
+_February 13_ (4th day in
+the front line).
+
+BELOVED,--After the days of tears and of rebellion of the heart that
+have so shaken me, I pull myself together again to say 'Thy will be
+done.' So, according to the power and the measure of my faculties, I
+would be he who to the very end never despaired of his share in the
+building of the Temple. I would be the workman who, knowing full well
+that his scaffolding will give way and who has no hope of safety, goes
+on with his stone-carving of decoration on the cathedral front.
+Decoration. I am not one who will ever be able to lift the blocks of
+stone. But there are others for that job. Yes, I am getting back into a
+little quiet thinking. The equable tranquillity I had hoped for is not
+yet mine; but I have occasional glimpses of that region of peace and
+light in which all things, even our love, is renewed and transfigured.
+
+I am now at the foot of a peaked hill where Nature has brought the
+loveliest lines of design together. Man is hunting man, and in a moment
+they will be locked in fight. Meanwhile the lark is rising.
+
+Even as I write, a strange serenity possesses me.
+Something--extraordinary comfort. Be it a human quality, be it a
+revelation from on high. All around me men are asleep.
+
+
+_February 14_ (5th day in
+the front line).
+
+All is movement about us; we too are afoot. Even as the inevitable takes
+shape, peace revisits my heart at last. My beloved country is defiled
+by these detestable preparations of battle; the silence is rent by the
+preliminary gun-fire; man succeeds for a time in cancelling all the
+beauty of the world. But I think it will even yet find a place of
+refuge. For twenty-four hours now I have been my own self.
+
+Dear mother, I was wrong to think so much of my 'tower of ivory.' What
+we too often take for a tower of ivory is nothing more than an old
+cheese where a hermit rat has made his house.
+
+Rather, may a better spirit move me to gratitude for the salutary shocks
+that tossed me out of too pleasant a place of peace; let us be thankful
+for the dispensation which, during certain hours--hours far apart but
+never to be forgotten--made a man of me.
+
+No, no, I will not mourn over my dead youth. It led me by steep and
+devious ways to the tablelands where the mists that hung over
+intelligence are no more.
+
+
+_February 16._
+
+In these latter days I have passed through certain hours, made decisive
+hours for me by the visibility of great and universal problems. We have
+now been for five days in the front line, with exceedingly hard work,
+hampered by the terrible mud. As our days have followed each other, and
+as my own struggle against the frightful sadness of my soul continued,
+the military situation was growing more tense, and the preparation for
+action was pushing on. Then came the announcement of the order of
+attack. There was only a day left--perhaps two days. It was then I wrote
+you two letters, I think those of the 13th and 14th; and really, as I
+was writing, I had within my heart such a plenitude of conviction, such
+a sweetness of feeling, as give incontrovertible assurance of the
+reality of the beautiful and the good. The bombardment of our position
+was violent; but nothing that man can do is able to stifle or silence
+what Nature has to say to the human soul.
+
+One night, between the 14th and the 15th, we were placed in trenches
+that were raked by machine-guns. Our men were so exhausted that they
+were obliged to give place to another battalion. We were waiting in the
+wet and the cold of night when suddenly the notice came that we were
+relieved. We could not tell why. But we are here again in this village,
+where the men deluge their poor hearts with wine. I am in the midst of
+them.
+
+Dear mother, if there is one thing absolute in human feeling, it is
+pain. I had lived hitherto in the contemplation of the interesting
+relations of different emotions, losing sight of the price, the
+intrinsic value, of life itself. But now I know what is essential life.
+It is that which clears the soul's way to the Absolute. But I suffered
+less in that time of waiting than I am suffering now from certain
+companionships.
+
+
+
+_February 16, 9 o'clock._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I was at dinner when they came to tell me we were
+off. I knew it would be so; the counter-orders that put off the attack
+cost us the march of forty kilometres in addition to the fatigues we had
+to undergo in the first line. As we were leaving our sector I noticed
+the arrival of such a quantity of artillery that I knew well enough the
+pause was at an end. But the soul has its own peace. It is frosty
+weather, with a sky full of stars.
+
+
+_February 19_ (sent off in the full
+swing of battle).
+
+One word only. We are in the hands of God. Never, never, have we so
+needed the wisdom of confidence. Death prevails, but it does not reign.
+Life is still noble. Friends of mine killed and wounded yesterday and
+the day before. Dearest, our messengers may be greatly delayed.
+
+
+_February 22._
+
+We are in billets after the great battle. And this time I saw it all. I
+did my duty; I knew that by the feeling of my men for me. But the best
+are dead. Bitter loss. This heroic regiment. We gained our object. Will
+write at more length.
+
+
+_February 22_ (1st day in billet).
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I will tell you about the goodness of God, and the
+horror of these things. The heaviness of heart that weighed me down this
+month and a half past was for the coming anguish to be undergone in
+these last twenty days.
+
+We reached the scene of action on the 17th. The preparation ceased to
+interest me; I was all expectation of the event. It broke out at three
+o'clock: the explosion of seven mines under the enemy's trenches. It was
+like a distant thunder. Next, five hundred guns created the hell into
+which we leapt.
+
+Night was coming on when we established ourselves in the positions we
+had taken. All that night I was actively at work for the security of our
+men, who had not suffered much. I had to cover great tracts, over which
+were scattered the wounded and the dead of both sides. My heart yearned
+over them, but I had nothing better than words to give them. In the
+morning we were driven, with serious loss, back to our previous
+positions, but in the evening we attacked again; we retook our whole
+advance; here again I did my duty. In my advance I got the sword of an
+officer who surrendered; after that I placed my men for guarding our
+ground. The captain ordered me to his side, and I gave him the plan of
+our position. He was telling me of his decision to have me mentioned,
+when he was killed before my eyes.
+
+Briefly, under the frightful fire of those three days, I organised and
+kept going the work of supplying cartridges; in this job five of my men
+were wounded. Our losses are terrible; those of the enemy greater still.
+You cannot imagine, beloved mother, what man will do against man. For
+five days my shoes have been slippery with human brains, I have walked
+among lungs, among entrails. The men eat, what little they have to eat,
+at the side of the dead. Our regiment was heroic; we have no officers
+left. They all died as brave men. Two good friends--one of them a fine
+model of my own for one of my last pictures--are killed. That was one of
+the terrible incidents of the evening. A white body, splendid under the
+moon! I lay down near him. The beauty of things awoke again for me.
+
+At last, after five days of horror that lost us twelve hundred men, we
+were ordered back from the scene of abomination.
+
+The regiment has been mentioned in despatches.
+
+Dear mother, how shall I ever speak of the unspeakable things I have had
+to see? But how shall I ever tell of the certainties this tempest has
+made clear to me? Duty; effort.
+
+
+_February 23._
+
+DEAREST BELOVED MOTHER,--A second day in billets. To-morrow we go to the
+front. Darling, I can't write to-day. Let us draw ever nearer to the
+eternal, let us remain devoted to our duty. I know how your thoughts fly
+to meet mine, and I turn mine towards the happiness of wisdom. Let us
+take courage; let me be brave among these young dead men, and be you
+brave in readiness. God is over us.
+
+
+_February 26_
+(a splendid afternoon).
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--Here we are again upon the battlefield. We have climbed
+the hill from which it would be better to praise the glory of God than
+to condemn the horrors of men. Innumerable dead at the setting-out of
+our march; but they grow fewer, leaving here and there some poor stray
+body, the colour of clay--a painful encounter. Our losses are what are
+called 'serious' in despatches.
+
+At all events I can assure you that our men are admirable and their
+resignation is heroic. All deplore this infamous war, but nearly all
+feel that the fulfilment of a hideous duty is the one only thing that
+justifies the horrible necessity of living at such a time as this.
+
+Dear mother, I cannot write more. The plain is settling to sleep under
+colours of violet and rose. How can things be so horrible?
+
+
+_February 28_ (in a billet).
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER, AND DEAR BELOVED GRANDMOTHER,--I am writing to you,
+having just struggled out of a most appalling nightmare, and out of
+Dantesque scenes that I have lived through. Things that Gustave Doré had
+the courage to picture through the text of the _Divina Commedia_ have
+come to pass, with all the variety and circumstance of fact. In the
+midst of labours that happily tend to deaden one's feelings, I have been
+able to gather the better fruits of pain.
+
+On the 24th, in the evening, we returned to our positions, from which
+the more hideous of the traces of battle had been partly removed. Only a
+few places were still scattered with fragments of men that were taking
+on the semblance of that clay to which they were returning. The weather
+was fine and cold, and the heights we had gained brought us into the
+very sky. The immensities appeared only as lights: the higher light, a
+brilliance of stars; the lower light, a glow of fires. The frightful
+bombardment with which the Germans overwhelm us is really a waste of
+fireworks.
+
+I lay in a dug-out from which I could follow the moon, and watch for
+daybreak. Now and again a shell crumbled the soil about me, and deafened
+me; then silence came again upon the frozen earth. I have paid the
+price, I have paid dearly, but I have had moments of solitude that were
+full of God.
+
+I really think I have tried to adapt myself to my work, for, as I told
+you, I am proposed for the rank of sergeant and for mention in
+despatches. Ah, but, dearest mother, this war is long, too long for men
+who had something else to do in the world! What you tell me of the kind
+feeling there is for me in Paris gives me pleasure; but--am I not to be
+brought out of this for a better kind of usefulness? Why am I so
+sacrificed, when so many others, not my equals, are spared? Yet I had
+something worth doing to do in the world. Well, if God does not intend
+to take away this cup from me, His will be done.
+
+
+_March 3_ (in a billet).
+
+This is the fourth day of rest, for me almost a holiday time. Rather a
+sad holiday, I own; it reminds me of certain visits to Marlotte. These
+days have been spent in attempts to recover from physical fatigue and
+moral weariness, and in the filling up of vacant hours. Still, a kind of
+holiday, a halt rather, giving one time to arrange one's impressions, so
+long confused by the violence of action.
+
+I have been stupefied by the noise of the shells. Think--from the French
+side alone forty thousand have passed over our heads, and from the
+German side about as many, with this difference, that the enemy shells
+burst right upon us. For my own part, I was buried by three 305 shells
+at once, to say nothing of the innumerable shrapnel going off close by.
+You may gather that my brain was a good deal shaken. And now I am
+reading. I have just read in a magazine an article on three new novels,
+and that reading relieved many of the cares of battle.
+
+I have received a most beautiful letter from André, who must be a
+neighbour of mine out here. He thinks as I do about our dreadful war
+literature. What does flourish is a faculty of musical improvisation.
+All last night I heard the loveliest symphonies, fully orchestral; and I
+am bound to say that they owed their best to the great music that is
+Germany's.
+
+After my experiences I must really let myself go a little in the
+pleasure of this furtive sun of March.
+
+
+_March 5_ (6th day in billets).
+
+I wish I could recover in myself the extreme sensibilities I felt before
+the fiery trial, so that I might describe for you the colours and the
+aspects of the drama we have passed through. But just now I am in a
+state of numbness, pleasant enough in itself, yet apt to hinder my
+vision of things present and my forecasts of things to come. I have to
+make an effort to keep hold of eternal and essential things; perhaps I
+shall succeed in time.
+
+And yet certain sights on the wasted field of war had so noble a lesson,
+a teaching so persuasive, that I should love to share with you the great
+certainties of those days. How harmonious is death within the natural
+soil, how admirable is the manner of man's return to the substance of
+his mother earth, compared with the poverty of funeral ceremonial!
+Yesterday I thought of those poor dead as forsaken things. But I had
+been present at the burial of an officer, and it seems to me that Nature
+is more compassionate than man. Yes indeed, the soldier's death is close
+to natural things. It is a frank horror, a horror that does not attempt
+to cheat the law of violence. I often passed close to bodies that were
+gradually passing into the clay, and their change seemed more comforting
+than the cold and unchanging aspect of the tombs of town cemeteries.
+From our life in the open we have gained a freedom of conception, an
+amplitude of thought and of habit, which will for ever make cities
+horrible and artificial to those who survive the war.
+
+Dear mother, I write but ill of things that I have greatly felt. Let us
+seek refuge in the peace of spring and in the treasure of the present
+moment.
+
+
+_March 7, half-past ten._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I am filling up the idleness of this morning. I am
+rejoicing in the clear waters of the Meuse that give life to dales and
+gardens. The play of the current over weeds and pebbles makes a soothing
+sight for my tired eyes, and expresses the calm life of this big village
+that is sheltered by the Meuse hills. The church here is thronged with
+soldiers who possess, as I do, a definite intuition of the Ideal, but
+who seek it by more stated and less immediate means.
+
+I am to board for a fortnight in the house in which, nearly two months
+ago, our joyous company used to meet. To-day I have seen the tears of
+these same friends, weeping to hear of the wounded and the dead.
+
+I received your sleeping-sack, which is quite right. I am worried with
+rheumatism, which has spoilt many of my nights in billets these two
+months past.
+
+Darling mother, here is a calm in the noise of that barrack-life which
+must now be ours. As there are none here but non-commissioned officers,
+they are all ordered to hard jobs, and I shall renew my acquaintance
+with brooms and burdens. We have been warned; we shall have to work with
+our hands. And so we learn to direct others.
+
+
+_March 7_ (another letter).
+
+Soft weather after rain. Bells in the evening; flowing waters singing
+under the bridges; trees settling to sleep.
+
+
+_March 11._
+
+DARLING MOTHER,--I have nothing to say about my life, which is filled up
+with manual labour. At moments perhaps some image appears, some memory
+rises. I have just read a fine article by Renan on the origins of the
+Bible. I found it in a _Revue des Deux Mondes_ of 1886. If later I can
+remember something of it, I may be able to put my very scattered
+notions on that matter into better order.
+
+I feel as though I were recovering from typhoid fever. What I chiefly
+enjoy is water; the running and the sleeping waters of the Meuse. The
+springs play on weeds and pebbles. The ponds lie quiet under great
+trees. Streams and waterfalls. On the steep hillsides the snow looks
+brilliant and visionary. I live in all these things without forms of
+words. And I am rather ashamed to be vegetating, though I think all must
+pass through this phase, just removed from the hell of the front. I eat,
+and when my horrid rheumatism allows, I sleep.
+
+Don't be angry with my inferiority. I feel as though my armour had been
+taken off. Well, I can't help it.
+
+
+_5 o'clock._
+
+I am a good deal tired by drill. But the fine air of the Meuse keeps me
+in health. Dear mother, I wish I might always seek all that is noble and
+good. I wish I might always feel within myself the inspiration that
+urges towards the true treasures of life. But alas! just now I have a
+mind of lead.
+
+
+_March 14, Sunday morning,
+in the Sabbath peace._
+
+DEAREST MOTHER,--Your good, life-giving letters have come at last, after
+my long privation, the price I paid for my enjoyment of rest. The pretty
+town is waking in the haze of the river, the waters hurry over their
+clean stones. All things have that look of moderation and charming
+finish that is characteristic of this part of the country.
+
+I read a little, but I am so overtired by the physical exertion to which
+we are compelled, that I fall asleep on the instant. We are digging
+trenches and trenches.
+
+Dear mother, to go back to those wonderful times of the end of February,
+I must repeat that my memory of them is something like that of an
+experiment in science. I had conceived violence under a theoretic
+formula; I had divined its part in the worlds. But I had not yet
+witnessed its actual practice, except in infinitely small examples. And
+now at last violence was displayed before me on such a scale that my
+whole faculty of receptiveness was called upon to face it. Well, it was
+interesting; and I may tell you that I never relaxed from my attitude of
+cool and impersonal watchfulness. What I had kept about me of my own
+individuality was a certain visual perceptiveness that caused me to
+register the setting of things, a setting that dramatised itself as
+'artistically' as in any stage-management. During all those minutes I
+never relaxed in my resolve to see 'how it was.'
+
+I was very happy to find that the 'intoxication of slaughter' never had
+any possession of me. I hope it will always be so. Unfortunately,
+contact with the German race has for ever spoilt my opinion of those
+people. I cannot quite succeed in quelling a sensibility and a
+humanitarianism that I know to be misplaced, and that would make me the
+dupe of a treacherous enemy; but I have come to tolerate things which I
+had held in abomination as the very negation of life.
+
+I have seen the French soldier fight. He is terrible in action, and
+after action magnanimous. That is the phrase. It is a very common
+commonplace; our greatest writers and the humblest of our schoolboys
+have trotted it out alike; and now my decadent ex-intellectualism finds
+nothing better to say at the sight of the soul of the Frenchman.
+
+
+To Madame de L.
+
+_March 14, 1915._
+
+My mother has told me of the new trial that has just come upon you.
+Truly life is crushing for some souls. I know your fortitude, and I know
+that you are only too well used to sorrow; but how much I wish that you
+had been spared this blow! My mother had written to me of the lack of
+any news of Colonel B., and she was anxious. It is the grief of those
+dear to us that troubles us out here. But there is in the sight of a
+soldier's death a lesson of greatness and of immortality that arms our
+hearts; and our desire is that our beloved ones might share it with us.
+Be sure that the Colonel's example will bear magnificent fruit. I know,
+for I have seen it, what heroism transfigures the soldier whose leader
+has fallen.
+
+As for myself, the time has been rife with tragedies; throughout I have
+tried to do my duty.
+
+I saw all my superior officers killed, and the whole regiment decimated.
+There can be no more human hope for those who are cast into this
+furnace. I place myself in the hands of God, asking of Him that He would
+keep me in such a state of heart and soul as may enable me to enjoy and
+love in His creation all the beauty that man has not yet denied and
+concealed.
+
+All else has lost proportion in my life.
+
+
+_March 15_ (a post-card).
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I suppose that by now you know my good fortune in
+getting this platoon. Whatever God intends for me, this halt has given
+me the opportunity of regaining possession of myself, and of preparing
+myself to accept whatever may befall me. I send you my love and the
+union of our hearts in the face of fate.
+
+
+_March 17._
+
+A charming morning. A white sun swathing itself in mist, the fine
+outlines of trees on the heights, and the great spaces in light. It is a
+pause full of good luck. The other day, reading an old _Revue des Deux
+Mondes_ of 1880, I came upon an excellent article as one might come upon
+a noble palace with vaulted roof and decorated walls. It was on Egypt,
+and was signed George Perrot.
+
+Yesterday my battalion left these billets. I am obliged to stay behind
+for my instruction as sergeant. How thankful I am for this respite,
+laborious as it is, that gives me a chance of recovering what I care for
+most--a clear mind, and a heart open to the spirit of Nature.
+
+I forgot to tell you that a day or two ago, during the storm, I saw the
+cranes coming home towards evening. A lull in the weather allowed me to
+hear their cry. To think how long it is since I saw them take flight
+from here! It was at the beginning of the winter, and they left
+everything the sadder for their going. And now it was for me like the
+coming of the dove to the ark; not that I deceived myself as to the
+dangers that had not ceased, but that these ambassadors of the air
+brought me a visible assurance of the universal peace beyond our human
+strife.
+
+And yesterday the wild geese made for the north. They flew in various
+order, tracing regular formations in the sky; and then they disappeared
+over the horizon like a floating ribbon.
+
+I am much gratified by M.C.'s appreciation. I always had a love of
+letters, even as a child, and I am only sorry that the break in my
+education, brought about by myself, leaves so many blanks. I keep,
+however, throughout all changes and chances, the faculty of gleaning to
+right and left some fallen grain. Of course, as I leave out the future,
+I say nothing of my wish to be introduced to him in happier times--that
+is out of our department just now.
+
+I have written to Madame L. It is the last blow for her. The fate of
+some of us is as it were a medal on which are struck the image and
+superscription of sorrow. Adversity has worked so well that there is no
+room for any symbol of joy. But I think that this dedication of a life
+to grief is not unaccompanied by a secret compensation in the conviction
+that misfortune is at last complete; it is something to reach the
+high-water mark of the waters of sorrow. The fate of such sufferers
+seems to me to be an outpost showing others whence tribulation
+approaches.
+
+Day by day a new crop is raised in the little military burial-ground
+here. And, over all, the triumphant spring.
+
+
+_March 20._
+
+Our holiday is coming to an end in sweetness, while all is tumult and
+carnage not far off. I think the regiment has had a long march.
+
+
+_March 20._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--After so many graces granted me, I ought to have
+more confidence, and I intend to do my best to give myself wholly into
+the hands of God; but these are hard times. I have just heard of the
+death, among many others, of the friend whose bed I shared in our
+billet. He had just been appointed Second Lieutenant. Mother dear: Love.
+That is the only human feeling we may cherish now.
+
+
+_March 21._
+
+DEAR GRANDMOTHER,--As the day of trial draws near I send you all my
+love. I can do no more. We are probably called upon to make such a
+sacrifice as forbids us to dwell upon our ties. Let us pray that the
+certitude of Goodness and Beauty may not fail us when we suffer.
+
+
+_March 21, Sunday, with
+lovely sunshine._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I think that we may be kept here one day more, and
+that we shall leave on Tuesday. I don't know where I shall rejoin my
+battalion, or in what state I shall find it, for the action seems to be
+violent and long. Rumours are very contradictory as to our gains. But
+all agree as to the large number of casualties. We can hear a tremendous
+cannonade, and the good weather no doubt induces the command on both
+sides to move.
+
+I should have wished to say many things about the noble Nature that
+surrounds us with its glory, but my thoughts are gone on in advance,
+there where the sun does not see men gathered together to honour him,
+but shines only upon their hatred, and where the moon, too, looks upon
+treachery and anguish.
+
+The other day, overlooking this great prospect of earth welcoming the
+spring, I remembered the joy I once had to be a man. And now to be a
+man----
+
+Our neighbour regiment, that of R.L., has returned with a few of its
+companies reduced to some two-score men.
+
+I dare not now speak of hope. The grace for which one may still pray is
+a complete sense of what beauty the passing hour can still yield us. It
+is a new manner of 'living one's life' that literature had not foreseen.
+
+Dear Grandmother, how well your tenderness has served to keep me up in
+my time of trial.
+
+
+_March 22._
+
+A splendid sun; looking on it one is amazed to see the world at war.
+Spring has come in triumph. It has surprised mankind in the act of
+hatred, in the act of outrage upon creation. The despatches tell us
+little, fortunately, of what is happening.
+
+Being now these twenty-one days away from the front, I find it difficult
+to re-accustom myself to the thought of the monstrous things going on
+there. Indeed, dear mother, I know that your life and mine have had but
+one object, one aim, and that even in the time we are passing through,
+we have never lost sight of it, but have constantly tried to draw
+nearer.
+
+Therefore our lives may not have been altogether useless. This is the
+only thought to comfort an ambitious soul--to forecast the influence and
+the consequences of its acts.
+
+I believe that if longer life had been granted me I should never have
+relaxed in my purpose. Having no certainty but that of the present, I
+have tried to put myself to the best use.
+
+
+_March 25._
+
+Here I am living this life in the earth again. I found the very hole
+that I left last month. Nothing has been done while I was away; a
+formidable attack was attempted, but it failed. The regiments ordered to
+engage had neither our dash nor our perfect steadiness under fire. They
+succeeded only in getting themselves cut to pieces, and in bringing upon
+us the most atrocious bombardment that ever was. It seems the action
+before this was nothing to be compared with it. My company lost a great
+many men by the aerial bombs. These projectiles measure a metre in
+height and twenty-seven centimetres in diameter; they describe a high
+curve, and fall vertically, exploding in the narrowest passages. We are
+several metres deep underground. Pleasant weather. At night we go to the
+surface for our hard work.
+
+Dearest, I wanted to say a heap of things about our joys, but some of
+them are best left quiet, unawakened. All coarse, common pleasure would
+frighten them away--they might die.
+
+I am writing again after a sleep. We get all the sleep we can in our
+dug-outs.
+
+I had a pile of thoughts that fatigue prevents my putting in order; but
+I remember that I evoked Beethoven. I am now precisely at the age he had
+reached when disaster came upon him; and I admired his great example,
+his energies at work in spite of suffering. The impediment must have
+seemed to him as grave as what is before me seems to us; but he
+conquered. To my mind Beethoven is the most magnificent of human
+translations of the creative Power.
+
+I am writing badly, for I am still asleep.
+
+How easy, how kind were all the circumstances of my return! I left the
+house alone, but passing a battery of artillery I was accosted by the
+non-commissioned officers with offers of the most friendly hospitality.
+The artillery are devoted to the Tenth, for we defend them; and as the
+good fellows are not even exposed to the rain they pity us exceedingly.
+
+I must close abruptly, loving you for your courage that so sustains me.
+Whatever happens, I have recovered joy. The night I came was so lovely!
+
+
+_March 26._
+
+DEARLY BELOVED MOTHER,--Nothing new in our position; the organising goes
+on. Interesting but not easy work. The fine weather prospers it. Now and
+again our pickaxes come upon a poor dead man whom the war harasses even
+in his grave.
+
+
+_March 28_ (on the heights; a grey
+Sunday; weather broken by
+yesterday's bombardment).
+
+We are again in full fight. A great attack from our side has repeated
+the carnage of last week. My company, which was cut up in the last
+assault, was spared this time; we had nothing to do but occupy a sector
+of the defence. So we got only the splashes of the fighting.
+
+On the loveliest Saturday of this spring I had a distant view of the
+battle; I saw the crawling beast that a battalion looks like, twisting
+as it advances under the smoke of the guns. The _chasseurs à pied_ go
+forward in spite of the machine-guns and of the bombardment, French and
+German. These fine fellows did what they had to do in spite of all, and
+have made amends for the check we had last week when our attack was a
+failure.
+
+For a month past I have been living Raffet's lithographs, with this
+difference, that in his time one could be an eyewitness in comparative
+safety at the distance where I stood, for the guns of those days did not
+shoot far. But I saw fine things in that great plain beneath our
+heights; a hundred thousand fires of bursting shells. And the
+_chasseurs_ climbing, climbing.
+
+
+_Sunday, March 28_ (2nd letter).
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--Radiant weather rose this morning. I have been a long way
+over our sector, and now the bombardment begins again, and grows.
+
+And still I turn my thoughts to hope. Whatever happens, I pray for
+wisdom for you and for me.
+
+Dearest, I feel at times how easy it would be to turn again to those
+pursuits that were once the charm and the interest of my life. At times
+I catch myself, in this lovely spring, so bent upon painting that I
+could mourn because I paint no more. But I compel myself to master all
+the resources of my will and to keep them to the difficult straits of
+this life.
+
+
+_April 1._
+
+A sun that lays bare the lovely youth of the spring. The stream of the
+Meuse runs through this rich and comely village, which the echoes of the
+cannonade reach only as a dull thud, their meaning lost.
+
+We have had to change again, as the reinforcements are arriving in such
+numbers that our places are wanted; and it is always our regiment that
+has to turn out.
+
+But to-day all is freshness and light. The great rich plain that is
+edged by the Meuse uplands has its distance all invested in the
+tenderest silver tones.
+
+I am pleased with Gabrielle's letter; it shows me what things will be
+laid upon the heart of France when these events are at an end. A
+touching letter from Pierre, cured at last of his terrible wound. A
+splendid letter from Grandmother. How she longs for our meeting again! I
+cannot speak of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I finish this letter by the waterside, recalling with delight the joys I
+used to have in painting. Before me are the sparkling rays of spring.
+
+
+_April 3_ (post-card).
+
+Only a word from the second line. We are in the spring woods. Sun and
+rain at play in the sky. Courage through all.
+
+
+_April 3_ (2nd letter).
+
+I wish I had written you better letters in these days, every minute of
+which has been sweet to me, even when we were in the front line. But I
+confess that I was satisfied just to let myself live in the beauty of
+the days, serene days in spite of the clamours of war. We know nothing
+of what is to happen. But there is more movement--coming and going.
+Shall we have to bear the shock again?
+
+Think what it was for us when we were last in the front line, to have to
+spend whole days in the dug-out that the odious bombardment had
+compelled us to hollow out of the hillside ten metres deep. There, in
+complete darkness, night was awaited for the chance to get out. But once
+my fellow non-commissioned officers and I began humming the nine
+symphonies of Beethoven. I cannot tell what thrill woke those notes
+within us. They seemed to kindle great lights in the cave. We forgot the
+Chinese torture of being unable to lie, or sit, or stand.
+
+The life of a sergeant in billets is really quite pleasant. But I take
+no advantage. As to the front, I hope Providence will give me strength
+of heart to do my duty there to the very end. A good friend of mine, who
+was my section-chief, has been appointed adjutant to our company. This
+is all trivial enough; but, dearest, I am in a rather feeble state; I
+was not well after the events of last month. So I let myself glide over
+the gentle slopes of my life. Suppose one comes to skirt a precipice?
+May Providence keep us away from the edge!
+
+
+_April 4._
+
+DARLING MOTHER,--A time of anxious waiting, big with the menace of near
+things. Meanwhile, however, idleness and quiet. I am not able to think,
+and I give myself up to my fate. Beloved, don't find fault with me if
+for a month past I have been below the mark. Love me, and tell our
+friends to love me.
+
+Did you get my photograph? It was taken at the fortunate time of our
+position here, when we were having peaceful days, with no immediate
+enemy except the cold. A few days later I was made corporal, and my life
+became hard enough, burdened with very ungrateful labours. After that,
+the storm; and the lights of that storm are still bright in my life.
+
+
+_April 4, evening of Easter Sunday._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--We are again in the immediate care of God. At two o'clock
+we march towards the storm. Beloved, I think of you, I think of you
+both. I love you, and I entrust the three of us to the Providence of
+God. May everything that happens find us ready! In the full power of my
+soul, I pray for this, on your behalf, on mine: hope through all; but,
+before all else, Wisdom and Love.
+
+I kiss you, without more words. All my mind is now set upon the hard
+work to be done.
+
+
+_April 5, 1 o'clock A.M._
+
+DEAR MOTHER AND DEAR GRANDMOTHER,--We are off. Courage. Wisdom and Love.
+Perhaps all this is ordained for the good of all. I can but send you my
+whole love. My life is lived in you alone.
+
+
+_April 5, towards noon._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--We are now to be put to the proof. Up to this moment there
+has been no sign that mercy was failing us. It is for us to strive to
+deserve it. This afternoon we shall need all our resolution, and we
+shall have to call upon the supreme Wisdom for help.
+
+Dear beloved Mother, dear Grandmother, I wish I could still have the
+delight of getting your letters. Let us pray that we may be strengthened
+even in what is before us now.
+
+Dear Darling, once more all my love for you both.
+
+YOUR SON.
+
+
+_April 6, noon._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--It is mid-day, and we are at the forward position,
+in readiness. I send you my whole love. Whatever comes to pass, life has
+had its beauty.
+
+
+_It was in the fight of this day, April 6, that the writer of these
+letters disappeared._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh
+University Press
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+Periods added to a few date-lines to conform to rest of text.
+
+Page 95, A space in the text was replaced with "us as". This has been
+surmised. "moves us as a Breughel . . ."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters of a Soldier, by Anonymous
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters of a Soldier, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Letters of a Soldier
+       1914-1915
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Commentator: A. Clutton-Brock
+               André Chevrillon
+
+Translator: V.M.
+
+Release Date: December 15, 2005 [EBook #17316]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF A SOLDIER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p>
+<div class="center"><br /><br />You do not know the things that are taught by him
+who falls. I do know.</div>
+
+<div class='sig'>(<i>Letter of October 15, 1914.</i>)<br /><br /></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<h1>LETTERS OF A SOLDIER</h1>
+
+<h2>1914-1915</h2>
+
+<div class="center"><br /><br />WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY</div>
+<h2>A. CLUTTON-BROCK</h2>
+
+<div class="center"><br /><br />AND A PREFACE BY</div>
+<h3>ANDR&Eacute; CHEVRILLON</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br />AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY<br />
+V.M.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><br /><br /><br />LONDON<br />
+CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD<br />
+1917</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="center">Printed in Great Britain
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>INTRODUCTION</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_vii'>vii</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PREFACE BY ANDR&Eacute; CHEVRILLON</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_3'>3</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>LETTERS</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_33'>33</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+
+<p>I have been asked to write an Introduction to these letters; and I do
+so, in spite of the fact that M. Chevrillon has already written one,
+because they are stranger to me, an Englishman, than they could be to
+him a Frenchman; and it seems worth while to warn other English readers
+of this strangeness. But I would warn them of it only by way of a
+recommendation. We all hope that after the war there will be a growing
+intimacy between France and England, that the two countries will be
+closer to each other than any two countries have ever been before. But
+if this is to happen we must not be content with admiring each other.
+Mere admiration will die away; indeed, some part of our present
+admiration of the French has come from our failure to understand them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>
+There is a surprise in it which they cannot think flattering, and which
+ought never to have been. Perhaps they also have been surprised by us;
+for it is certain that we have not known each other, and have been
+content with those loose general opinions about each other which are the
+common result of ignorance and indifference.</p>
+
+<p>What we need then is understanding; and these letters will help us to
+it. They are, as we should have said before the war, very French, that
+is to say, very unlike what an Englishman would write to his mother, or
+indeed to any one. Many Englishmen, if they could have read them before
+the war, would have thought them almost unmanly; yet the writer
+distinguished himself even in the French army. But perhaps unmanly is
+too strong a word to be put in the mouth even of an imaginary and stupid
+Englishman. No one, however stupid, could possibly have supposed that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>
+the writer was a coward; but it might have been thought that he was
+utterly unfitted for war. So the Germans thought that the whole French
+nation, and indeed every nation but themselves, was unfitted for war,
+because they alone willed it, and rejoiced in the thought of it. And
+certainly the French had a greater abhorrence of war even than
+ourselves; how great one can see in these letters. The writer of them
+never for a moment tries or pretends to take any pleasure in war. His
+chief aim in writing is to forget it, to speak of the consolations which
+he can still draw from the memories of his past peaceful life, and from
+the peace of the sky and the earth, where it is still unravaged. He is,
+or was, a painter (one cannot say which, for he is missing), and the
+moment he has time to write, he thinks of his art again. It would hardly
+be possible for any Englishman to ignore the war so resolutely, to
+refuse any kind of consent to it; or, if an Englishman were capable of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>
+such refusal, he would probably be a conscientious objector. We must
+romanticise things to some extent if we are to endure them; we must at
+least make jokes about them; and that is where the French fail to
+understand us, like the Germans. If a thing is bad to a Frenchman, it is
+altogether bad; and he will have no dealings with it. He may have to
+endure it; but he endures gravely and tensely with a sad Latin dignity,
+and so it is that this Frenchman endures the war from first to last. For
+that reason the Germans, after their failure on the Marne, counted on
+the nervous exhaustion of the French. It was a favourite phrase with
+them&mdash;one of those formul&aelig; founded on knowledge without understanding
+which so often mislead them.&mdash;Their formula for us was that we cared for
+nothing but football and marmalade.&mdash;But reading these letters one can
+understand how they were de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span>ceived. The writer of them seems to be
+always enduring tensely. It is part of his French sincerity never to
+accept any false consolation. He will not try to believe what he knows
+to be false, even so that he may endure for the sake of France. Yet he
+does endure, and all France endures, in a state of mind that would mean
+weakness in us and utter collapse in the Germans. The war is to him like
+an incessant noise that he tries to forget while he is writing. He does
+not write as a matter of duty, and so that his mother may know that he
+is still living; rather he writes to her so that he may ease a little
+his desire to talk to her. We are used to French sentiment about the
+mother; it is a commonplace of French eloquence, and we have often
+smiled at it as mere sentimental platitude; but in these letters we see
+a son's love for his mother no longer insisted upon or dressed up in
+rhetoric, but naked and unconscious, a habit of the mind, a need of the
+soul, a support <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>even to the weakness of the flesh. Such affection with
+us is apt to be, if not shamefaced, at least a little off-hand. Often it
+exists, and is strong; but it is seldom so constant an element in all
+joy and sorrow. The most loving of English sons would not often rather
+talk to his mother than to any one else; but one knows that this
+Frenchman would rather talk to his mother than to any one else, and that
+he can talk to her more intimately than to any woman or man. One can see
+that he has had the long habit of talking to her thus, so that now he
+does it easily and without restraint. He tells her the deepest thoughts
+of his mind, knowing that she will understand them better than any one
+else. That foreboding which the mother felt about her baby in Morris's
+poem has never come true about him:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Lo, here thy body beginning">
+<tr><td align='left'>'Lo, here thy body beginning, O son, and thy soul and thy life,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">But how will it be if thou livest and enterest into the strife,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">And in love we dwell together when the man is grown in thee,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">When thy sweet speech I shall hearken, and yet 'twixt thee and me</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Shall rise that wall of distance that round each one doth grow,</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">And maketh it hard and bitter each other's thought to know?'</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>This son has lived and entered into the strife indeed; but the wall of
+distance has not grown round him; and, as we read these letters, we
+think that no French mother would fear the natural estrangement which
+that English mother in the poem fears. The foreboding itself seems to
+belong to a barbaric society in which there is a more animal division of
+the sexes, in which the male fears to become effeminate if he does not
+insist upon his masculinity even to his mother. But this Frenchman has
+left barbarism so far behind that he is not afraid of effeminacy; nor
+does he need to remind himself that he is a male. There is a philosophy
+to which this forgetfulness <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>of masculinity is decadence. According to
+that philosophy, man must remember always that he is an animal, a proud
+fighting animal like a bull or a cock; and the proudest of all fighting
+animals, to be admired at a distance by all women unless he condescends
+to desire them, is the officer. No one could be further from such a
+philosophy than this Frenchman; he is so far from it that he does not
+seem even to be aware of its existence. He hardly mentions the Germans
+and never expresses anger against them. The worst he says of them almost
+makes one smile at its na&iuml;ve gentleness. 'Unfortunately, contact with
+the German race has for ever spoilt my opinion of those people.' They
+are to him merely a nation that does not know how to behave. He reminds
+one of Talleyrand, who said of Napoleon after one of his rages: 'What a
+pity that so great a man should have been so badly brought up.' But
+there was malice in that understatement of Talleyrand's; and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span>there is
+none in the understatement of this Frenchman. He has no desire for
+revenge; his only wish is that his duty were done and that he could
+return home to his art and his mother. To the philosophy I have spoken
+of that would seem a pitiable state of mind. No one could be less like a
+Germanic hero than this French artist; and yet the Germans were in error
+when they counted on an easy victory over him and his like, when they
+made sure that a conscious barbarism must prevail over an unconscious
+civilisation.</p>
+
+<p>These letters reveal to us a new type of soldier, a new type of hero,
+almost a new type of man; one who can be brave without any animal
+consolations, who can endure without any romantic illusions, and, what
+is more, one who can have faith without any formal revelation. For there
+is nothing in the letters more interesting than the religion constantly
+expressed or implied in them. The writer is not a Catholic. Catholic
+fervour on its figurative side, he says, will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span>always leave him cold. He
+finds the fervour of Verlaine almost gross. He seems afraid to give any
+artistic expression to his own faith, lest he should falsify it by
+over-expression, lest it should seem to be more accomplished than it is.
+He will not even try to take delight in it; he is almost fanatically an
+intellectual ascetic; and yet again and again he affirms a faith which
+he will hardly consent to specify by uttering the name of God. He is shy
+about it, as if it might be refuted if it were expressed in any dogmatic
+terms. So many victories seem to have been won over faith in the modern
+world that his will not throw down any challenge. If it is to live, it
+must escape the notice of the vulgar triumphing sceptics, and even of
+the doubting habits of his own mind. Yet it does live its own humble and
+hesitating life; and in its hesitations and its humility is its
+strength. He could not be acclaimed by any eager bishop as a lost sheep
+returning repentant to the fold; but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span>he is not lost, nor is the
+universe to him anything but a home and the dear city of God even in the
+trenches.</p>
+
+<p>His expression of this faith is always vague, tentative, and
+inconclusive. He is certain of something, but he cannot say what; yet he
+knows that he is certain, although, if he were to try to express his
+certainty in any old terms, he would reject it himself. He knows; but he
+cannot tell us or himself what he knows. There are sentences in which,
+as M. Chevrillon says, he speaks like an Indian sage; but I do not think
+that Indian philosophy would have satisfied him, because it is itself
+satisfied. For he is in this matter of faith a primitive, beginning to
+build a very small and humble temple out of the ruins of the past. He
+has no science of theology, nothing but emotions and values, and a trust
+in them. They are for a reality that he can scarcely express at all; and
+yet he is the more sure of its existence because of the torment <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span>through
+which he is passing. He uses that word <i>torment</i> more than once. The war
+is to him a martyrdom in which he bears witness to his love, not only
+for France, but also for that larger country which is the universe. The
+torment makes him more sure of it than ever before; it heightens his
+sense of values; and he knows that what matters to a man is not whether
+he is joyful or sorrowful, but the quality of his joy and his sorrow.
+There are times when, like an Indian sage, he thinks that all life is
+contemplation; but this thought is only the last refuge of the spirit
+against a material storm. He is not one of those who would go into the
+wilderness and lose themselves in the depths of abstract thought; he is
+a European, an artist, a lover, one for whom the visible world exists,
+and to whom the Christian doctrine of love is but the expression of his
+own experience. For a century or more our world, confident in its
+strength, its reason, its knowledge, has been undermining <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span>that doctrine
+with every possible heresy. In sheer wilfulness it has tried to empty
+life of all its values. It has made us ashamed of loving anything; for
+all love, it has told us, is illusion produced by the will to live, or
+the will to power, or some other figment of its own perverse thought.
+And now, as a result of that perversity, the storm breaks upon us when
+we seem to have stripped ourselves of all shelter against it. The
+doctrine of the struggle for life becomes a fact in this war; but, if it
+were true, what creature endowed with reason would find life worth
+struggling for? Certainly not the writer of these letters. He fought,
+not only for his country, but to maintain a contrary doctrine; and we
+see him and a thousand others passing through the fiercest trial of
+faith at the moment when the mind of man has been by its own perverse
+activity stripped most bare of faith. So he cannot even express the
+faith for which he is ready to die; but he is ready to die for it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</a></span> A
+few years ago he would have been sneered at for the vagueness of his
+language, but no one can sneer now. The dead will not spoil the spring,
+he says No, indeed: for by their death they have brought a new spring of
+faith into the world.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'>A. CLUTTON-BROCK.</div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LETTERS OF A SOLDIER</h2>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">August 1914-April 1915</span></h4>
+
+<h3>PREFACE BY ANDR&Eacute; CHEVRILLON</h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PREFACE BY ANDR&Eacute; CHEVRILLON</h2>
+
+
+<p>The letters that follow are those of a young painter who was at the
+front from September [1914] till the beginning of April [1915]; at the
+latter date he was missing in one of the battles of the Argonne. Are we
+to speak of him in the present tense or in the past? We know not: since
+the day when the last mud-stained paper reached them, announcing the
+attack in which he was to vanish, what a close weight of silence for
+those who during eight months lived upon these almost daily letters! But
+for how many women, how many mothers, is a grief like this to-day a
+common lot!</p>
+
+<p>In the studio and amid the canvases upon which the young man had traced
+the forms of his dreams, I have seen, piously placed in order on a
+table, all the little papers written by his hand. A silent presence&mdash;I
+was not then aware what manner of mind had there expressed
+itself&mdash;revisiting this hearth: a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>mind surely made to travel far abroad
+and cast its lights upon multitudes of men.</p>
+
+<p>It was the mind of a complete artist, but of a poet as well, that had
+lurked under the timid reserves of a youth who at thirteen years of age
+had left school for the studio, and who had taught himself, without help
+from any other, to translate the thoughts that moved him into such words
+as the reader will judge of. Here are tenderness of heart, a fervent
+love of Nature, a mystical sense of her changing moods and of her
+eternal language: all those things of which the Germans, professing
+themselves heirs of Goethe and of Beethoven, imagine they have the
+monopoly, but of which we Frenchmen have the true perception, and which
+move us in the words written by our young countryman for his most dearly
+beloved and for himself.</p>
+
+<p>It is singularly touching to find in the spiritual, grave, and religious
+temper of these letters an affinity to the spirit of many others written
+from the front. During those weeks, those endless months of winter in
+the mud or the frost of the trenches, in the daily sight of death, in
+the thought of that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>death coming upon them also, closing upon them to
+seal their eyes for ever, these boys seem to have faced the things of
+eternity with a deeper insight and a keener feeling, as each one, in the
+full strength of life and youth, dwelt upon the thought of beholding the
+world for the last time:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Et la monde">
+<tr><td align='left'>'Et le monde allait donc mourir</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Avec mes yeux, miroir du monde.'</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p>Solemn thought for the man who has watched through a long night in some
+advance-post, and who, beyond the grey and silent plain where lurks the
+enemy, sees a red sun rise yet once more upon the world! 'O splendid
+sun, I wish I could see you again!' wrote once, on the evening of his
+advance upon French ground, a young Silesian soldier who fell upon the
+battlefield of the Marne, and whose Journal has been published. Suddenly
+breaks in this mysterious cry in the course of methodical German notes
+on food and drink, stages of the march, blistered feet, the number of
+villages set on fire. And in how many French letters too have we found
+it&mdash;that abrupt intuition! It is always the same, in many and various
+words: in those of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>the agriculturist of the Seine-et-Marne, whom I
+could name, and who for perhaps the first time in his life takes an
+interest in the sunset; in those of the young middle-class Parisian who
+had seemed incapable of speech save in terms of unbelief and burlesque;
+in those of the artist who utters his emotion in poetry and lifts it up
+to the heights of stoical philosophy. Through all unlikenesses, in the
+hearts of all&mdash;peasant, citizen, soldier, German schoolmaster&mdash;one
+prevailing thought is revealed; the living man, passing away, feels, at
+the approach of eternal night, an exaltation of his sense of the
+splendour of the world. O miracle of things! O divine peace of this
+plain, of these trees, of these hillsides! And how keenly does the ear
+listen for this infinite silence! Or we hear of the immensities of night
+where nothing remains except light and flame: far off, the smouldering
+of fires; far up, the sparkle of stars, the shapes of constellations,
+the august order of the universe. Very soon the rattle of machine-guns,
+the thunder of explosives, the clamour of attack will begin anew; there
+will again be killing and dying. What a contrast of human fury and
+eternal serenity!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> More or less vaguely, and for a brief moment, there
+comes into passing life a glimpse of the profound relation of the simple
+things of heaven and earth with the mind of him who contemplates them.
+Does man then guess that all these things are indeed himself, that his
+little life and the life of the tree yonder, thrilling in the shiver of
+dawn, and beckoning to him, are bound together in the flood of universal
+life?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>For the artist of whom we are now reading, such intuitions and such
+visions were the delight of long months in the trenches. Under the free
+sky, in contact with the earth, in face of the peril and the sight of
+death, life seemed to him to take a sudden and strange expansion. 'From
+our life in the open air we have gained a freedom of conception, an
+amplitude of thought, which will for ever make cities horrible to those
+who survive the war.' Death itself had become a more beautiful and a
+more simple thing; the death of soldiers on whose dumb shapes he looked
+with pious eyes, as Nature took them back into her maternal care and
+mingled them with her earth. Day by day <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>he lived in the thought of
+eternity. True, he kept a feeling heart for all the horror, and
+compassion for all the pain; as to his duty, the reader will know how he
+did that. But, suffering 'all the same,' he took refuge in 'the higher
+consolations.' 'We must,' he writes to those who love him and whom he
+labours&mdash;with what constant solicitude!&mdash;to prepare for the worst, 'we
+must attain to this&mdash;that no catastrophe whatsoever shall have power to
+cripple our lives, to interrupt them, to set them out of tune.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Be
+happy in this great assurance that I give you&mdash;that up till now I have
+raised my soul to a height where events have had no empire over it.'
+These are heights upon which, beyond the differences of their teachings
+and their creeds, all great religious intuitions meet together; upon
+which illusions are no more, and the soul rejects the pretensions of
+self, in order to accept what <i>is</i>. 'Our sufferings come from our small
+human patience taking the same direction as our desires, noble though
+they may be.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Do not dwell upon the personality of those who pass away
+and of those who are left; such things are weighed only in the scales of
+men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> We should gauge in ourselves the enormous value of what is better
+and greater than humanity.' In truth, death is impotent because it too
+is illusory, and 'nothing is ever lost.' So this young Frenchman, who
+has yet never forgone the language of his Christianity, rediscovers amid
+the terrors of war the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius&mdash;that virtue which is
+'neither patience nor too great confidence, but a certain faith in the
+order of all things, a certain power of saying of each trial, "It is
+well."' And, even beyond stoicism, it is the sublime and antique thought
+of India that he makes his own, the thought that denies appearances and
+differences, that reveals to man his separate self and the universe, and
+teaches him to say of the one, 'I am not <i>this</i>,' and of the other,
+'<i>that</i>, I am.' Wonderful encounter of thoughts across the distance of
+ages and the distance of races! The meditation of this young French
+soldier, in face of the enemy who is to attack on the morrow, resumes
+the strange ecstasy in which was rapt the warrior of the <i>Bhagavad Gita</i>
+between two armies coming to the grapple. He, too, sees the turbulence
+of mankind as a dream that seems to veil the higher <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>order and the
+Divine unity. He, too, puts his faith in that 'which knows neither birth
+nor death,' which is 'not born, is indestructible, is not slain when
+this body is slain.' This is the perpetual life that moves across all
+the shapes it calls up, striving in each one to rise nearer to light, to
+knowledge, and to peace. And that aim is a law and a command to every
+thinking being that he should give himself wholly for the general and
+final good. Thence comes the grave satisfaction of those who devote
+themselves, of those who die, in the cause of life, in the thought of a
+sacrifice not useless. 'Tell &mdash;&mdash; that if fate strikes down the best,
+there is no injustice; those who survive will be the better men. You do
+not know the things that are taught by him who falls. I do know.' And
+even more complete is the sacrifice when the relinquishment of life,
+when the renunciation of self, means the sacrifice of what was dearer
+than self, and would have been a life's joy to serve. There was the
+'flag of art, the flag of science,' that the boy loved and had begun to
+carry&mdash;with what a thrill of pride and faith! Let him learn to fall
+without regrets. 'It is enough <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>for him to know that the flag will yet
+be carried.'</p>
+
+<p>A simple, a common obedience to the duty at hand is the practical
+conclusion of that high Indian wisdom when illusions are past. Not to
+retreat into the solitude, not to retire into the inaction, that he has
+known and prized; to fight at the side of his brothers, in his own rank,
+in his own place, with open eyes, without hope of glory or of gain, and
+because such is the law: this is the commandment of the god to the
+warrior Arjuna, who had doubted whether he were right in turning away
+from the Absolute to take part in the evil dream of war. 'The law for
+each is that he should fulfil the functions determined by his own state
+and being. Let every man accept action, since he shares in that nature
+the methods of which make action necessary.' Plainly, it is for Arjuna
+to bend his bow among the other Kshettryas. The young Frenchman had not
+doubted. But it will be seen by his letters how, in the horror of
+carnage, as in the tedious and patient duties of the mine and the
+trench, he too had kept his eyes upon eternal things.</p>
+
+<p>I would not insist unduly upon this union <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>of thought. He had hardly
+gained, through a few extracts from the <i>Ramayana</i>, a glimpse of the
+august thought of ancient Asia. Yet, with all the modern shades of
+ideas, with all the very French precision of form, the soul that is
+revealed in these letters, like that of Amiel, of Michelet, of Tolstoi,
+of Shelley, shows certain profound analogies with the tender and
+mystical genius of the Indies. Strange is that affinity, bearing witness
+as it does not only to his profound need of the Universal and the
+Absolute, but to his intuitive sympathy with the whole of life, to his
+impulses of love for the general soul of fruitfulness and for all its
+single and multitudinous forms. 'Love'&mdash;this is one of the words most
+often recurring in these letters. Love of the country of battle; love of
+the plain over which the mornings and the evenings come and go as the
+emotions come and go over a sensitive face; love of the trees with their
+almost human gesture&mdash;of one tree, steadfast and patient in its wounds,
+'like a soldier'; love of the beautiful little living creatures of the
+fields which, in the silence of earliest morning, play on the edges of
+the trench; love of all things in heaven <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>and earth&mdash;of that tender sky,
+of that French soil with its clear and severe outlines; love, above all,
+of those whom he sees in sufferings and in death at his side; love of
+the good peasants, the mothers who have given their sons, and who hold
+their peace, dry their tears, and fulfil the tasks of the vineyard and
+the field; love of those comrades whose misery 'never silenced laughter
+and song'&mdash;'good men who would have found my fine artistic robes a bad
+encumbrance in the way of their plain duty'; love of all those simple
+ones who make up France, and among whom it is good to lose oneself; love
+of all men living, for it is surely not possible to hate the enemy,
+human flesh and blood bound to this earth and suffering as we too
+suffer; love of the dead upon whom he looks, in the impassive beauty,
+silence, and mystery revealed beneath his meditative eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It is by his close attention to the interior and spiritual significance
+of things that this painter is proved to be a poet, a religious poet who
+has sight, in this world, of the essence of being, in ineffable
+varieties: painter, and poet, and musician also, for in the trenches he
+lives with Beethoven, Handel,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Schumann, Berlioz, carrying in his mind
+their imaginings and their rhythms, and conceiving also within himself
+'the loveliest symphonies fully orchestrated.' Secret riches, intimate
+powers of consolation and of joy, able, in the gloomiest hours, in the
+dark and the mud of long nights on guard, to speak closely to the soul,
+or snatch it suddenly and swiftly to distances and heights. Schumann,
+Beethoven: between those two immortal spirits that made music for all
+human ears, and the harsh pedants, the angry protagonists of Germanism,
+who have succeeded in transforming a people into a war-machine, what
+likeness is there? Have we not made the genius of those two ours by
+understanding them as we understand them, and by so taking them into our
+hearts? Are they not friends of ours? Do they not walk with us in those
+blessed solitudes wherein our truest self awakens, and where our
+thoughts flow free?</p>
+
+<p>It is the greatest of all whom a certain group of our soldiers invoke in
+those days before the expected battle in which some of them are to fall.
+They are in the depths of a dug-out. 'There, in complete darkness,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>night was awaited for the chance to get out. But once my fellow
+non-commissioned officers and I began humming the nine symphonies of
+Beethoven. I cannot tell what great thrill woke those notes within us.'</p>
+
+<p>That almost sacred song, those heroic inspirations at such a moment&mdash;how
+do they not give the lie to German theories as to the limitations of
+French sensibility! And what poet of any other race than ours has ever
+looked upon Nature with more intimate eyes, with a heart more deeply
+moved, than his whose inner soul is here expressed?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>These letters, despatched day by day from the trench or the billet,
+follow each other progressively as a poem does, or a song. A whole life
+unfolds, the life of a soul which we may watch through the monotony of
+its experiences, overcoming them all, or, again, rapt at the coming of
+supreme trials (as in February and in April) into perfect peace. It is
+well that we should trace the spiritual progress of such a dauntless
+will. No history of an interior life was ever more touching. That will
+is set to endurance, and terrible at times is the effort to endure; we
+divine <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>this beneath the simple everyday words of the narrative. Here is
+an artist and a poet; he had chosen his life, he had planned it, by no
+means as a life of action. His whole culture, his whole self-discipline,
+had been directed to the further refining of a keen natural sensibility.
+Necessarily and intentionally he had turned towards solitude and
+contemplation. He had known himself to be purely a mirror for the world,
+tarnishable under the breath of the crowd. But now it was for him to
+lead a life opposed to his former law, contrary to his plan; and this
+not of necessity but by a completely voluntary act. That <i>ego</i> he had so
+jealously sheltered, in face of the world yet out of the world, he was
+now to yield up, to cast without hesitation or regret into the thick of
+human wars; he was no longer to spend his days apart from the jostling
+and the shouldering and the breath of troops; he was to bear his part in
+the mechanism that serves the terrible ends of war. And the close of a
+life which he would have pronounced, from his former point of view, to
+be slavery&mdash;the close might be speedy death. He had to bring himself to
+look upon his old life&mdash;the life that was lighted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>by his visions and
+his hopes, the life that fulfilled his sense of universal existence&mdash;as
+a mere dream, perhaps never to be dreamed again.</p>
+
+<p>That is what he calls 'adapting himself.' And how the word recurs in his
+letters! It is a word that teaches him where duty lies, a duty of which
+the difficulty is to be gauged by the difference of the present from the
+past, of the bygone hope from the present effort. 'In the fulness of
+productiveness,' he confesses, 'at the hour when life is flowering, a
+young creature is snatched away, and cast upon a barren soil where all
+he has cherished fails him. Well, after the first wrench he finds that
+life has not forsaken him, and sets to work upon the new ungrateful
+ground. The effort calls for such a concentration of energy as leaves no
+time for either hopes or fears. And I manage it, except only in moments
+of rebellion (quickly suppressed) of the thoughts and wishes of the
+past. But I need my whole strength at times for keeping down the pangs
+of memory and accepting what is.'</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, strength was called for day by day. This 'adaptation' was no
+transformation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> But by a continuous act of vital energy he assimilated
+all that he drew from his surroundings. Thus he fed his heart, and kept
+his own ideals. This was a way to renounce all things, and by
+renunciation to keep the one thing needful, to remain himself, to live,
+and not only to live but to flourish; to have a part in that universal
+life which produces flowers in nature, art and poetry in man. To gain so
+much, all that was needed was to treasure, unaltered by the terrors of
+war, a heart eager for all shapes of beauty. For this most religious
+poet, beauty was that divine spirit which shines more or less clearly in
+all things, and which raises him who perceives it higher than the
+accidents of individual existence. And he receives its full influence,
+and is rid of all anxiety, who is able to bid adieu to the present and
+the past, to regret nothing, to desire nothing, to receive from the
+passing moment that influence in its plenitude. 'I accept all from the
+hands of fate, and I have captured every delight that lurks under cover
+of every moment.' In this state of simplicity, which is almost a state
+of grace, he enters into communion with the living reality of the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>world. 'Let us eat and drink to all that is eternal, for to-morrow we
+die to all that is of earth.'</p>
+
+<p>That emancipation of the soul is not achieved in a day. The earlier
+letters are beautiful, but what they teach is learnt by nearly all our
+soldiers. In these he tells of the spirit of the men, their fire of
+enthusiasm, their imperious sense of duty, their resolve to carry 'an
+undefiled conscience as far as their feet may lead.' Yet already he is
+seeking to maintain control of his own private self amid all the
+excitement of numbers. And he succeeds. He guards himself, he separates
+himself, 'as much as possible,' in the midst of his comrades, he keeps
+his intellectual life intact. Meanwhile he is within barrack walls, or
+else he is jotting down his letters at a railway station, or else he is
+in the stages of an interminable journey, 'forty men to a truck.' But to
+know him completely, wait until you see him within the zone of war, in
+billets, in the front line, on guard, when he has returned to contact
+with the very earth. As soon as he breathes open air, his instincts are
+awake again, the instinct 'to draw all the beauty out,' and&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>in the
+shadow where the future hides&mdash;'to draw out the utmost beauty as quickly
+as may be.' 'I picked flowers in the mud; keep them in remembrance of
+me,' he will write in a day of foreboding. A most significant trait is
+this&mdash;in the tedium of trench days, or when imminent peril silences the
+idle tongues, he gathers the greatest number of these magical flowers.
+In those moments when speech fails, his soul is serene, it has free
+play, and we hear its own fine sounds. Hitherto we had heard the
+repetition of the word of courage and of brotherhood uttered by all our
+gathering armies. But here, in battle, face to face with the eternities,
+that spirit of his sounds like the chord of an instrument heard for the
+first time in its originality and its infinite sensibility. Nor are
+these random notes; they soon make one harmonious sound and acquire a
+most touching significance, until by daily practice he learns how to
+abstract himself altogether from the most wretched surroundings. A quite
+impersonal <i>ego</i> seems then to detach itself from the particular <i>ego</i>
+that suffers and is in peril; it looks impartially upon all things, and
+sees its other self as a passing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>wave in the tide that a mysterious
+Intelligence controls. Strange faculty of double existence and of
+vision! He possesses it in the midst of the very battle in which his
+active valour gained him the congratulations of his commanding officer.
+In the furnace in which his flesh may be consumed he looks about him,
+and next morning he writes, 'Well, it was interesting.' And he adds,
+'what I had kept about me of my own individuality was a certain visual
+perceptiveness that caused me to register the setting of things&mdash;a
+setting that dramatised itself as artistically as in any
+stage-management. During all these minutes I never relaxed in my resolve
+to see <i>how it was</i>.' He then, too, became aware of the meaning of
+violence. His tender and meditative nature had always held it in horror.
+And, perhaps for that very reason, he sought its explanation. It is by
+violence that an imperfect and provisional state of things is shattered,
+and what was lax is put into action again. Life is resumed, and a better
+order becomes possible. Here again we find his acceptance, his
+submission to the Reason that directs the universe; confidence in what
+<i>takes place</i>&mdash;that is his conclusion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Such times for him are times of observation properly so called, of purer
+thought in which the impulses of the painter and the poet have no share.
+That kind of observation is not infrequent with him, when he is dealing
+with the world and with human action. It awakes at a war-spectacle, at a
+trait of manners, at the reading of a book, at a recollection of history
+or art; it is often to the Bible that he turns, and, amid the worst
+clamours, to the beautiful plastic images of Greece. Admirable is such
+serene energy of a spirit able to live purely as a spirit. It is
+admirable, but it is not unique; great intellectual activity is not
+uncommon with the French; others of our soldiers are philosophers among
+the shells. What does set these letters in a place apart is something
+more profound and more organic than thought, and that is sentiment;
+sentiment in its infinite and indefinite degrees, its relation to the
+aspects of nature&mdash;in a word, that poetic faculty which is akin to the
+musical, proceeding as they both do from the primitive ground-work of
+our being, and uniting in the inflexions of rhythm and of song. I have
+already named Shelley in connexion <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>with the poet we are considering.
+And it is a Shelleyan union with the most intimate, the most
+inexpressible things in nature that is revealed in such a note as the
+following: 'A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the
+Spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening
+days; a sudden softening, a weakening of nature.' In describing this
+atmosphere, this too sudden softness, he uses a word frequent in the
+vocabulary of Shelley&mdash;'fainting.' In truth, like the great English
+poet, whom he seems not to have known, he seeks from the beauty of
+things a faculty of self-forgetfulness in lyrical poetry, an
+inexpressible and blissful passing of the poet's being into the thing he
+contemplates. What he makes his own in the course of those weeks, what
+he remembers afterwards, and what he would recall, never to lose it
+again, is the culminating moment in which he has achieved
+self-forgetfulness and reached the ineffable. The simplest of natural
+objects is able to yield him such a moment; see, for instance, this
+abrupt intuition: 'I had lapsed from my former sense of the benediction
+of God, when suddenly the beauty&mdash;all the beauty&mdash;of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>certain tree
+spoke to my inmost heart; and then I understood that an instant of such
+contemplation is the whole of life.' And still more continuous, still
+more vibrant, is at times his emotion, as when the bow draws out to the
+utmost a long ecstatic tone from a sensitive violin. 'What joy is this
+perpetual thrill in the heart of Nature! That same horizon of which I
+had watched the awakening, I saw last night bathe itself in rosy light;
+and then the full moon went up into a tender sky, fretted by coral and
+saffron trees.' It is very nearly ecstasy with him in that astonishing
+Christmas night which no one then at the front can ever forget&mdash;a solemn
+night, a blue night, full of stars and of music, when the order and the
+divine unity of the universe stood revealed to the eyes of men who, free
+for a moment from the dream of hatred and of blood, raised one chant
+along six miles, 'hymns, hymns, from end to end.'</p>
+
+<p>Of the carnage in February there are a few precise notes, sufficient to
+suggest the increasing horror. The narrative grows quicker; the reader
+is aware of the pulse and the impetus of action, the imperious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>summons
+of duty; the young sergeant is in charge of men, and has to execute
+terrible tasks. But ever across the tumult and the slaughter, there are
+moments of recollection and of compassion; and, in the evening of a day
+of battle, what infinite tranquillity among the dead! At this period
+there are no more notes of landscape effects; the description is of the
+war, technical; otherwise the writer's thought is not of earth at all.
+Once only, towards the end, we find a sorrowful recollection of himself,
+a profound lamentation at the remembrance of bygone hopes, of bygone
+work, of the immensity of the sacrifice. 'This war is long, too long for
+those who had something else to do in the world! Why am I so sacrificed,
+when so many others, not my equals, are spared? Yet I had something
+worth doing to do in the world!' Most touching is that sigh, even more
+touching than the signs of greatness in his soul, for it suddenly
+breathes an anguish long controlled. It is a human weakness&mdash;our own
+weakness&mdash;that is at last confessed, on the eve of a Passion, as in the
+Divine example. At rare times such a question, in the constant sight of
+death, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>in fatigue and weariness, in the long distress of rain and mud,
+checks in him the impulse of life and of spiritual desire. He was
+himself the young plant of which he writes, growing, creating fragrance
+and breaking into flower, sure of God, feeling Him alive within itself.
+But all at once it knows frost is coming and the threat of unpitying
+things. What if the universe were void, what if in the infinity of the
+exterior world there were nothing, across the splendid vision, but an
+insensate fatality? What if sacrifice itself were also a delusion? 'Dark
+days have come upon me, and nothingness seems the end of all, whereas
+all that is in my being had assured me of the plenitude of the
+universe.' And he asks himself the anxious question, 'Is it even sure
+that moral effort bears any fruit?' It is something like abandonment by
+God. But that darkening of his lights passes quickly away. He comes
+again to the regions of tranquil thought, and leaves them thenceforward
+only for the work in hand. 'I hope,' he writes, 'that when you think of
+me you will have in mind all those who have left everything behind, and
+how their nearest and dearest think of them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>only in the past, and say
+of them, "We had once a brother, who, many years ago, withdrew from this
+world."' How strange is the serenity of these lofty thoughts, how
+entirely detached from self and from all human things is this spirit of
+contemplation. Two slight traits give us signs: One night, on a
+battlefield 'scattered with fragments of men' and with burning
+dwellings, under a starry sky, he makes his bed in an excavation, and
+lies there watching the crescent moon, and waits for dawn; now and again
+a shell bursts, earth falls about him, and then silence returns to the
+frozen soil: 'I have paid the price, but I have had moments of solitude
+full of God.' Again, one evening, after five days of horror ('we have no
+officers left&mdash;they all died as brave men'), he suddenly comes upon the
+body of a friend; 'a white body, splendid under the moon. I lay down
+near him.' In the quietness, by the side of the dead man, nothing
+remains but beauty and peace.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>These letters are to be anonymous, at least so long as any hope remains
+that he who was lost may return. It is enough to know that they were
+written by a Frenchman who, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>love and faith, bore his part in the
+general effort, the common peril, glad to renounce himself in the pain
+and the devotion of his countrymen. By a happy fortune that he did not
+foresee when he left his clean solitude for the sweat, the servitude,
+and the throng, he no doubt produced the best of himself in these
+letters; and it may be doubted whether, in the course of a successful
+artist's life, it would have been given to him to express himself with
+so much completeness. This is a thought that may strengthen those who
+love him to accept whatever has come to pass. His soul is here, a more
+essential soul perhaps, and a more beautiful, than they had known. It
+was in war that Marcus Aurelius also wrote his thoughts. Possibly the
+worst is needful for the manifestation of the whole of human greatness.
+We marvel how the soul can so discover in itself the means to oppose
+suffering and death. Thus have many of our sons revealed themselves in
+the day of trial, to the wonder of France, until then unaware of all
+that she really was. That is how these pages touch us so closely. He who
+wrote them had attuned himself with his countrymen. Through the more
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>mystical acts of his mind we perceive the sublime message sent to us
+from the front, more or less explicitly, by others of our brothers and
+our sons&mdash;the high music that goes up still from the whole of France at
+war. In all his comrades assembled for the great task, he too had
+recognised the best and the deepest things that his own heart held, and
+so he speaks of them constantly&mdash;especially of the simplest of the
+men&mdash;with so great respect and love. Far from ordinary ambitions and
+cares, the things that this rough life among the eternities brings into
+all hearts with a heretofore unknown amplitude are serenity of
+conscience and a freshness of feeling in perpetual touch with the
+harmonies of nature. These men do but reflect nature. Since they have
+renounced themselves and given themselves, all things have become simple
+for them. They have the transparence of soul and the lights of
+childhood. 'We spend childish days. We are children.' .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>This new youthfulness of heart under the contemned menace of death, this
+innocence in the daily fulfilment of heroic duty, is assured by a
+spiritual state akin to sanctity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>LETTERS</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+<h2>LETTERS OF A SOLDIER</h2>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>August 6, 1914.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My very dear Mother</span>,&mdash;These are my first days of life at war,
+full of change, but the fatigue I actually feel is very different from
+what I foresaw.</p>
+
+<p>I am in a state of great nervous tension because of the want of sleep
+and exercise. I lead the life of a government clerk. I belong to what is
+called the d&eacute;p&ocirc;t, I am one of those doing sedentary work, and destined
+eventually to fill up the gaps in the fighting line.</p>
+
+<p>What we miss is news; there are no longer any papers to be had in this
+town.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>August 13.</i></div>
+
+<p>We are without news, and so it will be for several days, the censorship
+being of the most rigorous kind.</p>
+
+<p>Here life is calm. The weather is magnificent, and all breathes quiet
+and confidence. We think of those who are fighting in the heat, and this
+thought makes our own situation <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>seem even too good. The spirit among
+the reservists is excellent.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Sunday, August 16.</i></div>
+
+<p>To-day a walk along the Marne. Charming weather after a little rain.</p>
+
+<p>A welcome interlude in these troubled times. We are still without news,
+like you, but we have happily a large stock of patience. I have had some
+pleasure in the landscape, notwithstanding the invasion of red and blue.
+These fine men in red and blue have given the best impression of their
+<i>moral</i>. Great levies will be made upon our d&eacute;p&ocirc;ts, to be endured with
+fortitude.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>August 16</i> (from a note-book).</div>
+
+<p>The monotony of military life benumbs me, but I don't complain. After
+nine years these types are to be rediscovered, a little less marked,
+improved, levelled down. Just now every one is full of grave thoughts
+because of the news from the East.</p>
+
+<p>The ordinary good-fellowship of the mess has been replaced by a finer
+solidarity and a praiseworthy attempt at adaptation. One of the
+advantages of our situation is that we can, as it were, play at being
+soldiers with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>certainty of not wasting our time. All these childish
+and easy occupations, which are of immediate result and usefulness,
+bring back calm to the mind and soothe the nerves. Then the great stay
+which supports the men is a profound, vague feeling of brotherhood which
+turns all hearts towards those who are fighting. Each one feels that the
+slight discomfort which he endures is only a feeble tribute to the
+frightful expense of all energy and all devotedness at the front.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>August 25.</i></div>
+
+<p>This letter will barely precede our own departure. The terrible conflict
+calls for our presence close to those who are already in the midst of
+the struggle. I leave you, grandmother and you, with the hope of seeing
+you again, and the certainty that you will approve of my doing all that
+seems to me my duty.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is hopeless, and, above all, nothing has changed our idea of the
+part we have to play.</p>
+
+<p>Tell all those who love me a little that I think of them. I have no time
+to write to any one. My health is of the best.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;After such an upheaval we may say <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>that our former life is dead.
+Dear mother, let us, you and I, with all our courage adapt ourselves to
+an existence entirely different, however long it may last.</p>
+
+<p>Be very sure that I won't go out of my way to do anything that endangers
+our happiness, but that I'll try to satisfy my conscience, and yours. Up
+till now I am without cause for self-reproach, and so I hope to remain.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>August 25</i> (2nd letter).</div>
+
+<p>A second letter to tell you that, instead of our regiment, it was
+Pierre's that went. I had the joy of seeing him pass in front of me when
+I was on guard in the town. I accompanied him for a hundred yards, then
+we said good-bye. I had a feeling that we should meet again.</p>
+
+<p>It is the gravest of hours; the country will not die, but her
+deliverance will be snatched only at the price of frightful efforts.</p>
+
+<p>Pierre's regiment went covered with flowers, and singing. It was a deep
+consolation to be together till the end.</p>
+
+<p>It is fine of Andr&eacute;<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> to have saved his drowning comrade. We don't
+realise the reserve of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>heroism there is in France, and among the young
+intellectual Parisians.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to our losses, I may tell you that whole divisions have been
+wiped out. Certain regiments have not an officer left.</p>
+
+<p>As for my state of mind, my first letter will perhaps tell you better
+what I believe to be my duty. Know that it would be shameful to think
+for one instant of holding back when the race demands the sacrifice. My
+only part is to carry an undefiled conscience as far as my feet may
+lead.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>August 26.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My very dear Mother</span>,&mdash;I was made happy by Maurice Barr&eacute;s's fine
+article, 'l'Aigle et le Rossignol,' which corresponds in every detail
+with what I feel.</p>
+
+<p>The d&eacute;p&ocirc;ts contain some failures, but also men of fine energy, among
+whom I dare not yet count myself, but with whom I hope to set out. The
+major had dispensed me from carrying a knapsack, but I carry it for
+practice and manage quite well.</p>
+
+<p>The only assurance which I can give you concerns my own moral and
+physical state, which is excellent. The true death would be to live in a
+conquered country, above all for me, whose art would perish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I isolate myself as much as I can, and I am really unaffected, from the
+intellectual point of view. Besides, the atmosphere of the mess is well
+above that of normal times: the trouble is that the constant moving and
+changing drags us about from place to place, and growing confidence
+falters before the perpetually recurring unknown.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>August 30.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;My little mother, it is certain that though we did not leave
+yesterday, it is yet only a question of hours. I won't say to you
+anything that I have already said, content only that I have from you the
+approval of which I was certain.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;In the very hard march yesterday only one man fell out, really ill.
+France will come out of this bad pass.</p>
+
+<p>I can only repeat to you how well I am prepared for all eventualities,
+and that nothing can undo our twenty-seven years of happiness. I am
+resolved not to consider myself foredoomed, and I fancy the joy of
+returning, but I am ready to go to the end of my strength. If you knew
+the shame I should endure to think that I might have done something
+more!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In the midst of all this sadness we live through magnificent hours, when
+the things that used to be most strange take on an august significance.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><i>September 4, 6 o'clock</i> (<i>on the way, in the train</i>).</div>
+
+<p>We have had forty hours of a journey in which the picturesque outdoes
+even the extreme discomfort. The great problem is sleep, and the
+solution is not easy when there are forty in a cattle-truck.</p>
+
+<p>The train stops every instant, and we encounter the unhappy refugees.
+Then the wounded: fine spectacle of patriotism. The English army. The
+artillery.</p>
+
+<p>We no longer know anything, having no more papers, and we can't trust
+the rumours which fly among the distraught population.</p>
+
+<p>Splendid weather.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Saturday, September 5</i> (<i>at the end of 60 hours in a
+cattle-truck: 40 men to a truck</i>).</div>
+
+<p>On the same day we skirted the Seine opposite the forest of
+Fontainebleau and the banks of the Loire. Saw the ch&acirc;teau de Blois and
+the ch&acirc;teau d'Amboise. Unhappily the darkness prevented us from seeing
+more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> How can I tell you what tender emotions I felt by these
+magnificent banks of the Loire!</p>
+
+<p>Are you bombarded by the frightful aeroplanes? I think of you in such
+conditions and above all of poor Grandmother, who indeed had little need
+to see all this! However, we must hope.</p>
+
+<p>We learn from wounded refugees that in the first days of August mistakes
+were made in the high command which had terrible consequences. It falls
+to us now to repair those mistakes.</p>
+
+<p>Masses of English troops arrive. We have crossed numbers of crowded
+trains.</p>
+
+<p>Well, this war will not have been the mere march-past which many
+thought, but which I never thought, it would be; but it will have
+stirred the good in all humanity. I do not speak of the magnificent
+things which have no immediate connection with the war,&mdash;but nothing
+will be lost.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>September 5, 1914</i> (<i>1st halting-place, 66 hours in the cage
+without being able to stretch</i>).</div>
+
+<p>Still the same jolting and vibration, but three times after the horrible
+night there has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>come the glory of the morning, and all fatigue has
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>We have crossed the French country in several directions, from the
+rather harsh serenity, full of suggestiveness, of Champagne, to the rich
+robust placidity of Brittany. On the way we followed the full and noble
+banks of the Loire, and now .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>O my beautiful country, the heart of the world, where lies all that is
+divine upon earth, what monster sets upon you&mdash;a country whose offence
+is her beauty!</p>
+
+<p>I used to love France with sincere love, which was more than a little
+<i>dilettante</i>; I loved her as an artist, proud to live in the most
+beautiful of lands; in fact, I loved her rather as a picture might love
+its frame. It needed this horror to make me know how filial and profound
+are the ties which bind me to my country.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>September 7</i> (from a note-book).</div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;We are embarked on the adventure, without any dominant feeling
+except perhaps a sufficiently calm acceptance of this fatality. But
+sensibility is kept awake by the sight of the victims, particularly the
+refugees. Poor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>people, truly uprooted, or rather, dead leaves in the
+storm, little souls in great circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Whole trains of cattle-trucks, which can hardly be said to have changed
+their use! Trains in which is heaped up the desolation of these people
+torn from their homes, and how quickly become as beasts! Misery has
+stripped them of all their human attributes. We take them food and
+drink, and that is how they become exposed: the man drinks without
+remembering his wife and children. The woman thinks of her child. But
+other women take their time, unable to share in the general haste. Among
+these waifs there is one who assails my heart,&mdash;a grandmother of
+eighty-seven, shaken, tossed about by all these blows, being by turns
+hoisted into and let down from the rolling cages. So trembling and
+disabled, so lost .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>September 10</i> (from a note-book).</div>
+
+<p>We arrive in a new part of the country on the track of good news: the
+strong impression is that France's future is henceforth assured.
+Everything corroborates this feeling, from the official report which
+formally announces a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>complete success down to the most fantastic
+rumours.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>September 13</i> (from a note-book).</div>
+
+<p>This is war; here are we approaching the place of horror. We have left
+behind the French villages where peace was still sleeping. Now there is
+nothing but tumult. And here are direct victims of the war.</p>
+
+<p>The soldiers: blood, mud and dirt. The wounded. Those whom we pass at
+first are the least suffering&mdash;wounds in arms, in hands. In most of them
+can clearly be seen, in the midst of their fatigue and distress, great
+relief at having been let off comparatively easily.</p>
+
+<p>Farther on, towards the ambulances, the burying of the dead: there are
+six, stretched on two waggons. Smoothed out, and covered with rags, they
+are taken to an open pit at the foot of a Calvary. Some priests conduct,
+rather than celebrate, the service, military as they have become. A
+little straw and some holy water over all, and so we pass on. After all,
+these dead are happy: they are cared-for dead. What can be said of those
+who lie farther on and who have passed away after nights of the throes
+of death and abandonment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;From this agony there will remain to us an immense yearning for pity
+and brotherhood and goodness.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><i>Wednesday, September 16, 1914.</i></div>
+
+<p>In the horror-zone.</p>
+
+<p>The rainy twilight shadows the road, and suddenly, in a ditch&mdash;the dead!
+They have dragged themselves here from the battlefield&mdash;they are all
+corrupt now. The coming of darkness makes it difficult to distinguish
+their nationality, but the same great pity envelops them all. Only one
+word for them: poor boy! The night for these ignominies&mdash;and then again
+the morning. The day rises upon the swollen bodies of dead horses. In
+the corner of a wood, carnage, long cold.</p>
+
+<p>One sees only open sacks, ripped nose-bags. Nothing that looks like life
+remains.</p>
+
+<p>Among them some civilians, whose presence is due to the German
+proceeding of making French hostages march under our fire.</p>
+
+<p>If these notes should reach any one, may they give rise in an honest
+heart to horror of the foul crime of those responsible for this war.
+There will never be enough glory to cover all the blood and all the
+mud.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><i>September 21, 1914.</i></div>
+
+<p>War in rain.</p>
+
+<p>It is suffering beyond what can be imagined. Three days and three nights
+without being able to do anything but tremble and moan, and yet, in
+spite of all, perfect service must be rendered.</p>
+
+<p>To sleep in a ditch full of water has no equivalent in Dante, but what
+can be said of the awakening, when one must watch for the moment to kill
+or to be killed!</p>
+
+<p>Above, the roar of the shells drowns the whistling of the wind. Every
+instant, firing. Then one crouches in the mud, and despair takes
+possession of one's soul.</p>
+
+<p>When this torment came to an end I had such a nervous collapse that I
+wept without knowing why&mdash;late, useless tears.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><i>September 25.</i></div>
+
+
+<p>Hell in so calm and pastoral a place. The autumnal country pitted and
+torn by cannon!</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><i>September 27.</i></div>
+
+
+<p>If, apart from the greater lessons of the war, there are small immediate
+benefits to be had, the one that means most to me is the con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>templation
+of the night sky. Never has the majesty of the night brought me so much
+consolation as during this accumulation of trials. Venus, sparkling, is
+a friend to me.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>I am now familiar with the constellations. Some of them make great
+curves in the sky as if to encircle the throne of God. What glory! And
+how one evokes the Chaldean shepherds!</p>
+
+<p>O constellations! first alphabet!.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><i>October 1.</i></div>
+
+<p>I can say that, as far as the mind goes, I have lived through great days
+when all vain preoccupations were swept away by a new spirit.</p>
+
+<p>If there should ever be any lapse so that only one of my letters reaches
+you, may it be one that says how beneficial, how precious have these
+torments been!</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 1</i> (from a note-book).</div>
+
+<p>It follows from this that our suffering, every moment of it, should be
+considered as the most marvellous source of feeling and of progress for
+the conscience.</p>
+
+<p>I now know into what domain my destiny <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>leads me. No longer towards the
+proud and illusory region of pure speculation, but in the way of all
+little daily things&mdash;it is there that I must carry the service of an
+ever-vigilant sensibility.</p>
+
+<p>I see how easily an upright nature may dispense with the arts of
+expression in order to be helpful in act and in influence. Precious
+lesson, which will enable me, should I return, to suffer less if fate no
+longer allows me to paint.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 9.</i></div>
+
+<p>It seems that we have the order to attack. I do not want to risk this
+great event without directing my thoughts to you in the few moments of
+quiet that are left.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Everything here combines to maintain peace in
+the heart: the beauty of the woods in which we live, the absence of
+intellectual complications.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. It is paradoxical, as you say, but the
+finest moments of my moral life are those that have just gone by.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Know that there will always be beauty on earth, and that man will never
+have enough wickedness to suppress it. I have gathered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>enough of it to
+store my life. May our destiny allow me time later to bring to fruit all
+that I have gathered now. It is something that no one can snatch from
+us, it is treasure of the soul which we have amassed.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 12.</i></div>
+
+<p>Up till now your love and Providence do not forsake me.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. We are still
+in the magnificent devastated woods, in the midst of the finest autumn.
+Nature brings many joys which dominate these horrors. Profound and
+powerful hope, whatever suffering still awaits us.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 14.</i></div>
+
+<p>It is true, dear mother, that some renunciation costs a great deal of
+effort, but be sure that we both possess the necessary strength of soul
+to live through these difficult hours without catching our breath in
+painful longing at the idea of the return we both crave for.</p>
+
+<p>The great thing is to know the value of the present moment and to make
+it yield all that it has of good and beauty and edification. For the
+rest, no one can guarantee the future, and it would be vain and futile
+torment to live wondering what might happen to us. Don't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>you think that
+life has dispensed us many blessings, and that one of the last, and the
+greatest, is that we have been able to communicate with each other and
+to feel our union? There are many unfortunate people here who do not
+know where their wives and children are, who have been for three months
+isolated from all. You see that we are still among the lucky ones.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, less than ever ought we to despair, for never shall we be
+more truly convinced that all this agitation and delirium of mankind's
+are nothing in view of the share of eternity which each one carries
+within himself, and that all these monstrosities will end in a better
+future. This war is a kind of cataclysm which succeeds to the old
+physical upheavals of our globe; but have you not noticed that, in the
+midst of all this, a little of our soul is gone from us, and that we
+have lost something of our conviction of a Higher Order? Our sufferings
+come from our small human patience taking the same direction as our
+desires, noble though they may be. But as soon as we set ourselves to
+question things in order to discover their true harmony, we find rest
+unto our souls. How do we know <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>that this violence and disorder are not
+leading the universal destinies towards a final good?</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, still cherishing the firmest and most human hope, I send my
+deepest love to you and to my beloved grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>Send also all my love to our friends who are in trouble. Help them to
+bear everything: two crosses are less heavy to carry than one. And
+confidence in our eternal joy.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 15, 7 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>I have received your card of the 1st. What joy it gives me that we
+should be at last in touch with each other. Certainly, our thoughts have
+never been apart. You tell me of Marthe's misfortune, and I am happy
+that you can be useful to her. Dear mother, that is the task that
+belongs to us both: to be useful at the present moment without reference
+to the moment that is to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, indeed, I feel deeply with you that I have a mission in life. But
+one must act in each instant as though that mission was having immediate
+fulfilment. Do not let us keep back one single small corner of our
+hearts for our small hopes. We must attain <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>to this&mdash;that no catastrophe
+whatsoever shall have power to cripple our lives, to interrupt them, to
+set them out of tune. That is the finest work, and it is the work of
+this moment. The rest, that future which we must not question&mdash;you will
+see, mother dear, what it holds of beauty and goodness and truth. Not
+one of our faculties must be used in vain, and all useless anxiety is a
+harmful expense.</p>
+
+<p>Be happy in this great assurance that I give you&mdash;that up till now I
+have raised my soul to a height where events have had no empire over it,
+and I promise you that my effort will be still to make ready my soul as
+much as I can.</p>
+
+<p>Tell M&mdash;&mdash; that if fate strikes down the best, there is no injustice:
+those who survive will be the better men. Let her accept the sacrifice,
+knowing that it is not in vain. You do not know the things that are
+taught by him who falls. I do know.</p>
+
+<p>To him who can read life, present events have broken all habit of
+thought, but they allow him more glimpses than ever before of eternal
+beauty and order.</p>
+
+<p>Let us recover from the surprise of this laceration, and adapt ourselves
+without loss <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>of time to the new state of things which turns us into
+people as privileged as Socrates and the Christian martyrs and the men
+of the Revolution. We are learning to despise all in life that is merely
+temporary, and to delight in that which life so seldom yields: the love
+of those things that are eternal.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 16.</i></div>
+
+<p>We are living for some days in comparative calm; between two storms my
+company is deserving of special rest. Also I am thoroughly enjoying this
+month of October. Your fine letter of October 2 reaches me, and I am now
+full of happiness, and there is profound peace.</p>
+
+<p>Let us continue to arm ourselves with courage, do not let us even speak
+of patience. Nothing but to accept the present moment with all the
+treasures which it brings us. That is all there is to do, and it is
+precisely in this that all the beauty of the world is concentrated.
+There is something, dear mother, something outside all that we have
+habitually felt. Apply your courage and your love of me to uncovering
+this, and laying it bare for others.</p>
+
+<p>This new beauty has no reference to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>ideas expressed in the words
+health, family, country. One perceives it when one distinguishes the
+share of the eternal which is in everything. But let us cherish this
+splendid presentiment of ours&mdash;that we shall meet again: it will not in
+any way impede our task. Tell M&mdash;&mdash; how much I think of her. Alas! her
+case is not unique. This war has broken many a hope; so, dear mother,
+let us put our hope there where the war cannot attain to it, in the deep
+places of our heart, and in the high places of our soul.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 17, 3 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>To write to you and to know that my letters reach you is a daily
+paradise to me. I watch for the hour when it is possible to write.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, beloved mother, you must feel a revival of courage and desire to
+live; never must a single affection, however good, be counted as a
+pretext for life. No accident should make us forget the reason we are
+alive. Of course, we can prefer this or that mission in life, but let us
+accept the one which presents itself, however surprising or passing it
+may be. You feel as I do, that happiness is in store for us, but let us
+not think of it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> Let us think of the actions of to-day, of all the
+sacrifices they imply.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 22.</i></div>
+
+<p>I accept all from the hands of fate, and I have captured every delight
+that lurks under cover of every moment.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! if men only knew how much peace they squander, and how much may be
+contained in one minute, how far less would they suffer from this
+seeming violence. No doubt there are extreme torments that I do not yet
+know, and which perhaps test the soul in a way I do not suspect, but I
+exert all the strength of my soul to accept each moment and each test.
+What is necessary is to recognise love and beauty triumphant over
+violence. No few seasons of hate and grief will have the power to
+overthrow eternal beauty, and of this beauty we all have an imperishable
+store.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 23.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My very dear Mother</span>,&mdash;I have re-read Barr&eacute;s's article, 'l'Aigle
+et le Rossignol.' It is still as beautiful, but it no longer seems in
+complete harmony. Now nothing exists outside the absolute present;
+everything else is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>like ornaments put to one side until the holiday,
+the far-off, uncertain holiday. But what does it matter!&mdash;the ornaments
+are treasured up in safety. Thus do I cherish the treasures of
+affection, of legitimate ambition, of praiseworthy aspiration. All of
+these I have covered over, and I live but in the present moment.</p>
+
+<p>This morning, under the fine sky, I remembered the music of yesterday: I
+was full of happiness. Forgive me for not living in an anguish of
+longing to return. I believe that you approve of my giving back our
+dearest hopes into other hands than ours.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 27.</i></div>
+
+<p>If, as I hope intensely, I have the joy of seeing you again, you will
+know the miraculous way in which I have been led by Providence. I have
+only had to bow before a power and a beneficence which surpassed all my
+proud conceptions.</p>
+
+<p>I can say that God has been within me as I am within God, and I make
+firm resolves always to feel such a communion.</p>
+
+<p>You see, the thing is to put life to good account, not as we understand
+it, even in our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>noblest affections, but in saying to ourselves: Let us
+eat and drink to all that is eternal, for to-morrow we die to all that
+is of earth. We acquire an increase of love in that moment when we
+renounce our mean and anxious hopes.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 28.</i></div>
+
+<p>This is nearly the end of the third month of a terrible trial, from
+which the lessons will be wide and salutary not only to him who will
+know how to listen, but to all the world, and therein lies the great
+consolation for those who are involved in this torment. Let it also be
+the consolation of those whose hopes are with the combatants.</p>
+
+<p>This consolation consists especially in the supernaturally certain
+conviction that all divine and immortal energy, working through mankind,
+far from being enfeebled, will, on the contrary, be exalted and more
+intensely effectual at the end of these storms.</p>
+
+<p>Happy the man who will hear the song of peace as in the 'Pastoral
+Symphony,' but happy already he who has foreknowledge of it amid the
+tumult! And what does it matter in the end that this magnificent
+prophecy is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>fulfilled in the absence of the prophet! He who has guessed
+this has gleaned great joy upon earth. We can leave it to a higher being
+to pronounce if the mission is accomplished.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 28</i> (2nd letter, almost at the same hour).</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear, dear Mother</span>,&mdash;Another welcome moment to spend with
+you. We can never say any but the same thing, but it is so fine a thing
+that it can always be said in new ways.</p>
+
+<p>To-day we are living under a sky of great clouds as swift and cold as
+those of the Dutch landscape painters.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Dear, I dare not wish for anything&mdash;it must not be. I must not even
+consider a partial relaxation. I assure you that the effort for
+endurance is less painful than certain times of intensive preparation
+that we have passed through. Only we can each moment brace ourselves in
+a kind of resistance against what is evil in us, and leave every door
+open to the good which comes from without.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;I am glad that you have read Tolstoi: he also took part in war. He
+judged it; he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>accepted its teaching. If you can glance at the admirable
+<i>War and Peace</i>, you will find pictures that our situation recalls. It
+will make you understand the liberty for meditation that is possible to
+a soldier who desires it.</p>
+
+<p>As to the disability which the soul might be supposed to suffer through
+the lack of all material well-being, do not believe in it. We lead the
+life of rabbits on the first day of the season's shooting, and,
+notwithstanding that, we can enrich our souls in a magnificent way.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 30.</i></div>
+
+<p>I write to you in a marvellous landscape of grey autumn lashed by the
+wind. But for me the wind has always been without sadness, because it
+brings to me the spirit of the country beyond the hill.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>The horrible war does not succeed in tearing us from our intellectual
+habitation. In spite of moments of overwhelming noise, one more or less
+recovers oneself. The ordinary course of our present existence gives us
+a sensibility like that of a raw wound, aware of the least breath.
+Perhaps after this spoliation of our moral skin a new surface will be
+formed, and those who return will be for the time brutally <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>insensitive.
+Never mind: this condition of crisis for the soul cannot remain without
+profit.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday we were in a pretty Meuse village, all the more charming in
+contrast with the surrounding ruins.</p>
+
+<p>I was able to have a shirt washed, and while it dried I talked to the
+excellent woman who braves death every day to maintain her hearth. She
+has three sons, all three soldiers, and the news she has of them is
+already old. One of them passed within a few kilometres of her: his
+mother knew it and was not able to see him. Another of these Frenchwomen
+keeps the house of her son-in-law who has six children.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>For you, duty lies in acceptance of all and, at the same time, in the
+most perfect confidence in eternal justice.</p>
+
+<p>Do not dwell upon the personality of those who pass away and of those
+who are left; such things are weighed only with the scales of men. We
+must gauge in ourselves the enormous value of what is better and greater
+than humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, absolute confidence. In what? We both already know.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>October 30, 10 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>Up till now I have possessed the wisdom that renounces all, but now I
+hope for a wisdom that accepts all, turning towards what may be to come.
+What matter if the trap opens beneath the steps of the runner. True, he
+does not attain his end, but is he wiser who remains motionless under
+the pretext that he might fall?</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 1, All Saints', 8 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>Last night I received your card of 24-25th. While you were looking at
+that moon, clouded from us, you were very wrong to feel yourself so
+helpless; how much reason had you to hope! At that very moment I was
+being protected by Providence in a way that rebukes all pride.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we had the most lovely dawn over the deeply coloured autumn
+woods in this country where I made my sketches of three years ago; but
+just here the landscape becomes accentuated and enlarged and acquires a
+pathetic majesty. How can I tell you the grandeur of the horizon! We are
+remaining in this magnificent place, and this is All Saints' Day!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the moment, I write to you in the silvery light of a sun rising over
+the valley mists; we are conscious of the sleeping country for forty
+kilometres around, and battle hardly disturbs the religious gravity of
+the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Do love my proposed picture! It makes a bond with my true career. If it
+is vouchsafed to me to return, the form of the picture may change, but
+its essence is contained in the sketch.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Mid-day.</i>&mdash;Splendid All Saints' Day profaned by violence.</div>
+
+<p>Glory of the day.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 2, All Souls'.</i></div>
+
+<p>Splendid feast of sun and of joy in the glorious beauty of a Meusian
+landscape. Hope confines itself in the heart, not daring to insult the
+grief of those for whom this day is perhaps the first day of
+bereavement.</p>
+
+<p>Dear beloved mother, twenty-eight years ago you were in a state of
+mourning and hope to-day, the agony is as full of hope as then. It is at
+a different age that these new trials occur, but a whole life of
+submission prepares the way to supreme wisdom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What joy is this perpetual thrill in the heart of Nature! That same
+horizon of which I had watched the awakening, I saw last night bathe
+itself in rosy light; then the full moon went up into a tender sky,
+fretted by coral and saffron trees.</p>
+
+<p>Dear, the frightful record of martyrdom of the best French youth cannot
+go on indefinitely. It is impossible that the flower of a whole race can
+disappear.</p>
+
+<p>There must be some nobler task than war for the nation's genius! I have
+a secret conviction of a better near future. May our courage and our
+union lead us to this better thing. Hope, hope always! I received
+grandmother's dear letter and M.R.'s kind and affectionate card.</p>
+
+<p>Dear, have you this beautiful sun to-day? How noble is the country and
+how good is Nature! To him who listens she says that nothing will ever
+be lost.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 4, 10 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>I live only through your thoughts and in the blessings of Nature. This
+morning our chiefs menaced us with a march of twenty kilometres, and
+this threat fulfilled itself in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>the form of a charming walk in the
+landscape that I love so much.</p>
+
+<p>Exquisite vapours, which we see lifting hour by hour at the call of a
+temperate sun; and, yonder, those high plateaux which command a vast
+panorama, where everything is finely drawn, or rather is just felt in
+the mist.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>There are hills furnished with bare trees holding up their charming
+profiles. I think of the primitives, of their sensitive and
+conscientious landscapes. What scrupulous majesty, of which the first
+sight awes with its grandeur, and the detail is profoundly moving!</p>
+
+<p>You see, dear mother, how God dispenses blessings that are far greater
+than griefs. It is not even a question of patience, since time has no
+longer any meaning for us, for it is not a matter of any calculable
+duration. But then, what richness of emotion in each present minute!</p>
+
+<p>This then is our life, of which I wrote to you that not one event must
+make of it something unachieved, interrupted; and I hope to preserve
+this wisdom. But at the same time I want to ally it with another wisdom
+which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>looks to the future, even if the future is forbidden to us. Yes,
+let us take all from the hands of the present (and the present brings us
+so many treasures!), but let us also prepare for the future.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 5, 8 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>,&mdash;Do not hide from me anything of what happens in
+Paris, of your cares, or your occupations. All that you will decide is
+for the best. My own happiness, in the midst of all this, lies just in
+that security I have in thinking of your spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The weather is still exquisite and very soft. To-day, without leaving
+the beautiful region to which we came on September 20th, we have
+returned to the woods. I like that less than the wide open view, but
+there is prettiness here too. And then the sky, now that the leaves have
+fallen, is so beautiful and so tender.</p>
+
+<p>I have written to C&mdash;&mdash;. I will write to Mme. C&mdash;&mdash;. I hope for a letter
+from you. If you knew how much the longer is a day without news! It is
+true I have your old letters, but the new letter has a fragrance which I
+now can't do without.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 6.</i></div>
+
+<p>Yesterday, without knowing why, I was a little sad: what soldiers call
+<i>avoir le cafard</i>. My sadness arose from my having parted the day before
+with a book of notes which I had decided to send to you in a package.
+The events of the day before yesterday, albeit pacific, had so hustled
+me that I was not able to attend to this unfortunate parcel as I should
+have liked. Also, I was divided between two anxieties: the first, lest
+the package should not reach you, and lest these notes, which have been
+my life from the 1st to the 20th of October, should be lost. The second,
+on the contrary, was lest it should reach you before the arrival of
+explaining letters, which might seem strange to you, the sending-off
+having probably been done in another name, and the cover of my copybook
+bearing my directions that the notes should be forwarded to you if
+necessary.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;To-day we are living in the most intimate and delicate Corot
+landscape.</p>
+
+<p>From the barn where we have established our outpost, I see, first, the
+road with puddles <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>left by the rain; then some tree-stumps; then, beyond
+a meadow, a line of willows beside a charming running stream. In the
+background, a few houses are veiled in a light mist, keeping the
+delicate darks which our dear landscape-painter felt so nobly.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the peace of this morning. Who would believe that one has but to
+turn one's head, and there is nothing but conflagration and ruin!.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 7, 8 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span></i></div>
+
+<p>I have just had your card of the 30th announcing the sending-off of a
+packet. How kind this is! how much thought is given to us! All this
+sweetness is appreciated to the full.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, a delicious November day. This morning, too much fog for the
+enjoyment of nature. But yesterday afternoon!</p>
+
+<p>Delicate, refined weather, in which everything is etched as it were on a
+misty mirror. The bare shrubs, near our post, have been visited by a
+flock of green birds, with white-bordered wings; the cocks have black
+heads with a white spot. How can I tell you what it was to hear the
+solitary sound of their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>flight in this stillness!&mdash;That is one good
+thing about war: there can be only a certain amount of evil in the
+world; now, all of this being used by man against man, beasts at any
+rate are so much the better off&mdash;at least the beasts of the wood, our
+customary victims.</p>
+
+<p>If you could only see the confidence of the little forest animals, such
+as the field-mice! The other day, from our leafy shelter I watched the
+movements of these little beasts. They were as pretty as a Japanese
+print, with the inside of their ears rosy like a shell. And then another
+time we watched the migration of the cranes: it is a moving thing to
+hear them cry in the dusk.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;What a happiness to see that you are drawing. Yes, do this for us
+both. If you knew how I itch to express in paint all our emotions! If
+you have read my letters of all this time you will know my privation,
+but also my happiness.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Monday, November 9, 7 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;We have returned to the wide open view that I love so much.
+Unfortunately we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>can only catch a glimpse of it through mouse-holes.
+Well, it is always so!.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;All these days I have been feeling the charm of a country lying in
+autumn sweetness. This peace was troubled yesterday by the poignant
+sight of a burning village. It is not the first we have seen, and yet we
+have not grown used to it.</p>
+
+<p>We had taken up our observation-posts; it was still dark. From our
+height we saw the tremendous flare and, at daybreak, the charming
+village, sheltering in the valley, was nothing but smoke. This, in the
+silvery nimbus of a glorious morning.</p>
+
+<p>From our mouse-trap we had looked to the distance with its prettily
+winding road, its willow-bordered stream, its Calvary: all this harmony
+to end in the horror of destruction.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans had set fire to it by hand in the night; they had been
+dislodged from it after two nights of fierce fighting: their action may
+be interpreted as an intention to retreat at this point. This
+proceeding, generally detested by our soldiers, is, I think, forced by
+strategic necessity. When a village is destroyed it is very difficult
+for us in the rear to make any kind of use of it. All day <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>we have been
+witnessing this devastation, while above our heads the little field-mice
+are taking advantage of the straw in which we are to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Our existence, as infantry, is a little like that of rabbits in the
+shooting season. The more knowing of us, at any rate, are perpetually on
+the look-out for a hole. As soon as we are buried in it, we are ordered
+not to move again. These wise orders are unfortunately not always given
+with discrimination; thus, yesterday there were four of us in an
+advance-trench situated in a magnificent spot and perfectly hidden
+beneath leaves. We should have been able to delight in the landscape but
+for the good corporal, who was afraid to allow us even a little
+enjoyment of life. Later the artillery came up with a tremendous din and
+showed us the use of these superlative precautions.</p>
+
+<p>None the less, I have been able to enjoy the landscape&mdash;alas! a scene of
+smoke and tragedy yesterday. Be sure, beloved mother, that I do not wish
+to commit a single imprudence, but certainly this war is the triumph of
+Fate, of Providence and Destiny.</p>
+
+<p>I pray ardently to deserve the grace of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>return, but apart from a few
+moments of only human impatience, I can say that the greater part of my
+being is given up to resignation.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 10, 11 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My very dear Mother</span>,&mdash;What shall I say to you to-day&mdash;a day
+monotonous with fog. Occupations that are stupefying, not in themselves,
+but because of the insipid companionship. I fall back on myself.
+Yesterday I wrote you a long letter, telling you among other things how
+dear your letters are to me. When I began to write on this sheet I was a
+little weary and troubled, but now that I am with you I become happy,
+and I immediately remember whatever good fortune this day has brought
+me.</p>
+
+<p>This morning the lieutenant sent me to get some wire from headquarters,
+in a devastated village which we have surrounded for six weeks. I went
+down through the orchards full of the last fallen plums. A few careless
+soldiers were gathering them up into baskets. A charming scene, purely
+pastoral and bucolic, in spite of the red trousers&mdash;very faded after
+three months' campaign.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I am happy in the affection of Ch&mdash;&mdash; R&mdash;&mdash;. His is a nature according
+in all its elements with my own. I am sure that he will not be cross
+with me for not writing, especially if you give a kind message from me
+to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>The little task confided to me meant walking from nightfall until nine
+o'clock, but I occasionally lay down in a shelter or in a barn instead
+of getting back to the trenches for the night.</p>
+
+<p>I do not have good nights of reading now, but sometimes when S&mdash;&mdash; and I
+are lying side by side in the trench, you would not believe what a
+mirage we evoke and what joy we have in stirred-up memories. Ah, how
+science and intellectual phenomena lead us into a very heaven of
+legends, and what pleasure I get from the marvellous history of this
+metal, or that acid! For me the thousand and one nights are renewing
+themselves. And then at waking, sometimes, the blessing of a dawn. That
+is the life I have led since the 13th or 14th of October. I ask for
+nothing, I am content that in such a war we should have relatively a
+great deal of calm.</p>
+
+<p>You cannot imagine what a consolation it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>is to know that you give your
+heart to what concerns me. What pleasure I have in imagining you
+interested in my books, looking at my engravings!.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 12, 3 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;To-day we have had a march as pleasant as the first one, in weather
+of great beauty. We saw, in the blue and rosy distance, the far-off peak
+of the Metz hills, and the immense panorama scattered over with
+villages, some of which gathered up the morning light, while others were
+merely suggested.</p>
+
+<p>This is the broad outline of our existence: for three days we stay close
+to the enemy, living in well-constructed shelters which are improved
+each time; then we spend three days a little way back; and then three
+days in billets in a neighbouring village, generally the same. We even
+gradually form habits&mdash;very passing ones, but still, we have a certain
+amount of contact with the civil population which has been so sorely
+tried. The woollen things are very effectual and precious.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;We have good people to deal with. The dear woman from whose dwelling
+I write to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>you, and with whom I stayed before, wears herself to death
+to give us a little of what reminds us of home.</p>
+
+<p>But, dear mother, what reminds me of home is here in my heart. It is not
+eating on plates or sitting on a chair that counts. It is your love,
+which I feel so near.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 14.</i></div>
+
+<p>Since half-past eight on the evening of the 12th we have been dragged
+about from place to place in the prospect of our taking part in a
+violent movement. We left at night, and in the calm of nature my
+thoughts cleared themselves a little, after the two days in billets
+during which one becomes a little too material. Our reinforcement went
+up by stealth. We awaited our orders in a barn, where we slept on the
+floor. Then we filed into the woods and fields, which the day, breaking
+through grey, red, and purple clouds, slowly lit up, in surroundings the
+most romantic and pathetic that could be imagined. In the full daylight
+of a charming morning we learnt that the troops ahead of us had
+inflicted enormous losses on the enemy, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>had even made a very slight
+advance. We then returned to our usual posts, and here I am again,
+beholding once more the splendour of the French country, so touching in
+this grey, windy, and impassioned November, with sunshine thrown in
+patches upon infinite horizons.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, how beautiful it is, this region of spacious dignity, where
+all is noble and proportioned, where outlines are so beautifully
+defined!&mdash;the road bordered with trees diminishing towards the frontier,
+hills, and beyond them misty heights which one guesses to be the German
+Vosges. There is the scenery, and here is something better than the
+scenery. There is a Beethoven melody and a piece by Liszt called
+'B&eacute;n&eacute;diction de Dieu dans la solitude.' Certainly we have no solitude,
+but if you turn the pages of Albert Samain's poems you will find an
+aphorism by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam: 'Know that there will always be
+solitude on earth for those who are worthy of it.' This solitude of a
+soul that can ignore all that is not in tune with it.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>I have had two letters from you, of the 6th and 7th. Perhaps this
+evening I shall <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>have another. Do not let us allow our courage to be
+concerned only with the waiting for letters from each other. But the
+letters are our life, they are what bring us our joys, our happiness, it
+is through them that we take delight in the sights of this world and of
+this time.</p>
+
+<p>If your eyes are not strong, that is a reason for not writing, but apart
+from your health do not by depriving me of letters hold back your heart
+from me.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 14</i> (2nd letter).</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother whom I love</span>,&mdash;Here we are again in our usual
+billet, and my heart is full of thoughts all tending towards you. I
+cannot tell you all that I feel in every moment, yet how much I should
+like to share with you the many pleasures that come one by one even in
+this monotonous life of ours, as a broken thread drops its pearls.</p>
+
+<p>I should like to be able to admire with you this lovely cloud, this
+stretch of country which so fills us with reverence, to listen with you
+to the poetry of the wind from beyond the mountain, as when we walked
+together <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>at Boulogne. But here a great many prosaic occupations prevent
+me from speaking to you as I feel.</p>
+
+<p>I sent you with my baggage my note-book from August 18 to October 20.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>
+These notes were made when we could easily get at our light bags, in the
+calm of our trench-days, when our danger stopped our chattering, and I
+could let my heart speak. I found a happiness more intense, wider and
+fuller, to write to you about. That was a time of paradise for me. But I
+don't like the billets, because the comfort and the security, relaxing
+our minds, bring about a great deal of uproar which I don't like. You
+know how much I have always needed quiet and solitude. Still, I have
+excellent friends, and the officers are very kind.</p>
+
+<p>But with a little patience and a few thoughts about you I can be happy.
+How kind this first half of November has been! I have not suffered once
+from cold. And how lovely it was! That All Saints' Day was nothing but a
+long hymn&mdash;from the night, with its pure moonlight on the dark amber of
+the autumn trees, to the tender twilight. The immense <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>rosy dream of
+this misty plain, stretching out towards the near hills.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. What a song
+of praise! and many days since then have sung the glory of God. C&oelig;li
+ennarrant.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>That is what those days brought to me.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 15, 7 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>Yesterday the wild weather, fine to see from the shelter of our billet,
+brought me apprehensions for to-night's departure, but when I woke the
+sky was the purest and starriest that one could dream of! How grateful I
+felt!</p>
+
+<p>What we fear most is the rain, which penetrates through everything when
+we are without fire or shelter. The cold is nothing&mdash;we are armed
+against it beforehand.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;In spite of all, how much I appreciated the sight of this vast plain
+upon which we descended, lashed by the great wind. Above the low horizon
+was the wide grey sky in which, here and there, pale rents recalled the
+vanished blue.&mdash;A black, tragic Calvary in silhouette&mdash;then some
+skeleton trees! What a place! This is where I can think of you, and of
+my beloved <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>music. To-day I have the atmosphere that I want.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;I should like to define the form of my conviction of better things
+in the near future, resulting from this war. These events prepare the
+way to a new life: that of the United States of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>After the conflict, those who will have completely and filially
+fulfilled their obligation to their country will find themselves
+confronted by duties yet more grave, and the realisation of things that
+are now impossible. Then will be the time for them to throw their
+efforts into the future. They must use their energies to wipe out the
+trace of the shattering contact of nations. The French Revolution,
+notwithstanding its mistakes, notwithstanding some backsliding in
+practice, some failure in construction, did none the less establish in
+man's soul this fine theory of national unity. Well! the horrors of the
+1914 war lead to the unity of Europe, to the unity of the race. This new
+state will not be established without blows and spoliation and strife
+for an indefinite time, but without doubt the door is now open towards
+the new horizon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<br/><br/>To Madame C&mdash;&mdash;.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='date'><i>November 16.</i></div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear Friend</span>,&mdash;How much pleasure and comfort your letter
+gives me, and how your warm friendship sustains my courage!</p>
+
+<p>What you say to me about my mother binds me closer to existence. Thank
+you for your splendid and constant affection.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;What shall I tell you of my life? Through the weariness and the
+vicissitudes I am upheld by the contemplation of Nature which for two
+months has been accumulating the emotion and the pathos of this
+impassioned season. One of my habitual stations is on the heights which
+overlook the immense Wo&euml;vre plain. How beautiful it is! and what a
+blessing to follow, each hour of the day and evening, the kindling
+colours of the autumn leaves! This frightful human uproar cannot succeed
+in troubling the majestic serenity of Nature! There are moments when man
+seems to go beyond anything that could be imagined; but a soul that is
+prepared can soon perceive the harmony which over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>looks and reconciles
+all this dissonance. Do not think that I remain insensible to the agony
+of scenes that we behold all too often: villages wiped out by the
+artillery that is hurled upon them; smoke by day, light by night; the
+misery of a flying population under shell-fire. Each instant brings some
+shock straight to one's heart. That is why I take refuge in this high
+consolation, because without some discipline of the heart I could not
+suffer thus and not be undone.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 17, in the morning.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>,&mdash; .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;I write to you in the happiness of the dawn
+over my dear village. The night, which began with rain, has brought us
+again a pure and glorious sky. I see once more my distant horizons, my
+peaked hills, the harmonious lines of my valleys. From this height where
+I stand who would guess that agricultural and peaceful village to be in
+reality nothing but a heap of ruins, in which not a house is spared, and
+in which no human being can survive the hell of artillery!</p>
+
+<p>As I write, the sun falls upon the belfry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>which I see framed in the
+still sombre tree close beside me, while far away, beneath the last
+hills, the last swelling of the ground, the plain begins to reveal its
+precious detail in the rosy and golden atmosphere.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 17, 11 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>The splendid weather is my great consolation. I live rather like an
+invalid sent to some magnificent country, whom the treatment compels to
+unpleasant and fatiguing occupations. Between Leysin and the trench
+where I am at present there has been only uncertainty. Nothing new has
+happened to our company since October 13.</p>
+
+<p>This is a strange kind of war. It is like that between neighbours on bad
+terms. Consider that some of the trenches are separated from the enemy
+by hardly 100 metres, and that the combatants fling projectiles across
+with their hands: you see that these neighbours make use of violent
+methods.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I really live only when I am with you, and when I feel the
+splendour of the surroundings.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>Even in the middle of conversations, I am able to preserve the
+sensation of solitude of thought which is necessary to me.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 18.</i></div>
+
+<p>This morning, daylight showed us a country covered with hoar-frost, a
+universal whiteness over hills and forest. My little village looks
+thoroughly chilled.</p>
+
+<p>I had spent the greater part of the night in a warm shelter, and I could
+have stayed there, thanks to the kindness of my superiors, but I am
+foolish and timid, and I rejoined my comrades from 1 o'clock till
+half-past 4.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously enough, we can easily bear the cold: an admirable article of
+clothing, which nearly all of us possess, is a flour-sack which can be
+worn, according to the occasion, as a little shoulder-cape, or as a bag
+for the feet. In either case it is an excellent preserver of heat.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>11 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>For the moment there runs in my mind a pretty and touching air by
+Handel. Also, an allegro from our organ duets: joyful and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>brilliant
+music, overflowing with life. Dear Handel! Often he consoles me.</p>
+
+<p>Beethoven comes back only rarely to my mind, but when his music does
+awake in me, it touches something so vital that it is always as though a
+hand were drawing aside a curtain from the mystery of the Creation.</p>
+
+<p>Poor dear Great Masters! Shall it be counted a crime against them that
+they were Germans? How is it possible to think of Schumann as a
+barbarian?</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday this country recalled to my mind what you played to me ten
+years ago, the Rheingold: 'Libre &eacute;tendu sur la hauteur.' But the outlook
+of our French art had this superiority over the beautiful music of that
+wretched man&mdash;it had composure and clarity and reason. Yes, our French
+art was never turbid.</p>
+
+<p>As for Wagner, however beautiful his music, and however irresistible and
+attractive his genius, I believe it would be a less substantial loss to
+French taste to be deprived of him than of his great classical
+compatriots.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I can say with truth that in those moments when the idea of a possible
+return comes to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>me, it is never the thought of the comfort or the
+well-being that preoccupies me. It is something higher and nobler which
+turns my thoughts towards this form of hope. Can I say that it is even
+something different from the immense joy of our meeting again? It is
+rather the hope of taking up again our common effort, our association,
+of which the aim is the development of our souls, and the best use we
+can make of them upon earth.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 19, in the morning.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My very dear Mother</span>,&mdash;To-day I was wakened at dawn by a violent
+cannonade, unusual at that hour. Just then some of the men came back
+frozen by a night in the trenches. I got up to fetch them some wood, and
+then, on the opposite slope of the valley, the fusillade burst out
+fully. I mounted as high as I could, and I saw the promise of the sun in
+the pure sky.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, from the opposite hill (one of those hills I love so much), I
+heard an uproar, and shouting: 'Forward! Forward!' It was a bayonet
+charge. This was my first experience of one&mdash;not that I saw anything;
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>the still-dark hour, and, probably, the disposition of the ground,
+prevented me. But what I heard was enough to give me the feeling of the
+attack.</p>
+
+<p>Up till then I had never imagined how different is the courage required
+by this kind of anonymous warfare from the traditional valour in war, as
+conceived by the civilian. And the clamour of this morning reminds me,
+in the midst of my calm, that young men, without any personal motive of
+hate, can and must fling themselves upon those who are waiting to kill
+them.</p>
+
+<p>But the sun rises over my country. It lightens the valley, and from my
+height I can see two villages, two ruins, one of which I saw ablaze for
+three nights. Near to me, two crosses made of white wood.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. French
+blood flows in 1914.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 20.</i></div>
+
+<p>From the window near which I write I see the rising sun. It shines upon
+the hoar-frost, and gradually I discover the beautiful country which is
+undergoing such horrors. It appears that there were many victims in the
+bayonet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>charge which I heard yesterday. Among others, we are without
+tidings of two sections of the regiment which formed part of our
+brigade. While these others were working out their destiny, I was on the
+crest of the most beautiful hill (I was very much exposed also at other
+times). I saw the daybreak; I was full of emotion in beholding the peace
+of Nature, and I realised the contrast between the pettiness of human
+violence and the majesty of the surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>That time of pain for you, from September 9th to October 13th,
+corresponds exactly with my first phase of war. On September 9th I
+arrived, and detrained almost within reach of the terrible battle of the
+Marne, which was in progress 35 kilometres away. On the 12th I rejoined
+the 106th, and thenceforward led the life of a combatant. On October
+13th, as I told you, we left the lovely woods, where the enemy artillery
+and infantry had done a lot of mischief among us, especially on the 3rd.
+Our little community lost on that day a heart of gold, a wonderful boy,
+grown too good to live. On the 4th, an excellent comrade, an
+architectural student, was wounded fairly severely in the arm, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>the
+news which he has since sent of himself is good. Then until the 13th,
+terrible day, we lived through some hard times, especially as the
+danger, real enough, was exaggerated by the feeling of suffocation and
+of the unknown which hemmed us round in those woods, so fine at any
+other time.</p>
+
+<p>The important thing is to bear in mind the significance of every moment.
+The problem is of perpetual urgency. On one side the providential
+blessing, up till the present, of complete immunity. On the other, the
+hazards of the future. That is how our wish to do good should be applied
+to the present moment. There is no satisfaction to be had in questioning
+the future, but I believe that every effort made now will avail us then.
+It is a heroic struggle to sustain, but let us count not only on
+ourselves but on another force so much more powerful than our human
+means.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 21.</i></div>
+
+<p>To-day we lead a <i>bourgeoise</i> life, almost too comfortable. The cold
+keeps us with the extraordinary woman who lodges us whenever <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>we visit
+the village where we are billeted three days out of nine.</p>
+
+<p>I will not tell you about the pretty view from the window where I write,
+but I will speak of the interior which shelters many of our days. By day
+we live in two rooms divided by a glass partition, and, looking through
+from one room to another, we can admire either the fine fire in the
+great chimney-place or the magnificent wardrobe and the Meuse beds made
+of fine old brass. All the delicate life of these two old women (the
+mother, 87 years old, and the daughter) is completely disorganised by
+the roughness, the rudeness, the kind hearts and the generosity of the
+soldiers. These women accept all that comes and are most devoted.</p>
+
+<p>As for Spinoza, whose spirit you already possess, I think that you can
+go straight to the last theorems. You will be sure to have intuitive
+understanding of what he says about the soul's repose. Yes, those are
+moments experienced by us too rarely in our weakness, but they suffice
+to let us discover in ourselves, through the blows and buffetings of our
+poor human nature, a certain tendency towards what is permanent and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>what is final; and we realise the splendid inheritance of divinity to
+which we are the heirs.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Dear mother, what a happy day I have just spent with you.</p>
+
+<p>There were three of us: we two and the pretty landscape from my window.</p>
+
+<p>Seen from here, winter gives a woolly and muffled air to things. Two
+clouds, or rather mists, wrap the near hillside without taking any
+delicacy from the drawing of the shrubs on the crest; the sky is light
+green. All is filtered. Everything sleeps. This is the time for
+night-attacks, the cries of the charge, the watch in the trenches. Let
+our prayers of every moment ask for the end of this state of things. Let
+us wish for rest for all, a great amends, recompense for all grief and
+pain and separation.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'><span class="smcap">Your Son</span>.</div>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Sunday, November 22, 9.30.</i></div>
+
+<p>I write to you this morning from my favourite place, without anything
+having happened since last night that is worth recording&mdash;save perhaps
+the thousand flitting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>nothings in the landscape. I got up with the sun,
+which now floods all the space with silver. The cold is still keen, but
+by piling on our woollen things we get the better of it on these nights
+in billets. There is only this to say: that to-morrow we go to our
+trenches in the second line, in the woods that are now thin and
+monotonous. Of our three stations, that is the one I perhaps like the
+least, because the sky is exiled behind high branches. It is more a
+landscape for R&mdash;&mdash;, but flat, and spoilt by the kind of existence that
+one leads there.</p>
+
+<p>Hostilities seem to be recommencing in our region with a certain amount
+of energy. This morning we can hear a violent fusillade, a thing very
+rare in this kind of war, in which attacks are generally made at night,
+the day being practically reserved for artillery bombardments.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, let us put our hope in the strength of soul which will make
+petition each hour, each minute.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;Yes, it gives me pleasure to tell you about my life; it is a fine
+life in so many ways. Often, at night, as I walk along the road <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>where
+my little duty takes me, I am full of happiness to be able thus to
+communicate with the greatness of Nature, with the sky and its
+harmonious pattern of stars, with the large and gracious curves of these
+hills; and though the danger is always present, I think that not only
+your courage, your consciousness of the eternal, but also your love for
+me will make you approve of my not stopping perpetually to puzzle over
+the enigma.</p>
+
+<p>So my present life brings extreme degrees of feeling, which cannot be
+measured by time. Feeling produced, for instance, by beautiful leafage,
+the dawn, a delicate landscape, a touching moon. These are all things in
+which qualities at once fleeting and permanent isolate the human heart
+from all preoccupations which lead us in these times either to
+despairing anxiety, or to abject materialism, or again to a cheap
+optimism, which I wish to replace by the high hope that is common to us
+all, and which does not rely on human events.</p>
+
+<p>All my tenderness and constant love for grandmother; for you, courage,
+calm, perfect resignation without effort.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 23.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>,&mdash;Here we are arrived in our shelters in the second
+line. We lodge in earth huts, where the fire smokes us out as much as it
+warms us. The weather, which during the night was overcast, has given us
+a charming blue and rosy morning. Unfortunately the woods have less to
+say to me than the marvellous spaces of our front lines. Still, all is
+beautiful here.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday my day was made up of the happiness of writing to you; I went
+into the village church without being urged by a single romantic feeling
+nor any desire for comfort from without. My conception of divine harmony
+did not need to be supported by any outward form, or popular symbol.</p>
+
+<p>Then I had the great good fortune to go with a carriage into the
+surrounding country. Oh, the marvellous landscape&mdash;still of blue and
+rosy colour, paled by the mist! All this rich and luminous delicacy
+found definite accents in the abrupt spots made by people scattered
+about the open. My landscape, always <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>primitive in its precision, now
+took on a subtlety of nuances, a richness of variety essentially modern.</p>
+
+<p>One moment I recalled the peculiar outer suburbs of Paris with their
+innumerable notes and their suppressed effects. But here there is more
+frankness and candour. Here everything was simply rose and blue against
+a pale grey ground.</p>
+
+<p>My driver, getting into difficulty with his horse, entrusted the whip to
+me to touch up the animal: I must have looked like a little mechanical
+toy.</p>
+
+<p>We passed by the Calvaries which keep guard over the Meuse villages, a
+few trees gathered round the cross.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 24, 3.30</i> (back from the march).</div>
+
+<p>I have just received a letter of the 16th and a card, and a dear letter
+of the 18th. These two last tell me of the arrival of my packet. How
+glad I am to hear that! For a moment I asked myself whether I was right
+to send you these impressions, but, between us two, life has never been
+and can never be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>anything but a perpetual investigation in the region
+of eternal truths, fervent attention to the truth each earthly spectacle
+presents. And so I do not regret sending you those little notes.</p>
+
+<p>My worst sufferings were during the rainy days of September. Those days
+are a bitter memory to every one. We slept interlocked, face against
+face, hands crossed, in a deluge of water and mud. It would be
+impossible to imagine our despair.</p>
+
+<p>To crown all, after these frightful hours, they told us that the enemy
+was training his machine-guns upon us, and that we must attack him.
+However, we were relieved; the explosion was violent.</p>
+
+<p>As for my still unwritten verse, '<i>Soleil si pale</i>,' etc., it relates to
+the 11th, 12th, and 13th of October, and, generally, to the time of the
+battle in the woods, which lasted for our regiment from September 22nd
+to October 13th. What struck me so much was to see the sun rise upon the
+victims.</p>
+
+<p>Since then I have written nothing, but for a prayer which I sent you
+five or six days ago. I composed it while I was on duty on the road.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 25, in the morning.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;Yesterday, in the course of that march, I lived in a picture by my
+beloved primitives. Coming out of the wood, as we went down a long road,
+we had close by us a large farm-house, plumed by a group of bare trees
+beside a frozen pool.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the under-perspective so cleverly used by my dear painters with
+their air of simplicity, a road, unwinding itself, with its slopes and
+hills, bound in by shrubs, and some solitary trees: all this precise,
+fine, etched, and yet softened. A little bridge spanning a stream, a man
+on horseback passing close to the little bridge, carefully silhouetted,
+and then a little carriage: delicate balance of values, discreet, yet
+well maintained&mdash;all this in front of a horizon of noble woods. A kind
+of grey weather which has replaced the enchantment, so modern in
+feeling, of the nuances of last Sunday, takes me back to that incisive
+consciousness which moves us as a Breughel and the other masters, whose
+names escape me. Like this, too, the clear and orderly thronging in
+Albert D&uuml;rer backgrounds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 26.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother</span>,&mdash;I didn't succeed in finishing this letter
+yesterday. We were very busy. And now to-day it is still dark. From my
+dug-out, where I have just arrived in the front line, I send you my
+great love; I am very happy. I feel that the work I am to do in future
+is taking shape in myself. What does it matter if Providence does not
+allow me to bring it to light? I have firm hope, and above all I have
+confidence in eternal justice, however it may surprise our human
+ideas.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 28.</i></div>
+
+<p>The position we occupy is 45 metres away from the enemy. The roads of
+approach are curious and even picturesque in their harshness, emphasised
+by the greyness of the weather.</p>
+
+<p>Our troops, having dodged by night the enemy's vigilance, and come up
+from the valley to the mid-heights where the rising ground protects them
+from the infantry fire, find shelters hollowed from the side of the
+hill, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>burrows where those who are not on guard can have some sleep and
+the warmth of an Improvised hearth. Then, farther on, just where the
+landscape becomes magnificent in freedom, expanse, and light, the
+winding furrow, called the communication trench, begins. Concealed thus,
+we arrive in the trench, and it is truly a spectacle of war, severe and
+not without grandeur&mdash;this long passage which has a grey sky for
+ceiling, and in which the floor is covered over with recent snow. Here
+the last infantry units are stationed&mdash;units, generally, of feeble
+effective. The enemy is not more than a hundred metres away. From there
+continues the communication trench, more and more deep and winding, in
+which I feel anew the emotion I always get from contact with newly
+turned earth. The excavating for the banking-up works stirs something in
+me: it is as if the energy of this disembowelled earth took hold of me
+and told me the history of life.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three sappers are at work lengthening the hollows, watched by the
+Germans who, from point to point, can snipe the insufficiently protected
+places. At this end the last sentry guards about forty metres.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>You can picture the contrast between all this military organisation and
+the peace that used to reign here. Think what an astonishment it is to
+me to remember that where I now look the labourer once walked behind his
+plough, and that the sun, whose glory I contemplate as a prisoner
+contemplates liberty, shone upon him freely on these heights.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, when at dusk I come out into the open, what an ecstasy! I
+won't speak to you of this, for I feel I must be silent about these
+joys. They must not be exposed: they are birds that love silence.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Let
+us confine our speech to that essential happiness which is not easily
+affrighted&mdash;the happiness of feeling ourselves prepared equally for all.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>November 29, in the morning</i> (from a billet).</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My very dear Mother</span>,&mdash;Yesterday evening I left the first line
+trenches in broken weather which, in the night, after my arrival here,
+turned into rain. I watch it falling through the fog from my favourite
+window. If you like I will tell you of the wonders I saw yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>From the position described in my letter <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>of yesterday, can be seen, as
+I have often written to you, the most marvellous horizon. Yesterday a
+terrible wind rent a low veil of clouds which grew red at their summits.
+Perhaps the background of my 'Haheyna' will give you a faint idea of
+what it was. But how much more majestic and full of animation was the
+emotion I experienced yesterday.</p>
+
+<p>The hills and valleys passed in turn from light to shade, now defined,
+now veiled, according to the movement of the mists. High up, blue spaces
+fringed with light.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the beauty of yesterday. Shall I speak of the evenings that
+went before, when, on my way along the road, the moon brought out the
+pattern of the trees, the pathetic Calvaries, the touching spectacle of
+houses which one knew were ruins, but which night seemed to make stand
+forth again like an appeal for peace.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad to see you like Verlaine. Read the fine preface by Copp&eacute;e to
+the selected works, which you will find in my library.</p>
+
+<p>His fervour has a spontaneity, I might almost say a grossness, which
+always repels me a little, just because it belongs to that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>kind of
+Catholic fervour which on its figurative side will always leave me cold.
+But what a poet!</p>
+
+<p>He has been my almost daily delight both here and when I was in Paris;
+often the music of his <i>Paysages Tristes</i> comes back to me, exactly
+expressing the emotion of certain hours. His life is as touching as that
+of a sick animal, and one almost wonders that a like indignity has not
+withered the exquisite flowers of his poetry. His conversion, that of an
+artist rather than of a thinker, followed on a great upsetting of his
+existence which resulted from grave faults of his. (He was in prison.)</p>
+
+<p>In the <i>Lys Rouge</i> Anatole France has drawn a striking portrait of him,
+under the name of Choulette; perhaps you will find we have this book.</p>
+
+<p>In <i>Sagesse</i> the poems are fine and striking because of the true impulse
+and sincerity of the remorse. A little as though the cry of the <i>Nuit de
+Mai</i> resounded all through his work.</p>
+
+<p>Our two great poets of the last century, Musset and Verlaine, were two
+unhappy beings without any moral principle with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>which to stake up their
+flowers of thought&mdash;yet what magnificent and intoxicating flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I tire you when I speak thus on random subjects, but to do so
+enables me to plunge back into my old life for a little while. Since I
+had the happiness of getting your letters, I have not taken note of
+anything. Do not think that distractions by the way make me forgetful of
+our need and hope, but I believe it is just the beautiful adornment of
+life which gives it, for you and me, its value.</p>
+
+<p>I am still expecting letters from you after that of the 22nd, but I am
+sure to get them here in this billet. Thank you for the parcel you
+promise: poor mothers, what pains they all take!</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 1, in the morning</i> (from a billet).</div>
+
+<p>I remember the satisfaction I felt in my freedom when I was exempted
+from my military duties. It seemed to me that if, at twenty-seven years
+old, I had been obliged to return to the regiment, my life and career
+would have been irretrievably lost. And here I am now, twenty-eight
+years old, back in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>the army, far from my work, my responsibilities, my
+ambitions&mdash;and yet never has life brought me such a full measure of
+finer feelings; never have I been able to record such freshness of
+sensibility, such security of conscience. So those are the blessings
+arising out of the thing which my reasonable human foresight envisaged
+as disaster. And thus continues the lesson of Providence which,
+upsetting all my fears, makes good arise out of every change of
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>The two last sunrises, yesterday and to-day, were lovely.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>I feel inclined to make you a little sketch of the view from my
+window.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It is done from memory; in your imagination you must add streaks of
+purple colour, making the most dramatic effect, and an infinite stretch
+of open country to right and left. This is what I have been able again
+and again to look upon, during this time. At this moment, the soft sky
+brings into harmony the orchards where we work. My little job dispenses
+me from digging for the time. Such are the happinesses which, from afar,
+had the appearance of calamities.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 1</i> (2nd letter).</div>
+
+<p>I have just received your letters of the 25th, 26th, and 27th, as well
+as a dear letter from Grandmother, so valiant, so full of spirit, and so
+clear-minded. It gave me great pleasure, and brings me a dear hope, of
+which I accept the augury with joy. Each one of your beloved letters,
+too, gives me the best of what life holds for me. My first letter of
+to-day replies to what you say about the acceptation of trials and the
+destruction of idols.</p>
+
+<p>You will see that I think absolutely as you do, and I trust that there
+is in this hour no impeding idol in my heart.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>I think that my last prayer is in fact very simple. The spirit of the
+place could not have borne to be clothed in an art that was overloaded.
+God was everywhere, and everywhere was harmony: the road at night, of
+which I speak to you so often, the starry sky, the valley full of the
+murmuring of water, the trees, the Calvaries, the hills near and far.
+There would not have been any room for artifice. It is useless for me to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>give up being an artist, but I hope always to be sincere and to use art
+as it were only for the clothing of my conscience.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 5, in the morning.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;We have come out of our burrows, and three days of imprisonment are
+followed by a morning in the open. It would be impossible to imagine
+such a state of mud.</p>
+
+<p>Your pretty aluminium watch is the admiration of everybody.</p>
+
+<p>Is Andr&eacute;'s wound serious? The mothers endure terrible agony in this war,
+but courage&mdash;nothing will be lost. As for me, I get on all right, and am
+as happy as one may be.</p>
+
+<p>A terrific wind to-day, chasing the fine clouds. Keen air, in which the
+branches thrive. Beautiful moonlight on all these nights, all the more
+appreciated if one has been cheated of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Dear, I am writing badly to-day because we are bewildered by the full
+daylight after those long hours of darkness, but my heart goes out to
+you and rests with you.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;Let us bring to everything the spirit of courage. Let us have
+confidence in God <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>always, whatever happens. How much I feel, as you do,
+that one can adore Him only with one's spirit! And like you I think that
+we must avoid all pride which condemns the ways of other people. Let our
+love lead us in union towards the universal Providence. Let us, in
+constant prayer, give back our destiny into His hands. Let us humbly
+admit to Him our human hopes, trying at every moment to link them to
+eternal wisdom. It is a task which now seems full of difficulty, but
+difficulty is in everything in life.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Sunday, December 6.</i></div>
+
+<p>I am happy to see you so determinedly courageous. We have need of
+courage, or, rather, we have need of something difficult to obtain,
+which is neither patience nor overconfidence, but a certain belief in
+the order of things, the power to be able to say of every trial that it
+is well.</p>
+
+<p>Our instinct for life makes us try to free ourselves from our
+obligations when they are too cruel, too oft-repeated, but, as I am
+happy to know, you have been able to see what Spinoza understood by
+human liberty.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> Inaccessible ideal, to which one must cling
+nevertheless.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;Dear mother, these trials that we must accept are long, but
+notwithstanding their unchanging form one cannot call them monotonous,
+since they call upon courage which must be perpetually new. Let us unite
+together for God to grant us strength and resource in accepting
+everything.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>You know what I call religion: that which unites in man all his ideas of
+the universal and the eternal, those two forms of God. Religion, in the
+ordinary sense of the word, is but the binding together of certain moral
+and disciplinary formulas with the fine poetic imagery of the great
+biblical and Christian philosophies.</p>
+
+<p>Do not let us offend any one. Looked at properly, religious formulas,
+however apart they may remain from my own habit of mind, seem to me
+praiseworthy and sympathetic in all that they contain of aspiration and
+beauty and form.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother whom I love, let us always hope: trials are legion, but
+beauty remains. Let us pray that we may long continue to contemplate
+it.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Monday, December 7.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;I am writing this in the night .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;by six
+o'clock in the morning military life will be in full swing.</p>
+
+<p>My candle is stuck on a bayonet, and every now and then a drop of water
+falls on to my nose. My poor companions try to light a reluctant fire.
+Our time in the trenches transforms us into lumps of mud.</p>
+
+<p>The general good humour is admirable. However the men may long to
+return, they accept none the less heroically the vicissitudes of the
+situation. Their courage, infinitely less 'literary' than mine, is so
+much the more practical and adaptable; but each bird has its cry, and
+mine has never been a war-cry. I am happy to have felt myself responsive
+to all these blows, and my hope lies in the thought that they will have
+forged my soul. Also I place confidence in God and whatever He holds in
+store for me.</p>
+
+<p>I seem to foresee my work in the future. Not that I build much on this
+presentiment, for all artists have conceived work which has never come
+to light. Mozart was about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>to make a new start when he died, and
+Beethoven planned the 'Tenth Symphony' in ignorance of the all too brief
+time that was to be allowed him by destiny.</p>
+
+<p>It is the duty of the artist to open his flowers without dread of frost,
+and perhaps God will allow my efforts to fulfil themselves in the
+future. My very various attempts at work all have an indescribable
+immaturity about them still, a halting execution, which consorts badly
+with the real loftiness of the intention. It seems to me that my art
+will not quite expand until my life is further advanced. Let us pray
+that God will allow me to attain.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>As for what is in your own heart, I have such confidence in your courage
+that this certainty is my great comfort in this hour. I know that my
+mother has gained that freedom of soul which allows contemplation of the
+universal scheme of things. I know from my own experience how
+intermittent is this wisdom, but even to taste of it is already to
+possess God. It is the security I derive from knowledge of your soul and
+your love, that enables me to think of the future in whatever form it
+may come.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 9.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>,&mdash;P&mdash;&mdash; L&mdash;&mdash;, in his charming letter, tells me he
+would willingly exchange his philosophers for a gun. He is quite wrong.
+For one thing, Spinoza is a most valuable aid in the trenches; and then
+it is those who are still in a position to profit by culture and
+progress who must now carry on French thought. They have an
+overwhelmingly difficult task, calling for far more initiative than
+ours. We are free of all burden. I think our existence is like that of
+the early monks: hard, regular discipline and freedom from all external
+obligations.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 10</i> (a marvellous morning).</div>
+
+<p>Our third day in billets brings us the sweetness of friendly weather.
+The inveterate deluge of our time in the first line relents a little,
+and the sun shows itself timidly.</p>
+
+<p>Our situation, which has been pleasant enough during the last two
+months, may now be expected entirely to change.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The impregnability of the positions threatens to make the war
+interminable; one of the two adversaries must use his offensive to
+unlock the situation and precipitate events. I think the high command
+faces this probability&mdash;and I hardly dare tell you that I cannot regret
+anything that increases the danger.</p>
+
+<p>Our life, of which a third part is flatly bourgeois and the two other
+parts present just about the same dangers as, say, chemical works do,
+will end by deadening all sensibility. It is true we shall be grieved to
+leave what we are used to, but perhaps we were getting too accustomed to
+a state of well-being which could not last.</p>
+
+<p>My own circumstances are perhaps going to change. I shall probably lose
+my course, being mentioned for promotion to the rank of corporal, which
+means being constantly in the trenches and various duties in the first
+line. I hope God will continue to bless me.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;I feel that we have nothing to ask. If there should be in us
+something eternal which we must still manifest on earth, we may be sure
+that God will let us do it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December</i> 10 (2nd letter).</div>
+
+<p>Happily you and I live in a domain where everything unites us without
+our having to write our thoughts.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>The weather is overcast again and promises us a wet time in the first
+and second lines.</p>
+
+<p>The day declines, and a great melancholy falls too upon everything. This
+is the hour of sadness for those who are far away, for all the soldiers
+whose hearts are with their homes, and who see night closing down upon
+the earth.</p>
+
+<p>I come to you, and immediately my heart grows warm. I can feel your
+attentive tenderness, and the wisdom which inspires your courage.
+Sometimes I am afraid of always saying the same thing, but how can I
+find new words for my poor love, tossed always through the same
+vicissitudes? Now that we are going to set out, perhaps we shall have to
+leave behind many cherished keepsakes, but the soul should not be
+strongly tied to fetiches. We are fond of clinging to many things, but
+love can do without them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 12, 10 o'clock</i> (card).</div>
+
+<p>A soft day under the rain. All goes well in our melancholy woods. In
+various parts of the neighbourhood there has been a terrible cannonade.</p>
+
+<p>Received your letters of the 4th and 6th. They brought me happiness:
+they are the true joy of life. I am glad you visited C&mdash;&mdash;. I hope to
+write to you at greater length. It is not that I have less leisure than
+usual, but I am going through a time when I am less sensible to the
+beauty of things. I long for true wisdom.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 12, 7 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>To-day, in spite of the changing beauty of sun and rain, I did not feel
+alive to Nature. Yet never was there such grace and goodness in the
+skies.</p>
+
+<p>The landscape, with the little bridge and the man on horseback of which
+I have told you, softened under the splendour of the clouds. But I had
+lapsed from my former sense of the benediction of God, when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>suddenly
+the beauty, all the beauty, of a certain tree spoke to my inmost heart.
+It told me of fairness that never fails; of the greenness of ivy and the
+redness of autumn, the rigidity of winter in the branches;&mdash;and then I
+understood that an instant of such contemplation is the whole of life,
+the very reward of existence, beside which all human expectation is
+nothing but a bad dream.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br /><i>Sunday, December 13.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;After a refreshing night I walked to-day in these woods where for
+three months the dead have strewn the ground. To-day the vanishing
+autumn displayed its richness, and the same beauty of mossy trunks spoke
+to me, as it did yesterday, of eternal joy.</p>
+
+<p>I am sure it needs an enormous effort to feel all this, but it must be
+felt if we are to understand how little the general harmony is disturbed
+by that which intolerably assails our emotions.</p>
+
+<p>We must feel that all human uprooting is only a little thing, and what
+is truly ourselves is the life of the soul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 14</i> (splendid weather, with all the calm returned).</div>
+
+<p>We are still here in the region of the first line, but in a place where
+we can lift our heads and behold the charm of my Meusian hills, clearing
+in the delicate weather.</p>
+
+<p>Above the village and the orchards I see the lines of birches and firs.
+Some have their skeletons coloured with a diaphanous violet marked with
+white. Others build up the horizon with stronger lines.</p>
+
+<p>I have been strengthened by the splendid lesson given me by a beautiful
+tree during a march. Ah, dear mother, we may all disappear and Nature
+will remain, and the gift I had from her of a moment of herself is
+enough to justify a whole existence. That tree was like a soldier.</p>
+
+<p>You would not believe how much harm has been done to the forests about
+here: it is not so much the machine-guns as the frightful amount of
+cutting necessary for making our shelters and for our fuel. Ah well, in
+the midst of this devastation some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>thing told me that there will always
+be beauty, in man and in tree.</p>
+
+<p>For man also gives this lesson, though in him it is less easily
+distinguished: it is a fine thing to see the splendid vitality of all
+this youth, whose force no harvest can diminish.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 15, morning.</i></div>
+
+<p>I have had your dear letter of the 9th, in which you speak of our home.
+It makes me happy to feel how fine and strong is the force of life which
+soon adjusts itself to each separation and uprooting. It makes me happy,
+too, to think that my letters find an echo in your heart. Sometimes I
+was afraid of boring you, because though our life is so fine in many
+ways, it is certainly very primitive, and there are not many salient
+things to relate.</p>
+
+<p>If only I could follow my calling of painter I could have recourse to
+these wonderful visions that lie before me, and I could find vent for
+all the pent-up artist's emotion that is within me. As it is, in trying
+to speak of the sky, the tree, the hill, or the horizon, I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>cannot use
+words as subtle as they, and the infinite variety of these things can
+only be named in the same general terms, which I am afraid of constantly
+repeating.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 15.</i></div>
+
+<p>One must adapt oneself to this special kind of life, which is indigent
+as far as intellectual activity goes, but marvellously rich in emotion.
+I suppose that in troubled times for many centuries there have been men
+who, weary of luxury, have sought in the peace of the cloister the
+contemplation of eternal things; contemplation threatened by the crowd,
+but a refuge even so. And so I think our life is like that of the monks
+of old, who were military too, and more apt at fighting than I could
+ever be. Among them, those who willed could know the joy which I now
+find.</p>
+
+<p>To-day I have a touching letter from Madame M&mdash;&mdash;, whose spirit I love
+and admire.</p>
+
+<p>Changeable but very beautiful weather.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to say more than we have already said about the
+attitude we must adopt in regard to events. The important <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>thing is to
+put this attitude in practice. It is not easy, as I have learnt in these
+last days, though no new difficulty had arisen to impede my path towards
+wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;Tormenting anxiety can sometimes be mistaken for an alert
+conscience.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 16.</i></div>
+
+<p>Yesterday in our shelter I got out your little album&mdash;very much damaged,
+alas&mdash;and I tried to copy some of the lines of the landscape. I was
+stopped by the cold, and I was returning dissatisfied when I suddenly
+had the idea of making one of my friends sit for me. How can I tell you
+what a joy it was to get a good result! I believe that my little pencil
+proved entirely successful. The sketch has been sent away in a letter to
+some friend of his. It was such a true joy to me to feel I had not lost
+my faculty.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 17</i> (in a new billet).</div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;Last night we left behind all that was familiar when we came out of
+the first-line trenches after three days of perfect peace there. We were
+told off to the billet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>which we occupied on October 6th and 7th. One
+can feel in the air the wind of change. I don't know what may come, but
+the serenity of the weather to-day seems an augury of happiness.</p>
+
+<p>These have been days of marvellous scenes, which I can appreciate better
+now than during those few days of discouragement, which came because I
+allowed myself to reckon things according to our miserable human
+standards.</p>
+
+<p>I write to you by a window from which I watch the sunset. You see that
+goodness is everywhere for us.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>3 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;I take up this letter once more in the twilight of an exceptional
+winter: the day fades away as calmly as it came. I am watching the women
+washing clothes under the lines of trees on the river bank; there is
+peace everywhere&mdash;I think even in our hearts. Night falls.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 19</i> (in a billet).</div>
+
+<p>A sweet day, ending here round the table. Quiet, drawing, music. I can
+think with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>calm of the length of the days to come when I realise how
+swift have been these days that are past. Half the month is gone, and
+Christmas comes in the midst of war. The only thing for me is to adapt
+myself entirely to these conditions of existence, and, owing to my union
+with you, to gain a degree of acceptance which is of an order higher
+than human courage.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 21, morning.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My very dear Mother,</span>&mdash;I have told you freely in my letters of
+my happiness; but the rock ahead of happiness is that poor humanity is
+in perpetual fear of losing it. In spite of all experience, we do not
+realise that in the eternal scheme of things a new happiness always
+grows at the side of an old one.</p>
+
+<p>For myself, I have not to look for a new one. I have only to try to
+reconcile two wisdoms. One, which is human, prompts me to cultivate my
+happiness, but the other teaches me that human happiness is a most
+perishable flower.</p>
+
+<p>We may say: Let us make use of the joys chosen by an upright conscience;
+but let us never forget how swiftly these pass.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yes, the Holy Scriptures contain the finest and most poetical
+philosophy. I think they owe it to their affiliation to the oldest
+philosophies. There are many disputable things in Edouard Schur&eacute;, but
+what remains is the divination which made him climb through all doctrine
+to the infinitely distant Source of human wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>Do you know that those touching traditions of the Good Shepherd and the
+Divine Mother, so happily employed in our Christian religions, are the
+creations of the oldest symbolism? The Greeks derived them from their
+own spiritual ancestors; with them the good shepherd was called Hermes,
+the god of the migration of souls. In the same way, the type of our
+Madonna is the great Demeter, the mother who bears an infant in her
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>One feels that all religions, as they succeeded each other, transmitted
+the same body of symbols, renewed each time by humanity's
+perpetually-young spirit of poetry.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 23</i> (in the dark).</div>
+
+<p>I had begun this letter yesterday, when I was forced to leave off. It
+was then splendid <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>weather, which has lasted fairly well. But we are now
+back again in our first lines. This time we are occupying the village
+itself, our pretty Corot village of two months ago. But our outpost is
+situated in a house where we are obliged to show no sign of life, so as
+to conceal our presence from the enemy. And so here we are at nine
+o'clock in the morning, in a darkness that would make it seem to be late
+on Christmas eve.</p>
+
+<p>Your dear letter lately received has given me great joy. It is true that
+Grace and Inspiration are two names for the same thing.</p>
+
+<p>If you are going to see the pictures of the great poet Gustave Moreau,
+you will see a panel called <i>La vie de l'humanit&eacute;</i> (I believe). It
+consists of nine sections in three divisions, called <i>l'Age d'or, l'Age
+d'argent, l'Age de fer</i>. Above is a pediment from which Christ presides
+over this human panorama. But this is where this great genius has the
+same intuition as you had: each of the three parts bears the name of a
+hero&mdash;Adam, Orpheus, and Cain, and each one represents three periods.
+Now, the periods of the golden age are called Ecstasy, Prayer, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+Sleep, while the periods of the silver age are called Inspiration, Song,
+and Tears.</p>
+
+<p>Ecstasy is the same as Grace, because the picture shows Adam and Eve in
+the purity of their souls, in a scene of flowers, and in the enjoyment
+of divine contemplation. The harmony of Nature itself urges them on in
+their impulse towards God.</p>
+
+<p>In the silver age, Inspiration is still Grace, but just beginning to be
+complicated by human artifice. The poet Orpheus perpetually contemplates
+God, but the Muse is always at his elbow, the symbol of human art is
+already born; and that great human manifestation of God, Song, brings
+with it grief and tears.</p>
+
+<p>Following out the cycle and coming to human evil, Gustave Moreau shows
+the iron age&mdash;Cain condemned to labour and sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>This work shows that the divine moment may be seized, but is fugitive
+and can never remain with man. It explains our failures. People say that
+the picture is too literary, but it touches the heart of those who wish
+to break through the ice with which all human expression is chilled.</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly Rembrandt was the Poet of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>genius <i>par excellence</i>, at the
+same time as he was pure Painter. But let us grant that ours is a less
+rich time, our temperaments less universal; and let us recognise the
+beauty of Gustave Moreau's poem, of which, in two words, you expressed
+the spirit.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'><span class="smcap">Your Son</span>.</div>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 24, morning.</i></div>
+
+<p>Our first day in the outpost passed away in the calm of a country
+awaiting snow. It came in the night.</p>
+
+<p>In the back gardens, which lie in sight of the Germans, I went out to
+see it, where it emphasised and ennobled the least of things. Then I
+came back to my candle, and I write on a table where my neighbour is
+grating chocolate. So that is war.</p>
+
+<p>Military life has some amusing surprises. We had to come to the first
+line before two non-commissioned officers found a bath and could bathe
+themselves. As for me, I have made myself a water-jug out of a part of a
+75.</p>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;I will not speak of patience, since a reserve of mere patience may
+be useless preparation for the unknown quantity. But I must say that the
+time goes extremely quickly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We spend child-like days; indeed we are children in regard to these
+events, and the benefit of this war will have been to restore youth to
+the hearts of those who return.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, our village has just had a visit from two shells. Will they
+be followed by others? May God help us! The other day they sent us a
+hundred and fifteen, to wound one man in the wrist!</p>
+
+<p>A house in which a section of our company is living is in flames. We
+have not seen a soul stirring. We can only hope that it is well with
+them.</p>
+
+<p>I am deeply happy to have lived through these few months. They have
+taught me what one can make of one's life, in any circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>My fellow-soldiers are splendid examples of the French spirit.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. They
+swagger, but their swagger is only the outer form of a deep and
+magnificent courage.</p>
+
+<p>My great fault as an artist is that I am always wanting to clothe the
+soul of the race in some beautiful garment painted in my own colours.
+And when people irritate me it is that they are soiling these beautiful
+robes; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>but, as a matter of fact, they would find them a bad encumbrance
+in the way of their plain duty.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Christmas Morning.</i></div>
+
+<p>What a unique night!&mdash;night without parallel, in which beauty has
+triumphed, in which mankind, notwithstanding their delirium of
+slaughter, have proved the reality of their conscience.</p>
+
+<p>During the intermittent bombardments a song has never ceased to rise
+from the whole line.</p>
+
+<p>Opposite to us a most beautiful tenor was declaiming the enemy's
+Christmas. Much farther off, beyond the ridges, where our lines begin
+again, the <i>Marseillaise</i> replied. The marvellous night lavished on us
+her stars and meteors. Hymns, hymns, from end to end.</p>
+
+<p>It was the eternal longing for harmony, the indomitable claim for order
+and beauty and concord.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I cherished old memories in meditating on the sweetness of
+the Childhood of Christ. The freshness, the dewy youth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>fulness of this
+French music, were very moving to me. I remembered the celebrated
+<i>Sommeil des P&egrave;lerins</i> and the shepherds' chorus. A phrase which is sung
+by the Virgin thrilled me: '<i>Le Seigneur, pour mon fils, a b&eacute;ni cet
+asile</i>.' The melody rang in my ears while I was in that little house,
+with its neighbour in flames, and itself given over to a precarious
+fate.</p>
+
+<p>I thought of all happinesses bestowed; I thought that you were perhaps
+at this moment calling down a blessing upon my abode. The sky was so
+lovely that it seemed to smile favourably upon all petition; but what I
+want strength to ask for perpetually is consistent wisdom&mdash;wisdom which,
+human though it may be, is none the less safe from anything that may
+assail it.</p>
+
+<p>The sun is flooding the country and yet I write by candle-light; now and
+then I go out into the back gardens to see the sun. All is light, peace
+falling from on high upon the deserted country.</p>
+
+<p>I come back to our room, where the brass of the pretty Meusian beds and
+the carved wood of the cupboards shine in the half-light.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> All these
+things have suffered through the rough use the soldiers put them to, but
+we have real comfort here. We have found table-implements and a
+dinner-service, and for two days running we made chocolate in a
+soup-tureen. Luxury!</p>
+
+<p>O dear mother, if God allows me the joy of returning, what youth will
+this extraordinary time have brought back to me! As I wrote to my friend
+P&mdash;&mdash;, I lead the life of a child in the midst of people so simple that
+even my rudimentary existence is complicated in comparison with my
+surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>Mother dear, the length of this war tries our power of passive will, but
+I feel that everything is coming out as I was able to foresee. I think
+that these long spells of inactivity will give repose to the
+intellectual machine. If I ever have the happiness of once more making
+use of mine, it is sure to take a little time to get moving again, but
+with what new vigour! My last work was one of pure thought, and my
+ambition, which all things justify, is to give a more plastic form to my
+thought as it develops.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Sunday, December 27, 9 o'clock</i> (5th day in the first line).</div>
+
+<p>It appears that the terrible position, courageously held by us on
+October 14th, and immediately lost by our successors, has been retaken,
+and 200 metres more, but at the price of a hundred casualties.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, want of sleep robs me of all intelligence. True, one needs
+little of that for the general run of existence here, but I should have
+liked to speak to you. The only consolation is that our love needs no
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>Very little to tell you. I was quite stupefied by the day's work
+yesterday, spent entirely in darkness. From my place I had only a
+glimpse of a pretty tree against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, in the charming early morning I saw a beautiful and extremely
+brilliant star. I had gone to fetch some coal and water, and on the way
+back, when daylight had already come, that extraordinary star still
+persisted. My corporal, who, like me, was dodging from bush to bush back
+to our house, said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Do you know what that star is? It is the sign for the enemy's patrol to
+rally.'</p>
+
+<p>It was true, and at first I felt outraged at this profanation of the
+sky, and then (apart from the ingenuity of the thing) I told myself that
+this star meant, for those poor creatures on the other side, that they
+could take the direction of safety. I felt less angry about it then. The
+sign had given me so much joy as a star that I decided to stick to my
+first impression.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>December 30.</i></div>
+
+<p>Your Christmas letter came last night. Perhaps in this very hour when I
+am writing to you, mine of the same day is reaching you. At that time,
+in spite of the risk, I was enjoying all the beauty, but to-day I
+confess it is poisoned for me by what we hear of the last slaughter.</p>
+
+<p>On the 26th we were made to remain on duty, in positions occupied only
+at night as a rule. Our purely defensive position was lucky that day,
+for we were exposed only to slight artillery fire; but on our right a
+regiment of our division, in one of the terrible <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>emplacements of
+October 14th, received an awful punishment, of which the inconclusive
+result cost several hundred lives. Here in our great village, where our
+kind hostess knew, as we did, the victims, all is sadness.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Same day.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;Nothing attacks the soul. The torture can certainly be very great,
+especially the apprehension, but questions coming from the distance can
+be silenced by acceptation of what is close. The weather is sweet and
+soft, and Nature is indifferent. The dead will not spoil the spring.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>And then, once the horror of the moment is over, when one sees its place
+taken by only the memory of those who have gone, there is a kind of
+sweetness in the thought of what <i>really exists</i>. In these solemn woods
+one realises the inanity of sepulchres and the pomp of funerals. The
+souls of the brave have no need of all that.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>4 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>I have just finished the fourth portrait, a lieutenant in my company. He
+is de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>lighted. Daylight fades. I send you my thoughts, full of
+cheerfulness. Hope and wisdom.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 3, 1915.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;Yesterday, after the first satisfaction of finding myself freed from
+manual work, I contemplated my stripes, and I felt some humiliation,
+because instead of the great anonymous superiority of the ordinary
+soldier which had put me beyond all military valuation, I had now the
+distinction of being a low number in military rank!</p>
+
+<p>But then I felt that each time I looked at my little bits of red wool I
+should remember my social duty, a duty which my leaning towards
+individualism makes me forget only too often. So I knew I was still free
+to cultivate my soul, having this final effort to demand of it.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 4, despatched on the 7th</i> (in a mine).</div>
+
+<p>I am writing to you at the entrance to an underground passage which
+leads under the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>enemy emplacement. My little job is to look out for the
+safety of the sappers, who are hollowing out and supporting and
+consolidating an excavation about twelve metres deep already. To get to
+this place we have to plunge into mud up to our thighs, but during the
+eight hours we spend here we are sheltered by earthworks several metres
+thick.</p>
+
+<p>I have six men, with whom I have led an existence of sleeplessness and
+privation for three days: this is the benefit I derive from the joyful
+event of my new status; but as a matter of fact I am glad to take part
+in these trials again.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, in a few days the temporary post which I held before may be
+given to me altogether. Horrible weather, and to make matters worse, I
+burnt an absolutely new boot, and am soaking wet, like the others, but
+in excellent health.</p>
+
+<p>Dear, I am now going to sleep a little.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 6, evening.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>,&mdash;Here we are in a billet after seventy-two
+consecutive hours without <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>sleep, living in a nameless treacly
+substance&mdash;rain and filth.</p>
+
+<p>I have had several letters from you, dear beloved mother; the last is
+dated January 1. How I love them! But before speaking of them I must
+sleep a little.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 7, towards mid-day.</i></div>
+
+<p>This interrupted letter winds up at the police-station, where my section
+is on guard. The weather is still horrible. It's unspeakable, this
+derangement of our whole existence. We are under water: the walls are of
+mud, and the floor and ceiling too.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 9.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;My consolations fail me in these days, on account of the weather.
+This horrible mess lets me see nothing whatever. I close with an ardent
+appeal to our love, and in the certainty of a justice higher than our
+own.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, as to sending things, I am really in need of nothing.
+Penury now is of another kind, but courage, always! Yet is it even sure
+that moral effort bears any fruit?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 13, morning</i> (in the trench).</div>
+
+<p>I hope that when you think of me you will have in mind all those who
+have left everything behind: their family, their surroundings, their
+whole social environment; all those of whom their nearest and dearest
+think only in the past, saying, 'We had once a brother, who, many years
+ago, withdrew from this world, we know nothing of his fate.' Then I,
+feeling that you too have abandoned all human attachment, will walk
+freely in this life, closed to all ordinary relations.</p>
+
+<p>I don't regret my new rank; it has brought me many troubles but a great
+deal of experience, and, as a matter of fact, some ameliorations.</p>
+
+<p>So I want to continue to live as fully as possible in this moment, and
+that will be all the easier for me if I can feel that you have brought
+yourself to the idea that my present life cannot in any way be lost.</p>
+
+<p>I did not tell you enough what pleasure the <i>Revues Hebdomadaires</i> gave
+me. I found some extracts from that speech on Lamartine which I am
+passionately fond of. Circum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>stances led this poet to give to his art
+only the lowest place. Life in general closed him round, imposing on his
+great heart a more serious and immediate task than that which awaited
+his genius.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 15</i> (in a new billet), 12.30 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span></div>
+
+<p>We no longer have any issue whatever in sight.</p>
+
+<p>My only sanction is in my conscience. We must confide ourselves to an
+impersonal justice, independent of any human factor, and to a useful and
+harmonious destiny, in spite of the horrors of its form.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 17, afternoon</i> (in a billet).</div>
+
+<p>What shall I say to you on this strange January afternoon, when thunder
+is followed by snow?</p>
+
+<p>Our billet provides us with many commodities, but above all with an
+intoxicating beauty and poetry. Imagine a lake in a park sheltered by
+high hills, and a castle, or, rather, a splendid country house. We lodge
+in the domestic offices, but I don't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>need any wonderful home comforts
+to perfect the dream-like existence that I have led here for three days.
+Last night we were visited by some singers. We were very far from the
+music that I love, but the popular and sentimental tunes were quite able
+to replace a finer art, because of the ardent conviction of the singer.
+The workman who sang these songs, which were decent, in fact moral (a
+rather questionable moral, perhaps, but still a moral), so put his soul
+into it that the timbre of his voice was altogether too moving for our
+hostesses. Here are the ideal people: perhaps their ideal may be said
+not to exist and to be purely negative, but months of suffering have
+taught me to honour it.</p>
+
+<p>I have just seen that Charles P&eacute;guy died at the beginning of the war.
+How terribly French thought will have been mown down! What surpasses our
+understanding (and yet what is only natural) is that civilians are able
+to continue their normal life while we are in torment. I saw in the <i>Cri
+de Paris</i>, which drifted as far as here, a list of concert programmes.
+What a contrast! However, mother dear, the essential thing is to have
+known beauty in moments of grace.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The weather is frightful, but one can feel the coming of spring. At a
+time like this nothing can speak of individual hope, only of great
+general certainties.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 19.</i></div>
+
+<p>We have been since yesterday in our second line positions; we came to
+them in marvellous snow and frost. A furious sky, with charming rosy
+colour in it, floated over the visionary forest in the snow; the trees,
+limpid blue low down, brown and fretted above, the earth white.</p>
+
+<p>I have received two parcels; the <i>Chanson de Roland</i> gives me infinite
+pleasure&mdash;particularly the Introduction, treating of the national epic
+and of the Mahabharata which, it seems, tells of the fight between the
+spirits of good and evil.</p>
+
+<p>I am happy in your lovely letters. As for the sufferings which you
+forebode for me, they are really very tolerable.</p>
+
+<p>But what we must recognise, and without shame, is that we are a
+<i>bourgeois</i> people. We have tasted of the honey of
+civilisation&mdash;poisoned honey, no doubt. But no, surely that sweetness is
+true, and we should not be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>called upon to make of our ordinary
+existence a preparation for violence. I know that violence may be
+salutary to us, especially if in the midst of it we do not lose sight of
+normal order and calm.</p>
+
+<p>Order leads to eternal rest. Violence makes life go round. We have, for
+our object, order and eternal rest; but without the violence which lets
+loose reserves of energy, we should be too inclined to consider order as
+already attained. But anticipated order can only be a lethargy which
+retards the coming of positive order.</p>
+
+<p>Our sufferings arise only from our disappointment in this delay; the
+coming of true order is too long for human patience. In any case,
+however suffering, we would rather not be doers of violence. It is as
+when matter in fusion solidifies too quickly and in the wrong shape: it
+has to be put to the fire again. This is the part violence plays in
+human evolution; but that salutary violence must not make us forget what
+our &aelig;sthetic citizenship had acquired in the way of perdurable peace and
+harmony. But our suffering comes precisely from the fact that we do not
+forget it!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 20, morning.</i></div>
+
+<p>Do not think that I ever deprive myself of sleep. In that matter our
+regiment is very fitful: one time we sleep for three days and three
+nights; another time, the opposite.</p>
+
+<p>Now Nature gives me her support once more. The frightful spell of rain
+is interrupted by fine cold days. We live in the midst of beautiful
+frost and snow; the hard earth gives us a firm footing.</p>
+
+<p>My little grade gets me some solitude. I no longer have my happy walks
+by night, but I have them in the day; my exemption from the hardest work
+gives me time to realise the beauty of things.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday, an unspeakable sunset. A filmy atmosphere, with shreds of
+tender colour; underneath, the blue cold of the snow.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, it is a night of home-sickness. These familiar verses came
+to me in the peace:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Mon enfant">
+<tr><td align='left'>'Mon enfant, ma s&oelig;ur,</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Songe &agrave; la douceur</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">D'aller l&agrave;-bas vivre ensemble</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: .5em;">Au pays qui te ressemble.'</span></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yes, Beaudelaire's <i>Invitation au voyage</i> seemed to take wing in the
+exquisite sky. Oh, I was far from war. Well, to return to earthly
+things: in coming back I nearly missed my dinner.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 20, evening.</i></div>
+
+<p>Acceptation always. Adaptation to the life which goes on and on, taking
+no notice of our little postulations.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 21.</i></div>
+
+<p>We are in our first-line emplacements. The snow has followed us, but
+alas, the thaw too. Happily, in this emplacement we don't live in water
+as we do in the trenches.</p>
+
+<p>Can any one describe the grace of winter trees? Did I already tell you
+what Anatole France says in the <i>Mannequin d'Osier</i>? He loves their
+delicate outlines and their intimate beauty more when they are uncovered
+in winter. I too love the marvellous intricate pattern of their branches
+against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>From my post I can see our poor village, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>which is collapsing more and
+more. Each day shells are destroying it. The church is hollowed out, but
+its old charm remains in its ruins; it crouches so prettily between the
+two delicately defined hills.</p>
+
+<p>We were very happy in the second line. That time of snow was really
+beautiful and clement. I told you yesterday about the sunset the other
+day. And, before that, our arrival in the marvellous woods.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 22.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;I have sent you a few verses; I don't know what they are worth, but
+they reconciled me to life. And then our last billet was really
+wonderful in its beauty. Water running over pebbles .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;vast, limpid
+waters at the end of the park. Sleeping ponds, dreaming walks, which
+none of this brutality has succeeded in defiling. To-day, sun on the
+snow. The beauty of the snow was deeply moving, though certainly we had
+some bad days, days on which there was nothing for us but the wretched
+mud.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that we won't be coming back to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>this pretty billet. Evidently
+they are making ready for something; the regularity of our winter
+existence has come to an end.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>2 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>Splendid weather, herald of the spring, and we can make the most of it,
+because in this place we are allowed to put our noses out of doors.</p>
+
+<p>I write badly to-day. I can only send you my love. This war is long, and
+I can't even speak of patience.</p>
+
+<p>My only happiness is that during these five and a half months I have so
+often been able to tell you that everything was not ugliness.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 23.</i></div>
+
+<p>.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;As for me, I have no desires left. When my trials are really hard to
+bear, I rest content with my own unhappiness, without facing other
+things.</p>
+
+<p>When they become less hard, then I begin to think, to dream, and the
+past that is dear to me seems to have that same remote poetry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>which in
+happier days drew my thoughts to distant countries. A familiar street,
+or certain well-known corners, spring suddenly to my mind&mdash;just as in
+other days islands of dreams and legendary countries used to rise at the
+call of certain music and verse. But now there is no need of verse or
+music; the intensity of dear memories is enough.</p>
+
+<p>I have not even any idea of what a new life could be; I only know that
+we are making life here and now.</p>
+
+<p>For whom, and for what age? It hardly matters. What I do know, and what
+is affirmed in the very depths of my being, is that this harvest of
+French genius will be safely stored, and that the intellect of our race
+will not suffer for the deep cuts that have been made in it.</p>
+
+<p>Who will say that the rough peasant, comrade of the fallen thinker, will
+not be the inheritor of his thoughts? No experience can falsify this
+magnificent intuition. The peasant's son who has witnessed the death of
+the young scholar or artist will perhaps take up the interrupted work,
+be perhaps a link in the chain of evolution which has been for a moment
+suspended. This is the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>real sacrifice: to renounce the hope of being
+the torch-bearer. To a child in a game it is a fine thing to carry the
+flag; but for a man, it is enough to know that the flag will yet be
+carried. And that is what every moment of great august Nature brings
+home to me. Every moment reassures my heart: Nature makes flags out of
+anything. They are more beautiful than those to which our little habits
+cling. And there will always be eyes to see and cherish the lessons of
+earth and sky.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 26.</i></div>
+
+<p>Your dear letter of the 20th reached me last night. You must not be
+angry with me if occasionally, as in my letter of the 13th, I lack the
+very thing I am always forcing myself to acquire. But I ask you to
+consider what can be the thoughts of one who is young, in the fulness of
+productiveness, at the hour when life is flowering, if he is snatched
+away, and cast upon barren soil where all he has cherished fails him.</p>
+
+<p>Well, after the first wrench he finds that life has not forsaken him,
+and sets to work <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>upon the new ungrateful ground. The effort calls for
+such a concentration of energy as leaves no time for either hopes or
+fears. It is the constant effort at adaptation, and I manage it, except
+only in moments of the rebellion (quickly suppressed) of the thoughts
+and wishes of the past. But I need my whole strength at times for
+keeping down the pangs of memory and accepting what is.</p>
+
+<p>I was thinking of the sad moments that you too endure, and that was why
+I encouraged you to an impersonal idea of our union. I know how strong
+you are, and how prepared for this idea. Yes, you are right, we must not
+meet the pain half-way. But at times it is difficult to distinguish
+between the real suffering that affects us, and that which is only
+possible or imminent.</p>
+
+<p>Mind you notice that <i>I have perfect hope</i> and that I count on
+prevailing grace, but, caring more than anything to be an artist, I am
+occupied in drawing all the beauty out, in drawing out the utmost
+beauty, as quickly as may be, none of us knowing how much time is meted
+to us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 27, afternoon.</i></div>
+
+<p>After two bad nights in the billet owing to the lack of straw, the third
+night was interrupted by our sudden departure for our emplacement in the
+second line.</p>
+
+<p>Superb weather, frost and sun.</p>
+
+<p>Great Nature begins again to enfold me, and her voice, which is now
+powerful again, consoles me.&mdash;But, dear, what a hole in one's existence!
+Yes, since my promotion I have lived through moments which, though less
+terrible, recalled the first days of September, but with the addition of
+many blessings. I accept this new life, with no forecast of the future.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>January 28, in the morning sun.</i></div>
+
+<p>The hard and splendid weather has this marvellous good&mdash;that it leaves
+in its great pure sky an open door for poetry. Yes, all that I told you
+of that beautiful time of snow came from a heart that was comforted by
+such triumphant beauty.</p>
+
+<p>In the Reviews you send me I have read with pleasure the articles on
+Moli&egrave;re, on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> English parliament, on Martainville, and on the
+religious questions of 1830.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>Did I tell you that I learnt from the papers of the death of
+Hillemacher? That dear friend was killed in this terrible war.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 1.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My very dear Mother</span>,&mdash;I have your dear letters of the 26th and
+27th; they do bring new life to me.</p>
+
+<p>Up till now, our first-line emplacement, which this time is in the
+village, has been favoured with complete calm, and I have known once
+more those hours of grace when Nature consoles me.</p>
+
+<p>My situation has this special improvement, that the drudgery I do now is
+done at the instance of the general good, and no longer at the dictation
+of mere routine.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 2.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>,&mdash;I go on with this letter in the billet, where the
+great worry of accumulated work fills up the void which Melancholy would
+make her own.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dark days have come upon me, and nothingness seems the end of all,
+whereas all that is in my being had assured me of the plenitude of the
+universe. Yes, devotion, not to individuals but to the social ideal of
+brotherhood, sustains me still. Oh, what a magnificent example is to be
+found in Jesus and in the poor. That righteous aristocrat, showing by
+His abhorrent task the infinite obligation of altruistic duty, and
+teaching, above all, that no return of gratitude should be demanded.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+To my experience of men and things I owe this tranquillity of expecting
+nothing from any one. Thus duty takes an abstract form, deprived of a
+human object.</p>
+
+<p>An unspeakable sunrise to-day! Another spring draws near.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. I want to
+tell you about our three days in the first line.</p>
+
+<p>Snow and frost. We went down the slopes leading to our emplacement in
+the village. The night was then so beautiful that it moved the heart of
+every soldier to see it. I could never say enough about the fine
+delicacy of this country. How can I explain to you the chiselled effect,
+allied to the dream-like mists, with the moon soaring above? For three
+days my night-service <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>took me straight to the heart of this purity,
+this whiteness.</p>
+
+<p>Tarnished gold-work of the trees. And, in spite of the mist, many
+colours, rose and blue.</p>
+
+<p>There are hours of such beauty that those who take them to themselves
+can hardly die. I was well in front of the first lines, and never did I
+feel better protected. This morning, when I came, a pink and green
+sunrise over the blue and rosy snow; the open country marked with woods
+and covered fields; far off, the distance, in which the silvery Meuse
+fades away. O Beauty, in spite of all!</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 2.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;Your letter of the 29th has this moment
+come to the billet. A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in
+which the spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the
+lengthening days; a sudden softening, a weakening of Nature. Alas, how
+sweet this emotion would be if it could be felt outside this slavery,
+but the weakness which comes ordinarily with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>spring only serves here to
+make burdens heavier.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, how glad I am to feel the sympathy of those who are far
+away. Ah, what sweetness there is!</p>
+
+<p>I am delighted by the Reviews; in an admirable article on Louis Veuillot
+I noticed this phrase: 'O my God, take away my despair and leave my
+grief!' Yes, we must not misunderstand the fruitful lesson taught by
+grief, and if I return from this war it will most certainly be with a
+soul formed and enriched.</p>
+
+<p>I also read with pleasure the lectures on Moli&egrave;re, and in him, as
+elsewhere, I have viewed again the solitude in which the highest souls
+wander. But I owe it to my old sentimental wounds never to suffer again
+through the acts of others. My dearly loved mother, I will write to you
+better to-morrow.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 4.</i></div>
+
+<p>Last night, on coming back to the barn, drunkenness, quarrels, cries,
+songs and yells. Such is life!.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;But when morning came and the wakening
+from sleep still brought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>me memories of this, I got up before the time,
+and found outside a friendly moon, and the great night taking wing, and
+a dawn which had pity on me. The blessed spring day gilds everything and
+scatters its promises and hopes.</p>
+
+<p>Dear, I was reflecting on Tolstoi's title, <i>War and Peace</i>. I used to
+think that he wanted to express the antithesis of these two states, but
+now I ask myself if he did not connect these two contraries in one and
+the same folly&mdash;if the fortunes of humanity, whether at war or at peace,
+were not equally a burden to his mind. By all means let us keep faithful
+to our efforts to be good; but in spite of ourselves we take this
+precept a little in the sense of the placards: 'Be good to animals.' How
+hard it is, in the midst of daily duties, to keep guard upon oneself.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 5.</i></div>
+
+<p>A sleepless night. Hateful return to the barn. Such a fearful row that
+the corporals had to complain. Punishments.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning, on the march, and, in order to rest us, work to-night!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 6.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My dear beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;After the sleepless night in our
+billet, we had to supply a working-party all the following night. So I
+have been sleeping up till the very moment of writing to you. Sleep and
+Night are refuges which give life still one attraction.</p>
+
+<p>Mother dear, I am living over again the lovely legend of Sarpedon; and
+that exquisite flower of Greek poetry really gives me comfort. If you
+will read this passage of the <i>Iliad</i> in my beautiful translation by
+Lecomte de l'Isle, you will see that Zeus utters in regard to destiny
+certain words in which the divine and the eternal shine out as nobly as
+in the Christian Passion. He suffers, and his fatherly heart undergoes a
+long battle, but finally he permits his son to die, and Hypnos and
+Thanatos are sent to gather up the beloved remains.</p>
+
+<p>Hypnos&mdash;that is Sleep. To think that I should come to that, I for whom
+every waking hour was a waking joy, I for whom every moment of action
+was a thrill of pride. I catch myself longing for the escape of Sleep
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>from the tumult that besets me. But the splendid Greek optimism shines
+out as in those vases at the Louvre. By the two, Hypnos and Thanatos,
+Sarpedon is lifted to a life beyond his human death; and assuredly Sleep
+and Death do wonderfully magnify and continue our mortal fate.</p>
+
+<p>Thanatos&mdash;that is a mystery, and it is a terror only because the urgency
+of our transitory desires makes us misconceive the mystery. But read
+over again the great peaceful words of Maeterlinck in his book on death,
+words ringing with compassion for our fears in the tremendous passage of
+mortality.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 7.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Most dear and most beloved</span>,&mdash;I have your splendid letter of the
+first. Please don't hesitate to write what you think I would call mere
+chatter. Your love and the absolute identity of our two hearts appear in
+all your letters. And that is all I really care for. Yet they tell me a
+thousand things that interest me too.</p>
+
+<p>We are living through hours of heavy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>labour. My rank gives me respite
+now and then; but for the men it means five nights at a time without
+sleep, and this repeatedly.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 9.</i></div>
+
+<p>Another breathing-space in which, almost at my last gasp, I get a brief
+peace. The little reviving breath comes again. I have had the good luck
+to be appointed corporal on guard in delightful quarters, where I am in
+command. Perfect spring weather. And what can I say of this Nature?
+Never before have I so fully felt her amplitude of life. Hours and
+seasons following one another surely, infallibly, unalterably, in
+unchanging unity; the looker-on has a glimpse of the immensity of the
+force that first set them afoot.</p>
+
+<p>I had often known the delight of watching the nearer coming of a season,
+but it had not before been given to me to live in that delight moment by
+moment. It is so that one learns, without the help of any kind of
+science, a certain intuition, vague perhaps, but altogether
+indisputable, of the Absolute. There was a man of science, possibly a
+great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>one, who declared that he had not discovered God under his
+scalpel. What a shocking mistake for an able mind to make! Where was the
+need of a scalpel, when the joy and the thrill of our senses are
+all-sufficient to convince us of the purpose commanding our whole
+evolution? The poet watches the coming of the seasons as it were great
+ships that will, he knows, set sail again. At times the storm may delay
+them, but at their next coming they will bring with them the rich
+fragrance of the unknown coasts. A season coming again to our own shores
+seems to bring us delights which it has learnt by long travel.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, dearest mother, if one could have again a retreat for the soul! O
+solitude, for those worthy to possess it! How seldom is it inviolate!</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 11.</i></div>
+
+<p>It may possibly be a great intended privilege for our generation to be a
+witness of these horrors, but what a terrible price to pay! Well, faith,
+eternal faith, is over all. Faith in an evolution, an Order, beyond our
+human patience.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 11</i> (2nd day in the front line).</div>
+
+<p>In such hours as these one must perforce take refuge in the extra-human
+principle of sacrifice; it is impossible for mere humanity to go
+further.</p>
+
+<p>Let go all poor human hope. Seek something beyond; perhaps you have
+already found it. As for me, I feel myself to be unworthy in such days
+to be anything more than a memory. I picked some flowers in the mud.
+Keep them in remembrance of me.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>5 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>Courage through all, courage in spite of all.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 13</i> (4th day in the front line).</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Beloved</span>,&mdash;After the days of tears and of rebellion of the heart
+that have so shaken me, I pull myself together again to say 'Thy will be
+done.' So, according to the power and the measure of my faculties, I
+would be he who to the very end never despaired of his share in the
+building of the Temple. I would be the workman who, knowing full <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>well
+that his scaffolding will give way and who has no hope of safety, goes
+on with his stone-carving of decoration on the cathedral front.
+Decoration. I am not one who will ever be able to lift the blocks of
+stone. But there are others for that job. Yes, I am getting back into a
+little quiet thinking. The equable tranquillity I had hoped for is not
+yet mine; but I have occasional glimpses of that region of peace and
+light in which all things, even our love, is renewed and transfigured.</p>
+
+<p>I am now at the foot of a peaked hill where Nature has brought the
+loveliest lines of design together. Man is hunting man, and in a moment
+they will be locked in fight. Meanwhile the lark is rising.</p>
+
+<p>Even as I write, a strange serenity possesses me.
+Something&mdash;extraordinary comfort. Be it a human quality, be it a
+revelation from on high. All around me men are asleep.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 14</i> (5th day in the front line).</div>
+
+<p>All is movement about us; we too are afoot. Even as the inevitable takes
+shape, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>peace revisits my heart at last. My beloved country is defiled
+by these detestable preparations of battle; the silence is rent by the
+preliminary gun-fire; man succeeds for a time in cancelling all the
+beauty of the world. But I think it will even yet find a place of
+refuge. For twenty-four hours now I have been my own self.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, I was wrong to think so much of my 'tower of ivory.' What
+we too often take for a tower of ivory is nothing more than an old
+cheese where a hermit rat has made his house.</p>
+
+<p>Rather, may a better spirit move me to gratitude for the salutary shocks
+that tossed me out of too pleasant a place of peace; let us be thankful
+for the dispensation which, during certain hours&mdash;hours far apart but
+never to be forgotten&mdash;made a man of me.</p>
+
+<p>No, no, I will not mourn over my dead youth. It led me by steep and
+devious ways to the tablelands where the mists that hung over
+intelligence are no more.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 16.</i></div>
+
+<p>In these latter days I have passed through certain hours, made decisive
+hours for me by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>the visibility of great and universal problems. We have
+now been for five days in the front line, with exceedingly hard work,
+hampered by the terrible mud. As our days have followed each other, and
+as my own struggle against the frightful sadness of my soul continued,
+the military situation was growing more tense, and the preparation for
+action was pushing on. Then came the announcement of the order of
+attack. There was only a day left&mdash;perhaps two days. It was then I wrote
+you two letters, I think those of the 13th and 14th; and really, as I
+was writing, I had within my heart such a plenitude of conviction, such
+a sweetness of feeling, as give incontrovertible assurance of the
+reality of the beautiful and the good. The bombardment of our position
+was violent; but nothing that man can do is able to stifle or silence
+what Nature has to say to the human soul.</p>
+
+<p>One night, between the 14th and the 15th, we were placed in trenches
+that were raked by machine-guns. Our men were so exhausted that they
+were obliged to give place to another battalion. We were waiting in the
+wet and the cold of night when suddenly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>the notice came that we were
+relieved. We could not tell why. But we are here again in this village,
+where the men deluge their poor hearts with wine. I am in the midst of
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, if there is one thing absolute in human feeling, it is
+pain. I had lived hitherto in the contemplation of the interesting
+relations of different emotions, losing sight of the price, the
+intrinsic value, of life itself. But now I know what is essential life.
+It is that which clears the soul's way to the Absolute. But I suffered
+less in that time of waiting than I am suffering now from certain
+companionships.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 16, 9 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;I was at dinner when they came to tell me
+we were off. I knew it would be so; the counter-orders that put off the
+attack cost us the march of forty kilometres in addition to the fatigues
+we had to undergo in the first line. As we were leaving our sector I
+noticed the arrival of such a quantity of artillery that I knew well
+enough the pause was at an end. But the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>soul has its own peace. It is
+frosty weather, with a sky full of stars.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 19</i> (sent off in the full swing of battle).</div>
+
+<p>One word only. We are in the hands of God. Never, never, have we so
+needed the wisdom of confidence. Death prevails, but it does not reign.
+Life is still noble. Friends of mine killed and wounded yesterday and
+the day before. Dearest, our messengers may be greatly delayed.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 22.</i></div>
+
+<p>We are in billets after the great battle. And this time I saw it all. I
+did my duty; I knew that by the feeling of my men for me. But the best
+are dead. Bitter loss. This heroic regiment. We gained our object. Will
+write at more length.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 22</i> (1st day in billet).</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;I will tell you about the goodness of
+God, and the horror of these things. The heaviness of heart that weighed
+me down this month and a half past <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>was for the coming anguish to be
+undergone in these last twenty days.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the scene of action on the 17th. The preparation ceased to
+interest me; I was all expectation of the event. It broke out at three
+o'clock: the explosion of seven mines under the enemy's trenches. It was
+like a distant thunder. Next, five hundred guns created the hell into
+which we leapt.</p>
+
+<p>Night was coming on when we established ourselves in the positions we
+had taken. All that night I was actively at work for the security of our
+men, who had not suffered much. I had to cover great tracts, over which
+were scattered the wounded and the dead of both sides. My heart yearned
+over them, but I had nothing better than words to give them. In the
+morning we were driven, with serious loss, back to our previous
+positions, but in the evening we attacked again; we retook our whole
+advance; here again I did my duty. In my advance I got the sword of an
+officer who surrendered; after that I placed my men for guarding our
+ground. The captain ordered me to his side, and I gave him the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>plan of
+our position. He was telling me of his decision to have me mentioned,
+when he was killed before my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Briefly, under the frightful fire of those three days, I organised and
+kept going the work of supplying cartridges; in this job five of my men
+were wounded. Our losses are terrible; those of the enemy greater still.
+You cannot imagine, beloved mother, what man will do against man. For
+five days my shoes have been slippery with human brains, I have walked
+among lungs, among entrails. The men eat, what little they have to eat,
+at the side of the dead. Our regiment was heroic; we have no officers
+left. They all died as brave men. Two good friends&mdash;one of them a fine
+model of my own for one of my last pictures&mdash;are killed. That was one of
+the terrible incidents of the evening. A white body, splendid under the
+moon! I lay down near him. The beauty of things awoke again for me.</p>
+
+<p>At last, after five days of horror that lost us twelve hundred men, we
+were ordered back from the scene of abomination.</p>
+
+<p>The regiment has been mentioned in despatches.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, how shall I ever speak of the unspeakable things I have had
+to see? But how shall I ever tell of the certainties this tempest has
+made clear to me? Duty; effort.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 23.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dearest beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;A second day in billets. To-morrow we
+go to the front. Darling, I can't write to-day. Let us draw ever nearer
+to the eternal, let us remain devoted to our duty. I know how your
+thoughts fly to meet mine, and I turn mine towards the happiness of
+wisdom. Let us take courage; let me be brave among these young dead men,
+and be you brave in readiness. God is over us.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 26</i> (a splendid afternoon).</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>,&mdash;Here we are again upon the battlefield. We have
+climbed the hill from which it would be better to praise the glory of
+God than to condemn the horrors of men. Innumerable dead at the
+setting-out of our march; but they grow fewer, leaving here and there
+some poor stray body, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>colour of clay&mdash;a painful encounter. Our
+losses are what are called 'serious' in despatches.</p>
+
+<p>At all events I can assure you that our men are admirable and their
+resignation is heroic. All deplore this infamous war, but nearly all
+feel that the fulfilment of a hideous duty is the one only thing that
+justifies the horrible necessity of living at such a time as this.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, I cannot write more. The plain is settling to sleep under
+colours of violet and rose. How can things be so horrible?</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>February 28</i> (in a billet).</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear beloved Mother, and dear beloved Grandmother</span>,&mdash;I am
+writing to you, having just struggled out of a most appalling nightmare,
+and out of Dantesque scenes that I have lived through. Things that
+Gustave Dor&eacute; had the courage to picture through the text of the <i>Divina
+Commedia</i> have come to pass, with all the variety and circumstance of
+fact. In the midst of labours that happily tend to deaden one's
+feelings, I have been able to gather the better fruits of pain.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>On the 24th, in the evening, we returned to our positions, from which
+the more hideous of the traces of battle had been partly removed. Only a
+few places were still scattered with fragments of men that were taking
+on the semblance of that clay to which they were returning. The weather
+was fine and cold, and the heights we had gained brought us into the
+very sky. The immensities appeared only as lights: the higher light, a
+brilliance of stars; the lower light, a glow of fires. The frightful
+bombardment with which the Germans overwhelm us is really a waste of
+fireworks.</p>
+
+<p>I lay in a dug-out from which I could follow the moon, and watch for
+daybreak. Now and again a shell crumbled the soil about me, and deafened
+me; then silence came again upon the frozen earth. I have paid the
+price, I have paid dearly, but I have had moments of solitude that were
+full of God.</p>
+
+<p>I really think I have tried to adapt myself to my work, for, as I told
+you, I am proposed for the rank of sergeant and for mention in
+despatches. Ah, but, dearest mother, this war is long, too long for men
+who had something else to do in the world! What <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>you tell me of the kind
+feeling there is for me in Paris gives me pleasure; but&mdash;am I not to be
+brought out of this for a better kind of usefulness? Why am I so
+sacrificed, when so many others, not my equals, are spared? Yet I had
+something worth doing to do in the world. Well, if God does not intend
+to take away this cup from me, His will be done.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 3</i> (in a billet).</div>
+
+<p>This is the fourth day of rest, for me almost a holiday time. Rather a
+sad holiday, I own; it reminds me of certain visits to Marlotte. These
+days have been spent in attempts to recover from physical fatigue and
+moral weariness, and in the filling up of vacant hours. Still, a kind of
+holiday, a halt rather, giving one time to arrange one's impressions, so
+long confused by the violence of action.</p>
+
+<p>I have been stupefied by the noise of the shells. Think&mdash;from the French
+side alone forty thousand have passed over our heads, and from the
+German side about as many, with this difference, that the enemy shells
+burst right upon us. For my own part, I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>was buried by three 305 shells
+at once, to say nothing of the innumerable shrapnel going off close by.
+You may gather that my brain was a good deal shaken. And now I am
+reading. I have just read in a magazine an article on three new novels,
+and that reading relieved many of the cares of battle.</p>
+
+<p>I have received a most beautiful letter from Andr&eacute;, who must be a
+neighbour of mine out here. He thinks as I do about our dreadful war
+literature. What does flourish is a faculty of musical improvisation.
+All last night I heard the loveliest symphonies, fully orchestral; and I
+am bound to say that they owed their best to the great music that is
+Germany's.</p>
+
+<p>After my experiences I must really let myself go a little in the
+pleasure of this furtive sun of March.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 5</i> (6th day in billets).</div>
+
+<p>I wish I could recover in myself the extreme sensibilities I felt before
+the fiery trial, so that I might describe for you the colours and the
+aspects of the drama we have passed through. But just now I am in a
+state of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>numbness, pleasant enough in itself, yet apt to hinder my
+vision of things present and my forecasts of things to come. I have to
+make an effort to keep hold of eternal and essential things; perhaps I
+shall succeed in time.</p>
+
+<p>And yet certain sights on the wasted field of war had so noble a lesson,
+a teaching so persuasive, that I should love to share with you the great
+certainties of those days. How harmonious is death within the natural
+soil, how admirable is the manner of man's return to the substance of
+his mother earth, compared with the poverty of funeral ceremonial!
+Yesterday I thought of those poor dead as forsaken things. But I had
+been present at the burial of an officer, and it seems to me that Nature
+is more compassionate than man. Yes indeed, the soldier's death is close
+to natural things. It is a frank horror, a horror that does not attempt
+to cheat the law of violence. I often passed close to bodies that were
+gradually passing into the clay, and their change seemed more comforting
+than the cold and unchanging aspect of the tombs of town cemeteries.
+From our life in the open we have gained a freedom of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>conception, an
+amplitude of thought and of habit, which will for ever make cities
+horrible and artificial to those who survive the war.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, I write but ill of things that I have greatly felt. Let us
+seek refuge in the peace of spring and in the treasure of the present
+moment.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 7, half-past ten.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;I am filling up the idleness of this
+morning. I am rejoicing in the clear waters of the Meuse that give life
+to dales and gardens. The play of the current over weeds and pebbles
+makes a soothing sight for my tired eyes, and expresses the calm life of
+this big village that is sheltered by the Meuse hills. The church here
+is thronged with soldiers who possess, as I do, a definite intuition of
+the Ideal, but who seek it by more stated and less immediate means.</p>
+
+<p>I am to board for a fortnight in the house in which, nearly two months
+ago, our joyous company used to meet. To-day I have seen the tears of
+these same friends, weeping to hear of the wounded and the dead.</p>
+
+<p>I received your sleeping-sack, which is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>quite right. I am worried with
+rheumatism, which has spoilt many of my nights in billets these two
+months past.</p>
+
+<p>Darling mother, here is a calm in the noise of that barrack-life which
+must now be ours. As there are none here but non-commissioned officers,
+they are all ordered to hard jobs, and I shall renew my acquaintance
+with brooms and burdens. We have been warned; we shall have to work with
+our hands. And so we learn to direct others.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 7</i> (another letter).</div>
+
+<p>Soft weather after rain. Bells in the evening; flowing waters singing
+under the bridges; trees settling to sleep.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 11.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Darling Mother</span>,&mdash;I have nothing to say about my life, which is
+filled up with manual labour. At moments perhaps some image appears,
+some memory rises. I have just read a fine article by Renan on the
+origins of the Bible. I found it in a <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> of 1886.
+If later I can remember something of it, I may be able to put my very
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>scattered notions on that matter into better order.</p>
+
+<p>I feel as though I were recovering from typhoid fever. What I chiefly
+enjoy is water; the running and the sleeping waters of the Meuse. The
+springs play on weeds and pebbles. The ponds lie quiet under great
+trees. Streams and waterfalls. On the steep hillsides the snow looks
+brilliant and visionary. I live in all these things without forms of
+words. And I am rather ashamed to be vegetating, though I think all must
+pass through this phase, just removed from the hell of the front. I eat,
+and when my horrid rheumatism allows, I sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Don't be angry with my inferiority. I feel as though my armour had been
+taken off. Well, I can't help it.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>5 o'clock.</i></div>
+
+<p>I am a good deal tired by drill. But the fine air of the Meuse keeps me
+in health. Dear mother, I wish I might always seek all that is noble and
+good. I wish I might always feel within myself the inspiration that
+urges towards the true treasures of life. But alas! just now I have a
+mind of lead.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 14, Sunday morning, in the Sabbath peace.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother</span>,&mdash;Your good, life-giving letters have come at
+last, after my long privation, the price I paid for my enjoyment of
+rest. The pretty town is waking in the haze of the river, the waters
+hurry over their clean stones. All things have that look of moderation
+and charming finish that is characteristic of this part of the country.</p>
+
+<p>I read a little, but I am so overtired by the physical exertion to which
+we are compelled, that I fall asleep on the instant. We are digging
+trenches and trenches.</p>
+
+<p>Dear mother, to go back to those wonderful times of the end of February,
+I must repeat that my memory of them is something like that of an
+experiment in science. I had conceived violence under a theoretic
+formula; I had divined its part in the worlds. But I had not yet
+witnessed its actual practice, except in infinitely small examples. And
+now at last violence was displayed before me on such a scale that my
+whole faculty of receptiveness was called upon to face it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> Well, it was
+interesting; and I may tell you that I never relaxed from my attitude of
+cool and impersonal watchfulness. What I had kept about me of my own
+individuality was a certain visual perceptiveness that caused me to
+register the setting of things, a setting that dramatised itself as
+'artistically' as in any stage-management. During all those minutes I
+never relaxed in my resolve to see 'how it was.'</p>
+
+<p>I was very happy to find that the 'intoxication of slaughter' never had
+any possession of me. I hope it will always be so. Unfortunately,
+contact with the German race has for ever spoilt my opinion of those
+people. I cannot quite succeed in quelling a sensibility and a
+humanitarianism that I know to be misplaced, and that would make me the
+dupe of a treacherous enemy; but I have come to tolerate things which I
+had held in abomination as the very negation of life.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen the French soldier fight. He is terrible in action, and
+after action magnanimous. That is the phrase. It is a very common
+commonplace; our greatest writers and the humblest of our schoolboys
+have trotted it out alike; and now my decadent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>ex-intellectualism finds
+nothing better to say at the sight of the soul of the Frenchman.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />
+To Madame de L.<br />
+</div>
+
+<div class='date'><i>March 14, 1915.</i></div>
+
+<p>My mother has told me of the new trial that has just come upon you.
+Truly life is crushing for some souls. I know your fortitude, and I know
+that you are only too well used to sorrow; but how much I wish that you
+had been spared this blow! My mother had written to me of the lack of
+any news of Colonel B., and she was anxious. It is the grief of those
+dear to us that troubles us out here. But there is in the sight of a
+soldier's death a lesson of greatness and of immortality that arms our
+hearts; and our desire is that our beloved ones might share it with us.
+Be sure that the Colonel's example will bear magnificent fruit. I know,
+for I have seen it, what heroism transfigures the soldier whose leader
+has fallen.</p>
+
+<p>As for myself, the time has been rife with tragedies; throughout I have
+tried to do my duty.</p>
+
+<p>I saw all my superior officers killed, and the whole regiment decimated.
+There can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>be no more human hope for those who are cast into this
+furnace. I place myself in the hands of God, asking of Him that He would
+keep me in such a state of heart and soul as may enable me to enjoy and
+love in His creation all the beauty that man has not yet denied and
+concealed.</p>
+
+<p>All else has lost proportion in my life.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 15</i> (a post-card).</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;I suppose that by now you know my good
+fortune in getting this platoon. Whatever God intends for me, this halt
+has given me the opportunity of regaining possession of myself, and of
+preparing myself to accept whatever may befall me. I send you my love
+and the union of our hearts in the face of fate.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 17.</i></div>
+
+<p>A charming morning. A white sun swathing itself in mist, the fine
+outlines of trees on the heights, and the great spaces in light. It is a
+pause full of good luck. The other day, reading an old <i>Revue des Deux
+Mondes</i> of 1880, I came upon an excellent article as one might come upon
+a noble palace with vaulted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>roof and decorated walls. It was on Egypt,
+and was signed George Perrot.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday my battalion left these billets. I am obliged to stay behind
+for my instruction as sergeant. How thankful I am for this respite,
+laborious as it is, that gives me a chance of recovering what I care for
+most&mdash;a clear mind, and a heart open to the spirit of Nature.</p>
+
+<p>I forgot to tell you that a day or two ago, during the storm, I saw the
+cranes coming home towards evening. A lull in the weather allowed me to
+hear their cry. To think how long it is since I saw them take flight
+from here! It was at the beginning of the winter, and they left
+everything the sadder for their going. And now it was for me like the
+coming of the dove to the ark; not that I deceived myself as to the
+dangers that had not ceased, but that these ambassadors of the air
+brought me a visible assurance of the universal peace beyond our human
+strife.</p>
+
+<p>And yesterday the wild geese made for the north. They flew in various
+order, tracing regular formations in the sky; and then they disappeared
+over the horizon like a floating ribbon.</p>
+
+<p>I am much gratified by M.C.'s apprecia<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>tion. I always had a love of
+letters, even as a child, and I am only sorry that the break in my
+education, brought about by myself, leaves so many blanks. I keep,
+however, throughout all changes and chances, the faculty of gleaning to
+right and left some fallen grain. Of course, as I leave out the future,
+I say nothing of my wish to be introduced to him in happier times&mdash;that
+is out of our department just now.</p>
+
+<p>I have written to Madame L. It is the last blow for her. The fate of
+some of us is as it were a medal on which are struck the image and
+superscription of sorrow. Adversity has worked so well that there is no
+room for any symbol of joy. But I think that this dedication of a life
+to grief is not unaccompanied by a secret compensation in the conviction
+that misfortune is at last complete; it is something to reach the
+high-water mark of the waters of sorrow. The fate of such sufferers
+seems to me to be an outpost showing others whence tribulation
+approaches.</p>
+
+<p>Day by day a new crop is raised in the little military burial-ground
+here. And, over all, the triumphant spring.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 20.</i></div>
+
+<p>Our holiday is coming to an end in sweetness, while all is tumult and
+carnage not far off. I think the regiment has had a long march.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 20.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;After so many graces granted me, I ought
+to have more confidence, and I intend to do my best to give myself
+wholly into the hands of God; but these are hard times. I have just
+heard of the death, among many others, of the friend whose bed I shared
+in our billet. He had just been appointed Second Lieutenant. Mother
+dear: Love. That is the only human feeling we may cherish now.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 21.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Grandmother</span>,&mdash;As the day of trial draws near I send you
+all my love. I can do no more. We are probably called upon to make such
+a sacrifice as forbids us to dwell upon our ties. Let us pray that the
+certitude of Goodness and Beauty may not fail us when we suffer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 21, Sunday, with lovely sunshine.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;I think that we may be kept here one day
+more, and that we shall leave on Tuesday. I don't know where I shall
+rejoin my battalion, or in what state I shall find it, for the action
+seems to be violent and long. Rumours are very contradictory as to our
+gains. But all agree as to the large number of casualties. We can hear a
+tremendous cannonade, and the good weather no doubt induces the command
+on both sides to move.</p>
+
+<p>I should have wished to say many things about the noble Nature that
+surrounds us with its glory, but my thoughts are gone on in advance,
+there where the sun does not see men gathered together to honour him,
+but shines only upon their hatred, and where the moon, too, looks upon
+treachery and anguish.</p>
+
+<p>The other day, overlooking this great prospect of earth welcoming the
+spring, I remembered the joy I once had to be a man. And now to be a
+man&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Our neighbour regiment, that of R.L., <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>has returned with a few of its
+companies reduced to some two-score men.</p>
+
+<p>I dare not now speak of hope. The grace for which one may still pray is
+a complete sense of what beauty the passing hour can still yield us. It
+is a new manner of 'living one's life' that literature had not foreseen.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Grandmother, how well your tenderness has served to keep me up in
+my time of trial.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 22.</i></div>
+
+<p>A splendid sun; looking on it one is amazed to see the world at war.
+Spring has come in triumph. It has surprised mankind in the act of
+hatred, in the act of outrage upon creation. The despatches tell us
+little, fortunately, of what is happening.</p>
+
+<p>Being now these twenty-one days away from the front, I find it difficult
+to re-accustom myself to the thought of the monstrous things going on
+there. Indeed, dear mother, I know that your life and mine have had but
+one object, one aim, and that even in the time we are passing through,
+we have never lost sight of it, but have constantly tried to draw
+nearer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Therefore our lives may not have been altogether useless. This is the
+only thought to comfort an ambitious soul&mdash;to forecast the influence and
+the consequences of its acts.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that if longer life had been granted me I should never have
+relaxed in my purpose. Having no certainty but that of the present, I
+have tried to put myself to the best use.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 25.</i></div>
+
+<p>Here I am living this life in the earth again. I found the very hole
+that I left last month. Nothing has been done while I was away; a
+formidable attack was attempted, but it failed. The regiments ordered to
+engage had neither our dash nor our perfect steadiness under fire. They
+succeeded only in getting themselves cut to pieces, and in bringing upon
+us the most atrocious bombardment that ever was. It seems the action
+before this was nothing to be compared with it. My company lost a great
+many men by the aerial bombs. These projectiles measure a metre in
+height and twenty-seven centimetres in diameter; they describe a high
+curve, and fall vertically, exploding in the narrowest <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>passages. We are
+several metres deep underground. Pleasant weather. At night we go to the
+surface for our hard work.</p>
+
+<p>Dearest, I wanted to say a heap of things about our joys, but some of
+them are best left quiet, unawakened. All coarse, common pleasure would
+frighten them away&mdash;they might die.</p>
+
+<p>I am writing again after a sleep. We get all the sleep we can in our
+dug-outs.</p>
+
+<p>I had a pile of thoughts that fatigue prevents my putting in order; but
+I remember that I evoked Beethoven. I am now precisely at the age he had
+reached when disaster came upon him; and I admired his great example,
+his energies at work in spite of suffering. The impediment must have
+seemed to him as grave as what is before me seems to us; but he
+conquered. To my mind Beethoven is the most magnificent of human
+translations of the creative Power.</p>
+
+<p>I am writing badly, for I am still asleep.</p>
+
+<p>How easy, how kind were all the circumstances of my return! I left the
+house alone, but passing a battery of artillery I was accosted by the
+non-commissioned officers with offers of the most friendly hospitality.
+The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>artillery are devoted to the Tenth, for we defend them; and as the
+good fellows are not even exposed to the rain they pity us exceedingly.</p>
+
+<p>I must close abruptly, loving you for your courage that so sustains me.
+Whatever happens, I have recovered joy. The night I came was so lovely!</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 26.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dearly beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;Nothing new in our position; the
+organising goes on. Interesting but not easy work. The fine weather
+prospers it. Now and again our pickaxes come upon a poor dead man whom
+the war harasses even in his grave.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>March 28</i> (on the heights; a grey Sunday; weather broken by
+yesterday's bombardment).</div>
+
+<p>We are again in full fight. A great attack from our side has repeated
+the carnage of last week. My company, which was cut up in the last
+assault, was spared this time; we had nothing to do but occupy a sector
+of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>the defence. So we got only the splashes of the fighting.</p>
+
+<p>On the loveliest Saturday of this spring I had a distant view of the
+battle; I saw the crawling beast that a battalion looks like, twisting
+as it advances under the smoke of the guns. The <i>chasseurs &agrave; pied</i> go
+forward in spite of the machine-guns and of the bombardment, French and
+German. These fine fellows did what they had to do in spite of all, and
+have made amends for the check we had last week when our attack was a
+failure.</p>
+
+<p>For a month past I have been living Raffet's lithographs, with this
+difference, that in his time one could be an eyewitness in comparative
+safety at the distance where I stood, for the guns of those days did not
+shoot far. But I saw fine things in that great plain beneath our
+heights; a hundred thousand fires of bursting shells. And the
+<i>chasseurs</i> climbing, climbing.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>Sunday, March 28</i> (2nd letter).</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>,&mdash;Radiant weather rose this morning. I have been a
+long way over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>our sector, and now the bombardment begins again, and
+grows.</p>
+
+<p>And still I turn my thoughts to hope. Whatever happens, I pray for
+wisdom for you and for me.</p>
+
+<p>Dearest, I feel at times how easy it would be to turn again to those
+pursuits that were once the charm and the interest of my life. At times
+I catch myself, in this lovely spring, so bent upon painting that I
+could mourn because I paint no more. But I compel myself to master all
+the resources of my will and to keep them to the difficult straits of
+this life.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>April 1.</i></div>
+
+<p>A sun that lays bare the lovely youth of the spring. The stream of the
+Meuse runs through this rich and comely village, which the echoes of the
+cannonade reach only as a dull thud, their meaning lost.</p>
+
+<p>We have had to change again, as the reinforcements are arriving in such
+numbers that our places are wanted; and it is always our regiment that
+has to turn out.</p>
+
+<p>But to-day all is freshness and light. The great rich plain that is
+edged by the Meuse <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>uplands has its distance all invested in the
+tenderest silver tones.</p>
+
+<p>I am pleased with Gabrielle's letter; it shows me what things will be
+laid upon the heart of France when these events are at an end. A
+touching letter from Pierre, cured at last of his terrible wound. A
+splendid letter from Grandmother. How she longs for our meeting again! I
+cannot speak of it.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I finish this letter by the waterside, recalling with delight the joys I
+used to have in painting. Before me are the sparkling rays of spring.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>April 3</i> (post-card).</div>
+
+<p>Only a word from the second line. We are in the spring woods. Sun and
+rain at play in the sky. Courage through all.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>April 3</i> (2nd letter).</div>
+
+<p>I wish I had written you better letters in these days, every minute of
+which has been sweet to me, even when we were in the front line. But I
+confess that I was satisfied just to let myself live in the beauty of
+the days, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>serene days in spite of the clamours of war. We know nothing
+of what is to happen. But there is more movement&mdash;coming and going.
+Shall we have to bear the shock again?</p>
+
+<p>Think what it was for us when we were last in the front line, to have to
+spend whole days in the dug-out that the odious bombardment had
+compelled us to hollow out of the hillside ten metres deep. There, in
+complete darkness, night was awaited for the chance to get out. But once
+my fellow non-commissioned officers and I began humming the nine
+symphonies of Beethoven. I cannot tell what thrill woke those notes
+within us. They seemed to kindle great lights in the cave. We forgot the
+Chinese torture of being unable to lie, or sit, or stand.</p>
+
+<p>The life of a sergeant in billets is really quite pleasant. But I take
+no advantage. As to the front, I hope Providence will give me strength
+of heart to do my duty there to the very end. A good friend of mine, who
+was my section-chief, has been appointed adjutant to our company. This
+is all trivial enough; but, dearest, I am in a rather feeble state; I
+was not well after the events of last month. So I let myself glide over
+the gentle <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>slopes of my life. Suppose one comes to skirt a precipice?
+May Providence keep us away from the edge!</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>April 4.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Darling Mother</span>,&mdash;A time of anxious waiting, big with the menace
+of near things. Meanwhile, however, idleness and quiet. I am not able to
+think, and I give myself up to my fate. Beloved, don't find fault with
+me if for a month past I have been below the mark. Love me, and tell our
+friends to love me.</p>
+
+<p>Did you get my photograph? It was taken at the fortunate time of our
+position here, when we were having peaceful days, with no immediate
+enemy except the cold. A few days later I was made corporal, and my life
+became hard enough, burdened with very ungrateful labours. After that,
+the storm; and the lights of that storm are still bright in my life.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>April 4, evening of Easter Sunday.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>,&mdash;We are again in the immediate care of God. At two
+o'clock we march towards the storm. Beloved, I think <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>of you, I think of
+you both. I love you, and I entrust the three of us to the Providence of
+God. May everything that happens find us ready! In the full power of my
+soul, I pray for this, on your behalf, on mine: hope through all; but,
+before all else, Wisdom and Love.</p>
+
+<p>I kiss you, without more words. All my mind is now set upon the hard
+work to be done.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>April 5, 1 o'clock <span class="smcap">a.m.</span></i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother and dear Grandmother</span>,&mdash;We are off. Courage. Wisdom
+and Love. Perhaps all this is ordained for the good of all. I can but
+send you my whole love. My life is lived in you alone.</p>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>April 5, towards noon.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear Mother</span>,&mdash;We are now to be put to the proof. Up to this
+moment there has been no sign that mercy was failing us. It is for us to
+strive to deserve it. This afternoon we shall need all our resolution,
+and we shall have to call upon the supreme Wisdom for help.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dear beloved Mother, dear Grandmother, I wish I could still have the
+delight of getting your letters. Let us pray that we may be strengthened
+even in what is before us now.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Darling, once more all my love for you both.</p>
+
+<div class='sig'><span class="smcap">Your Son.</span></div>
+
+
+<div class='date'><br/><i>April 6, noon.</i></div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dear beloved Mother</span>,&mdash;It is mid-day, and we are at the forward
+position, in readiness. I send you my whole love. Whatever comes to
+pass, life has had its beauty.</p>
+
+
+<p><br /><br /><i>It was in the fight of this day, April 6, that the writer of these
+letters disappeared.</i></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class='center'>Printed by T. and A. <span class="smcap">Constable</span>, Printers to His Majesty at the
+Edinburgh University Press<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Second Lieutenant Andr&eacute; Cadoux, who died gloriously in
+battle on April 13, 1915.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Part of this note-book has already been given.</p></div></div>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class='tnote'><b>Transcriber's notes:</b>
+
+<p>Periods added to a few date-lines to conform to rest of text.</p>
+
+<p>Page 95, A space in the text was replaced with "us as". This has been
+surmised. "moves us as a Breughel .&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;"</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters of a Soldier, by Anonymous
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters of a Soldier, by Anonymous
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Letters of a Soldier
+       1914-1915
+
+Author: Anonymous
+
+Commentator: A. Clutton-Brock
+               Andre Chevrillon
+
+Translator: V.M.
+
+Release Date: December 15, 2005 [EBook #17316]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS OF A SOLDIER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Irma Spehar, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS OF A SOLDIER
+
+         You do not know the things that are taught by him
+         who falls. I do know.
+
+         (_Letter of October 15, 1914._)
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS OF A SOLDIER
+
+1914-1915
+
+WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
+A. CLUTTON-BROCK
+
+AND A PREFACE BY
+ANDRE CHEVRILLON
+
+AUTHORISED TRANSLATION BY
+V.M.
+
+LONDON
+CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD
+1917
+
+
+
+Printed in Great Britain
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                              PAGE
+INTRODUCTION                   vii
+
+PREFACE BY ANDRE CHEVRILLON      3
+
+LETTERS                         33
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+I have been asked to write an Introduction to these letters; and I do
+so, in spite of the fact that M. Chevrillon has already written one,
+because they are stranger to me, an Englishman, than they could be to
+him a Frenchman; and it seems worth while to warn other English readers
+of this strangeness. But I would warn them of it only by way of a
+recommendation. We all hope that after the war there will be a growing
+intimacy between France and England, that the two countries will be
+closer to each other than any two countries have ever been before. But
+if this is to happen we must not be content with admiring each other.
+Mere admiration will die away; indeed, some part of our present
+admiration of the French has come from our failure to understand them.
+There is a surprise in it which they cannot think flattering, and which
+ought never to have been. Perhaps they also have been surprised by us;
+for it is certain that we have not known each other, and have been
+content with those loose general opinions about each other which are the
+common result of ignorance and indifference.
+
+What we need then is understanding; and these letters will help us to
+it. They are, as we should have said before the war, very French, that
+is to say, very unlike what an Englishman would write to his mother, or
+indeed to any one. Many Englishmen, if they could have read them before
+the war, would have thought them almost unmanly; yet the writer
+distinguished himself even in the French army. But perhaps unmanly is
+too strong a word to be put in the mouth even of an imaginary and stupid
+Englishman. No one, however stupid, could possibly have supposed that
+the writer was a coward; but it might have been thought that he was
+utterly unfitted for war. So the Germans thought that the whole French
+nation, and indeed every nation but themselves, was unfitted for war,
+because they alone willed it, and rejoiced in the thought of it. And
+certainly the French had a greater abhorrence of war even than
+ourselves; how great one can see in these letters. The writer of them
+never for a moment tries or pretends to take any pleasure in war. His
+chief aim in writing is to forget it, to speak of the consolations which
+he can still draw from the memories of his past peaceful life, and from
+the peace of the sky and the earth, where it is still unravaged. He is,
+or was, a painter (one cannot say which, for he is missing), and the
+moment he has time to write, he thinks of his art again. It would hardly
+be possible for any Englishman to ignore the war so resolutely, to
+refuse any kind of consent to it; or, if an Englishman were capable of
+such refusal, he would probably be a conscientious objector. We must
+romanticise things to some extent if we are to endure them; we must at
+least make jokes about them; and that is where the French fail to
+understand us, like the Germans. If a thing is bad to a Frenchman, it is
+altogether bad; and he will have no dealings with it. He may have to
+endure it; but he endures gravely and tensely with a sad Latin dignity,
+and so it is that this Frenchman endures the war from first to last. For
+that reason the Germans, after their failure on the Marne, counted on
+the nervous exhaustion of the French. It was a favourite phrase with
+them--one of those formulae founded on knowledge without understanding
+which so often mislead them.--Their formula for us was that we cared for
+nothing but football and marmalade.--But reading these letters one can
+understand how they were deceived. The writer of them seems to be
+always enduring tensely. It is part of his French sincerity never to
+accept any false consolation. He will not try to believe what he knows
+to be false, even so that he may endure for the sake of France. Yet he
+does endure, and all France endures, in a state of mind that would mean
+weakness in us and utter collapse in the Germans. The war is to him like
+an incessant noise that he tries to forget while he is writing. He does
+not write as a matter of duty, and so that his mother may know that he
+is still living; rather he writes to her so that he may ease a little
+his desire to talk to her. We are used to French sentiment about the
+mother; it is a commonplace of French eloquence, and we have often
+smiled at it as mere sentimental platitude; but in these letters we see
+a son's love for his mother no longer insisted upon or dressed up in
+rhetoric, but naked and unconscious, a habit of the mind, a need of the
+soul, a support even to the weakness of the flesh. Such affection with
+us is apt to be, if not shamefaced, at least a little off-hand. Often it
+exists, and is strong; but it is seldom so constant an element in all
+joy and sorrow. The most loving of English sons would not often rather
+talk to his mother than to any one else; but one knows that this
+Frenchman would rather talk to his mother than to any one else, and that
+he can talk to her more intimately than to any woman or man. One can see
+that he has had the long habit of talking to her thus, so that now he
+does it easily and without restraint. He tells her the deepest thoughts
+of his mind, knowing that she will understand them better than any one
+else. That foreboding which the mother felt about her baby in Morris's
+poem has never come true about him:
+
+      'Lo, here thy body beginning, O son, and thy soul and thy life,
+       But how will it be if thou livest and enterest into the strife,
+       And in love we dwell together when the man is grown in thee,
+       When thy sweet speech I shall hearken, and yet 'twixt thee and me
+       Shall rise that wall of distance that round each one doth grow,
+       And maketh it hard and bitter each other's thought to know?'
+
+This son has lived and entered into the strife indeed; but the wall of
+distance has not grown round him; and, as we read these letters, we
+think that no French mother would fear the natural estrangement which
+that English mother in the poem fears. The foreboding itself seems to
+belong to a barbaric society in which there is a more animal division of
+the sexes, in which the male fears to become effeminate if he does not
+insist upon his masculinity even to his mother. But this Frenchman has
+left barbarism so far behind that he is not afraid of effeminacy; nor
+does he need to remind himself that he is a male. There is a philosophy
+to which this forgetfulness of masculinity is decadence. According to
+that philosophy, man must remember always that he is an animal, a proud
+fighting animal like a bull or a cock; and the proudest of all fighting
+animals, to be admired at a distance by all women unless he condescends
+to desire them, is the officer. No one could be further from such a
+philosophy than this Frenchman; he is so far from it that he does not
+seem even to be aware of its existence. He hardly mentions the Germans
+and never expresses anger against them. The worst he says of them almost
+makes one smile at its naive gentleness. 'Unfortunately, contact with
+the German race has for ever spoilt my opinion of those people.' They
+are to him merely a nation that does not know how to behave. He reminds
+one of Talleyrand, who said of Napoleon after one of his rages: 'What a
+pity that so great a man should have been so badly brought up.' But
+there was malice in that understatement of Talleyrand's; and there is
+none in the understatement of this Frenchman. He has no desire for
+revenge; his only wish is that his duty were done and that he could
+return home to his art and his mother. To the philosophy I have spoken
+of that would seem a pitiable state of mind. No one could be less like a
+Germanic hero than this French artist; and yet the Germans were in error
+when they counted on an easy victory over him and his like, when they
+made sure that a conscious barbarism must prevail over an unconscious
+civilisation.
+
+These letters reveal to us a new type of soldier, a new type of hero,
+almost a new type of man; one who can be brave without any animal
+consolations, who can endure without any romantic illusions, and, what
+is more, one who can have faith without any formal revelation. For there
+is nothing in the letters more interesting than the religion constantly
+expressed or implied in them. The writer is not a Catholic. Catholic
+fervour on its figurative side, he says, will always leave him cold. He
+finds the fervour of Verlaine almost gross. He seems afraid to give any
+artistic expression to his own faith, lest he should falsify it by
+over-expression, lest it should seem to be more accomplished than it is.
+He will not even try to take delight in it; he is almost fanatically an
+intellectual ascetic; and yet again and again he affirms a faith which
+he will hardly consent to specify by uttering the name of God. He is shy
+about it, as if it might be refuted if it were expressed in any dogmatic
+terms. So many victories seem to have been won over faith in the modern
+world that his will not throw down any challenge. If it is to live, it
+must escape the notice of the vulgar triumphing sceptics, and even of
+the doubting habits of his own mind. Yet it does live its own humble and
+hesitating life; and in its hesitations and its humility is its
+strength. He could not be acclaimed by any eager bishop as a lost sheep
+returning repentant to the fold; but he is not lost, nor is the
+universe to him anything but a home and the dear city of God even in the
+trenches.
+
+His expression of this faith is always vague, tentative, and
+inconclusive. He is certain of something, but he cannot say what; yet he
+knows that he is certain, although, if he were to try to express his
+certainty in any old terms, he would reject it himself. He knows; but he
+cannot tell us or himself what he knows. There are sentences in which,
+as M. Chevrillon says, he speaks like an Indian sage; but I do not think
+that Indian philosophy would have satisfied him, because it is itself
+satisfied. For he is in this matter of faith a primitive, beginning to
+build a very small and humble temple out of the ruins of the past. He
+has no science of theology, nothing but emotions and values, and a trust
+in them. They are for a reality that he can scarcely express at all; and
+yet he is the more sure of its existence because of the torment through
+which he is passing. He uses that word _torment_ more than once. The war
+is to him a martyrdom in which he bears witness to his love, not only
+for France, but also for that larger country which is the universe. The
+torment makes him more sure of it than ever before; it heightens his
+sense of values; and he knows that what matters to a man is not whether
+he is joyful or sorrowful, but the quality of his joy and his sorrow.
+There are times when, like an Indian sage, he thinks that all life is
+contemplation; but this thought is only the last refuge of the spirit
+against a material storm. He is not one of those who would go into the
+wilderness and lose themselves in the depths of abstract thought; he is
+a European, an artist, a lover, one for whom the visible world exists,
+and to whom the Christian doctrine of love is but the expression of his
+own experience. For a century or more our world, confident in its
+strength, its reason, its knowledge, has been undermining that doctrine
+with every possible heresy. In sheer wilfulness it has tried to empty
+life of all its values. It has made us ashamed of loving anything; for
+all love, it has told us, is illusion produced by the will to live, or
+the will to power, or some other figment of its own perverse thought.
+And now, as a result of that perversity, the storm breaks upon us when
+we seem to have stripped ourselves of all shelter against it. The
+doctrine of the struggle for life becomes a fact in this war; but, if it
+were true, what creature endowed with reason would find life worth
+struggling for? Certainly not the writer of these letters. He fought,
+not only for his country, but to maintain a contrary doctrine; and we
+see him and a thousand others passing through the fiercest trial of
+faith at the moment when the mind of man has been by its own perverse
+activity stripped most bare of faith. So he cannot even express the
+faith for which he is ready to die; but he is ready to die for it. A
+few years ago he would have been sneered at for the vagueness of his
+language, but no one can sneer now. The dead will not spoil the spring,
+he says No, indeed: for by their death they have brought a new spring of
+faith into the world.
+
+A. CLUTTON-BROCK.
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS OF A SOLDIER
+
+AUGUST 1914-APRIL 1915
+
+PREFACE BY ANDRE CHEVRILLON
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE BY ANDRE CHEVRILLON
+
+The letters that follow are those of a young painter who was at the
+front from September [1914] till the beginning of April [1915]; at the
+latter date he was missing in one of the battles of the Argonne. Are we
+to speak of him in the present tense or in the past? We know not: since
+the day when the last mud-stained paper reached them, announcing the
+attack in which he was to vanish, what a close weight of silence for
+those who during eight months lived upon these almost daily letters! But
+for how many women, how many mothers, is a grief like this to-day a
+common lot!
+
+In the studio and amid the canvases upon which the young man had traced
+the forms of his dreams, I have seen, piously placed in order on a
+table, all the little papers written by his hand. A silent presence--I
+was not then aware what manner of mind had there expressed
+itself--revisiting this hearth: a mind surely made to travel far abroad
+and cast its lights upon multitudes of men.
+
+It was the mind of a complete artist, but of a poet as well, that had
+lurked under the timid reserves of a youth who at thirteen years of age
+had left school for the studio, and who had taught himself, without help
+from any other, to translate the thoughts that moved him into such words
+as the reader will judge of. Here are tenderness of heart, a fervent
+love of Nature, a mystical sense of her changing moods and of her
+eternal language: all those things of which the Germans, professing
+themselves heirs of Goethe and of Beethoven, imagine they have the
+monopoly, but of which we Frenchmen have the true perception, and which
+move us in the words written by our young countryman for his most dearly
+beloved and for himself.
+
+It is singularly touching to find in the spiritual, grave, and religious
+temper of these letters an affinity to the spirit of many others written
+from the front. During those weeks, those endless months of winter in
+the mud or the frost of the trenches, in the daily sight of death, in
+the thought of that death coming upon them also, closing upon them to
+seal their eyes for ever, these boys seem to have faced the things of
+eternity with a deeper insight and a keener feeling, as each one, in the
+full strength of life and youth, dwelt upon the thought of beholding the
+world for the last time:
+
+          'Et le monde allait donc mourir
+           Avec mes yeux, miroir du monde.'
+
+Solemn thought for the man who has watched through a long night in some
+advance-post, and who, beyond the grey and silent plain where lurks the
+enemy, sees a red sun rise yet once more upon the world! 'O splendid
+sun, I wish I could see you again!' wrote once, on the evening of his
+advance upon French ground, a young Silesian soldier who fell upon the
+battlefield of the Marne, and whose Journal has been published. Suddenly
+breaks in this mysterious cry in the course of methodical German notes
+on food and drink, stages of the march, blistered feet, the number of
+villages set on fire. And in how many French letters too have we found
+it--that abrupt intuition! It is always the same, in many and various
+words: in those of the agriculturist of the Seine-et-Marne, whom I
+could name, and who for perhaps the first time in his life takes an
+interest in the sunset; in those of the young middle-class Parisian who
+had seemed incapable of speech save in terms of unbelief and burlesque;
+in those of the artist who utters his emotion in poetry and lifts it up
+to the heights of stoical philosophy. Through all unlikenesses, in the
+hearts of all--peasant, citizen, soldier, German schoolmaster--one
+prevailing thought is revealed; the living man, passing away, feels, at
+the approach of eternal night, an exaltation of his sense of the
+splendour of the world. O miracle of things! O divine peace of this
+plain, of these trees, of these hillsides! And how keenly does the ear
+listen for this infinite silence! Or we hear of the immensities of night
+where nothing remains except light and flame: far off, the smouldering
+of fires; far up, the sparkle of stars, the shapes of constellations,
+the august order of the universe. Very soon the rattle of machine-guns,
+the thunder of explosives, the clamour of attack will begin anew; there
+will again be killing and dying. What a contrast of human fury and
+eternal serenity! More or less vaguely, and for a brief moment, there
+comes into passing life a glimpse of the profound relation of the simple
+things of heaven and earth with the mind of him who contemplates them.
+Does man then guess that all these things are indeed himself, that his
+little life and the life of the tree yonder, thrilling in the shiver of
+dawn, and beckoning to him, are bound together in the flood of universal
+life?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the artist of whom we are now reading, such intuitions and such
+visions were the delight of long months in the trenches. Under the free
+sky, in contact with the earth, in face of the peril and the sight of
+death, life seemed to him to take a sudden and strange expansion. 'From
+our life in the open air we have gained a freedom of conception, an
+amplitude of thought, which will for ever make cities horrible to those
+who survive the war.' Death itself had become a more beautiful and a
+more simple thing; the death of soldiers on whose dumb shapes he looked
+with pious eyes, as Nature took them back into her maternal care and
+mingled them with her earth. Day by day he lived in the thought of
+eternity. True, he kept a feeling heart for all the horror, and
+compassion for all the pain; as to his duty, the reader will know how he
+did that. But, suffering 'all the same,' he took refuge in 'the higher
+consolations.' 'We must,' he writes to those who love him and whom he
+labours--with what constant solicitude!--to prepare for the worst, 'we
+must attain to this--that no catastrophe whatsoever shall have power to
+cripple our lives, to interrupt them, to set them out of tune. . . . Be
+happy in this great assurance that I give you--that up till now I have
+raised my soul to a height where events have had no empire over it.'
+These are heights upon which, beyond the differences of their teachings
+and their creeds, all great religious intuitions meet together; upon
+which illusions are no more, and the soul rejects the pretensions of
+self, in order to accept what _is_. 'Our sufferings come from our small
+human patience taking the same direction as our desires, noble though
+they may be. . . . Do not dwell upon the personality of those who pass
+away and of those who are left; such things are weighed only in the
+scales of men. We should gauge in ourselves the enormous value of what
+is better and greater than humanity.' In truth, death is impotent
+because it too is illusory, and 'nothing is ever lost.' So this young
+Frenchman, who has yet never forgone the language of his Christianity,
+rediscovers amid the terrors of war the stoicism of Marcus
+Aurelius--that virtue which is 'neither patience nor too great
+confidence, but a certain faith in the order of all things, a certain
+power of saying of each trial, "It is well."' And, even beyond stoicism,
+it is the sublime and antique thought of India that he makes his own,
+the thought that denies appearances and differences, that reveals to man
+his separate self and the universe, and teaches him to say of the one,
+'I am not _this_,' and of the other, '_that_, I am.' Wonderful encounter
+of thoughts across the distance of ages and the distance of races! The
+meditation of this young French soldier, in face of the enemy who is to
+attack on the morrow, resumes the strange ecstasy in which was rapt the
+warrior of the _Bhagavad Gita_ between two armies coming to the grapple.
+He, too, sees the turbulence of mankind as a dream that seems to veil
+the higher order and the Divine unity. He, too, puts his faith in that
+'which knows neither birth nor death,' which is 'not born, is
+indestructible, is not slain when this body is slain.' This is the
+perpetual life that moves across all the shapes it calls up, striving in
+each one to rise nearer to light, to knowledge, and to peace. And that
+aim is a law and a command to every thinking being that he should give
+himself wholly for the general and final good. Thence comes the grave
+satisfaction of those who devote themselves, of those who die, in the
+cause of life, in the thought of a sacrifice not useless. 'Tell ----
+that if fate strikes down the best, there is no injustice; those who
+survive will be the better men. You do not know the things that are
+taught by him who falls. I do know.' And even more complete is the
+sacrifice when the relinquishment of life, when the renunciation of
+self, means the sacrifice of what was dearer than self, and would have
+been a life's joy to serve. There was the 'flag of art, the flag of
+science,' that the boy loved and had begun to carry--with what a thrill
+of pride and faith! Let him learn to fall without regrets. 'It is enough
+for him to know that the flag will yet be carried.'
+
+A simple, a common obedience to the duty at hand is the practical
+conclusion of that high Indian wisdom when illusions are past. Not to
+retreat into the solitude, not to retire into the inaction, that he has
+known and prized; to fight at the side of his brothers, in his own rank,
+in his own place, with open eyes, without hope of glory or of gain, and
+because such is the law: this is the commandment of the god to the
+warrior Arjuna, who had doubted whether he were right in turning away
+from the Absolute to take part in the evil dream of war. 'The law for
+each is that he should fulfil the functions determined by his own state
+and being. Let every man accept action, since he shares in that nature
+the methods of which make action necessary.' Plainly, it is for Arjuna
+to bend his bow among the other Kshettryas. The young Frenchman had not
+doubted. But it will be seen by his letters how, in the horror of
+carnage, as in the tedious and patient duties of the mine and the
+trench, he too had kept his eyes upon eternal things.
+
+I would not insist unduly upon this union of thought. He had hardly
+gained, through a few extracts from the _Ramayana_, a glimpse of the
+august thought of ancient Asia. Yet, with all the modern shades of
+ideas, with all the very French precision of form, the soul that is
+revealed in these letters, like that of Amiel, of Michelet, of Tolstoi,
+of Shelley, shows certain profound analogies with the tender and
+mystical genius of the Indies. Strange is that affinity, bearing witness
+as it does not only to his profound need of the Universal and the
+Absolute, but to his intuitive sympathy with the whole of life, to his
+impulses of love for the general soul of fruitfulness and for all its
+single and multitudinous forms. 'Love'--this is one of the words most
+often recurring in these letters. Love of the country of battle; love of
+the plain over which the mornings and the evenings come and go as the
+emotions come and go over a sensitive face; love of the trees with their
+almost human gesture--of one tree, steadfast and patient in its wounds,
+'like a soldier'; love of the beautiful little living creatures of the
+fields which, in the silence of earliest morning, play on the edges of
+the trench; love of all things in heaven and earth--of that tender sky,
+of that French soil with its clear and severe outlines; love, above all,
+of those whom he sees in sufferings and in death at his side; love of
+the good peasants, the mothers who have given their sons, and who hold
+their peace, dry their tears, and fulfil the tasks of the vineyard and
+the field; love of those comrades whose misery 'never silenced laughter
+and song'--'good men who would have found my fine artistic robes a bad
+encumbrance in the way of their plain duty'; love of all those simple
+ones who make up France, and among whom it is good to lose oneself; love
+of all men living, for it is surely not possible to hate the enemy,
+human flesh and blood bound to this earth and suffering as we too
+suffer; love of the dead upon whom he looks, in the impassive beauty,
+silence, and mystery revealed beneath his meditative eyes.
+
+It is by his close attention to the interior and spiritual significance
+of things that this painter is proved to be a poet, a religious poet who
+has sight, in this world, of the essence of being, in ineffable
+varieties: painter, and poet, and musician also, for in the trenches he
+lives with Beethoven, Handel, Schumann, Berlioz, carrying in his mind
+their imaginings and their rhythms, and conceiving also within himself
+'the loveliest symphonies fully orchestrated.' Secret riches, intimate
+powers of consolation and of joy, able, in the gloomiest hours, in the
+dark and the mud of long nights on guard, to speak closely to the soul,
+or snatch it suddenly and swiftly to distances and heights. Schumann,
+Beethoven: between those two immortal spirits that made music for all
+human ears, and the harsh pedants, the angry protagonists of Germanism,
+who have succeeded in transforming a people into a war-machine, what
+likeness is there? Have we not made the genius of those two ours by
+understanding them as we understand them, and by so taking them into our
+hearts? Are they not friends of ours? Do they not walk with us in those
+blessed solitudes wherein our truest self awakens, and where our
+thoughts flow free?
+
+It is the greatest of all whom a certain group of our soldiers invoke in
+those days before the expected battle in which some of them are to fall.
+They are in the depths of a dug-out. 'There, in complete darkness,
+night was awaited for the chance to get out. But once my fellow
+non-commissioned officers and I began humming the nine symphonies of
+Beethoven. I cannot tell what great thrill woke those notes within us.'
+
+That almost sacred song, those heroic inspirations at such a moment--how
+do they not give the lie to German theories as to the limitations of
+French sensibility! And what poet of any other race than ours has ever
+looked upon Nature with more intimate eyes, with a heart more deeply
+moved, than his whose inner soul is here expressed?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These letters, despatched day by day from the trench or the billet,
+follow each other progressively as a poem does, or a song. A whole life
+unfolds, the life of a soul which we may watch through the monotony of
+its experiences, overcoming them all, or, again, rapt at the coming of
+supreme trials (as in February and in April) into perfect peace. It is
+well that we should trace the spiritual progress of such a dauntless
+will. No history of an interior life was ever more touching. That will
+is set to endurance, and terrible at times is the effort to endure; we
+divine this beneath the simple everyday words of the narrative. Here is
+an artist and a poet; he had chosen his life, he had planned it, by no
+means as a life of action. His whole culture, his whole self-discipline,
+had been directed to the further refining of a keen natural sensibility.
+Necessarily and intentionally he had turned towards solitude and
+contemplation. He had known himself to be purely a mirror for the world,
+tarnishable under the breath of the crowd. But now it was for him to
+lead a life opposed to his former law, contrary to his plan; and this
+not of necessity but by a completely voluntary act. That _ego_ he had so
+jealously sheltered, in face of the world yet out of the world, he was
+now to yield up, to cast without hesitation or regret into the thick of
+human wars; he was no longer to spend his days apart from the jostling
+and the shouldering and the breath of troops; he was to bear his part in
+the mechanism that serves the terrible ends of war. And the close of a
+life which he would have pronounced, from his former point of view, to
+be slavery--the close might be speedy death. He had to bring himself to
+look upon his old life--the life that was lighted by his visions and
+his hopes, the life that fulfilled his sense of universal existence--as
+a mere dream, perhaps never to be dreamed again.
+
+That is what he calls 'adapting himself.' And how the word recurs in his
+letters! It is a word that teaches him where duty lies, a duty of which
+the difficulty is to be gauged by the difference of the present from the
+past, of the bygone hope from the present effort. 'In the fulness of
+productiveness,' he confesses, 'at the hour when life is flowering, a
+young creature is snatched away, and cast upon a barren soil where all
+he has cherished fails him. Well, after the first wrench he finds that
+life has not forsaken him, and sets to work upon the new ungrateful
+ground. The effort calls for such a concentration of energy as leaves no
+time for either hopes or fears. And I manage it, except only in moments
+of rebellion (quickly suppressed) of the thoughts and wishes of the
+past. But I need my whole strength at times for keeping down the pangs
+of memory and accepting what is.'
+
+Indeed, strength was called for day by day. This 'adaptation' was no
+transformation. But by a continuous act of vital energy he assimilated
+all that he drew from his surroundings. Thus he fed his heart, and kept
+his own ideals. This was a way to renounce all things, and by
+renunciation to keep the one thing needful, to remain himself, to live,
+and not only to live but to flourish; to have a part in that universal
+life which produces flowers in nature, art and poetry in man. To gain so
+much, all that was needed was to treasure, unaltered by the terrors of
+war, a heart eager for all shapes of beauty. For this most religious
+poet, beauty was that divine spirit which shines more or less clearly in
+all things, and which raises him who perceives it higher than the
+accidents of individual existence. And he receives its full influence,
+and is rid of all anxiety, who is able to bid adieu to the present and
+the past, to regret nothing, to desire nothing, to receive from the
+passing moment that influence in its plenitude. 'I accept all from the
+hands of fate, and I have captured every delight that lurks under cover
+of every moment.' In this state of simplicity, which is almost a state
+of grace, he enters into communion with the living reality of the
+world. 'Let us eat and drink to all that is eternal, for to-morrow we
+die to all that is of earth.'
+
+That emancipation of the soul is not achieved in a day. The earlier
+letters are beautiful, but what they teach is learnt by nearly all our
+soldiers. In these he tells of the spirit of the men, their fire of
+enthusiasm, their imperious sense of duty, their resolve to carry 'an
+undefiled conscience as far as their feet may lead.' Yet already he is
+seeking to maintain control of his own private self amid all the
+excitement of numbers. And he succeeds. He guards himself, he separates
+himself, 'as much as possible,' in the midst of his comrades, he keeps
+his intellectual life intact. Meanwhile he is within barrack walls, or
+else he is jotting down his letters at a railway station, or else he is
+in the stages of an interminable journey, 'forty men to a truck.' But to
+know him completely, wait until you see him within the zone of war, in
+billets, in the front line, on guard, when he has returned to contact
+with the very earth. As soon as he breathes open air, his instincts are
+awake again, the instinct 'to draw all the beauty out,' and--in the
+shadow where the future hides--'to draw out the utmost beauty as quickly
+as may be.' 'I picked flowers in the mud; keep them in remembrance of
+me,' he will write in a day of foreboding. A most significant trait is
+this--in the tedium of trench days, or when imminent peril silences the
+idle tongues, he gathers the greatest number of these magical flowers.
+In those moments when speech fails, his soul is serene, it has free
+play, and we hear its own fine sounds. Hitherto we had heard the
+repetition of the word of courage and of brotherhood uttered by all our
+gathering armies. But here, in battle, face to face with the eternities,
+that spirit of his sounds like the chord of an instrument heard for the
+first time in its originality and its infinite sensibility. Nor are
+these random notes; they soon make one harmonious sound and acquire a
+most touching significance, until by daily practice he learns how to
+abstract himself altogether from the most wretched surroundings. A quite
+impersonal _ego_ seems then to detach itself from the particular _ego_
+that suffers and is in peril; it looks impartially upon all things, and
+sees its other self as a passing wave in the tide that a mysterious
+Intelligence controls. Strange faculty of double existence and of
+vision! He possesses it in the midst of the very battle in which his
+active valour gained him the congratulations of his commanding officer.
+In the furnace in which his flesh may be consumed he looks about him,
+and next morning he writes, 'Well, it was interesting.' And he adds,
+'what I had kept about me of my own individuality was a certain visual
+perceptiveness that caused me to register the setting of things--a
+setting that dramatised itself as artistically as in any
+stage-management. During all these minutes I never relaxed in my resolve
+to see _how it was_.' He then, too, became aware of the meaning of
+violence. His tender and meditative nature had always held it in horror.
+And, perhaps for that very reason, he sought its explanation. It is by
+violence that an imperfect and provisional state of things is shattered,
+and what was lax is put into action again. Life is resumed, and a better
+order becomes possible. Here again we find his acceptance, his
+submission to the Reason that directs the universe; confidence in what
+_takes place_--that is his conclusion.
+
+Such times for him are times of observation properly so called, of purer
+thought in which the impulses of the painter and the poet have no share.
+That kind of observation is not infrequent with him, when he is dealing
+with the world and with human action. It awakes at a war-spectacle, at a
+trait of manners, at the reading of a book, at a recollection of history
+or art; it is often to the Bible that he turns, and, amid the worst
+clamours, to the beautiful plastic images of Greece. Admirable is such
+serene energy of a spirit able to live purely as a spirit. It is
+admirable, but it is not unique; great intellectual activity is not
+uncommon with the French; others of our soldiers are philosophers among
+the shells. What does set these letters in a place apart is something
+more profound and more organic than thought, and that is sentiment;
+sentiment in its infinite and indefinite degrees, its relation to the
+aspects of nature--in a word, that poetic faculty which is akin to the
+musical, proceeding as they both do from the primitive ground-work of
+our being, and uniting in the inflexions of rhythm and of song. I have
+already named Shelley in connexion with the poet we are considering.
+And it is a Shelleyan union with the most intimate, the most
+inexpressible things in nature that is revealed in such a note as the
+following: 'A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the
+Spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening
+days; a sudden softening, a weakening of nature.' In describing this
+atmosphere, this too sudden softness, he uses a word frequent in the
+vocabulary of Shelley--'fainting.' In truth, like the great English
+poet, whom he seems not to have known, he seeks from the beauty of
+things a faculty of self-forgetfulness in lyrical poetry, an
+inexpressible and blissful passing of the poet's being into the thing he
+contemplates. What he makes his own in the course of those weeks, what
+he remembers afterwards, and what he would recall, never to lose it
+again, is the culminating moment in which he has achieved
+self-forgetfulness and reached the ineffable. The simplest of natural
+objects is able to yield him such a moment; see, for instance, this
+abrupt intuition: 'I had lapsed from my former sense of the benediction
+of God, when suddenly the beauty--all the beauty--of a certain tree
+spoke to my inmost heart; and then I understood that an instant of such
+contemplation is the whole of life.' And still more continuous, still
+more vibrant, is at times his emotion, as when the bow draws out to the
+utmost a long ecstatic tone from a sensitive violin. 'What joy is this
+perpetual thrill in the heart of Nature! That same horizon of which I
+had watched the awakening, I saw last night bathe itself in rosy light;
+and then the full moon went up into a tender sky, fretted by coral and
+saffron trees.' It is very nearly ecstasy with him in that astonishing
+Christmas night which no one then at the front can ever forget--a solemn
+night, a blue night, full of stars and of music, when the order and the
+divine unity of the universe stood revealed to the eyes of men who, free
+for a moment from the dream of hatred and of blood, raised one chant
+along six miles, 'hymns, hymns, from end to end.'
+
+Of the carnage in February there are a few precise notes, sufficient to
+suggest the increasing horror. The narrative grows quicker; the reader
+is aware of the pulse and the impetus of action, the imperious summons
+of duty; the young sergeant is in charge of men, and has to execute
+terrible tasks. But ever across the tumult and the slaughter, there are
+moments of recollection and of compassion; and, in the evening of a day
+of battle, what infinite tranquillity among the dead! At this period
+there are no more notes of landscape effects; the description is of the
+war, technical; otherwise the writer's thought is not of earth at all.
+Once only, towards the end, we find a sorrowful recollection of himself,
+a profound lamentation at the remembrance of bygone hopes, of bygone
+work, of the immensity of the sacrifice. 'This war is long, too long for
+those who had something else to do in the world! Why am I so sacrificed,
+when so many others, not my equals, are spared? Yet I had something
+worth doing to do in the world!' Most touching is that sigh, even more
+touching than the signs of greatness in his soul, for it suddenly
+breathes an anguish long controlled. It is a human weakness--our own
+weakness--that is at last confessed, on the eve of a Passion, as in the
+Divine example. At rare times such a question, in the constant sight of
+death, in fatigue and weariness, in the long distress of rain and mud,
+checks in him the impulse of life and of spiritual desire. He was
+himself the young plant of which he writes, growing, creating fragrance
+and breaking into flower, sure of God, feeling Him alive within itself.
+But all at once it knows frost is coming and the threat of unpitying
+things. What if the universe were void, what if in the infinity of the
+exterior world there were nothing, across the splendid vision, but an
+insensate fatality? What if sacrifice itself were also a delusion? 'Dark
+days have come upon me, and nothingness seems the end of all, whereas
+all that is in my being had assured me of the plenitude of the
+universe.' And he asks himself the anxious question, 'Is it even sure
+that moral effort bears any fruit?' It is something like abandonment by
+God. But that darkening of his lights passes quickly away. He comes
+again to the regions of tranquil thought, and leaves them thenceforward
+only for the work in hand. 'I hope,' he writes, 'that when you think of
+me you will have in mind all those who have left everything behind, and
+how their nearest and dearest think of them only in the past, and say
+of them, "We had once a brother, who, many years ago, withdrew from this
+world."' How strange is the serenity of these lofty thoughts, how
+entirely detached from self and from all human things is this spirit of
+contemplation. Two slight traits give us signs: One night, on a
+battlefield 'scattered with fragments of men' and with burning
+dwellings, under a starry sky, he makes his bed in an excavation, and
+lies there watching the crescent moon, and waits for dawn; now and again
+a shell bursts, earth falls about him, and then silence returns to the
+frozen soil: 'I have paid the price, but I have had moments of solitude
+full of God.' Again, one evening, after five days of horror ('we have no
+officers left--they all died as brave men'), he suddenly comes upon the
+body of a friend; 'a white body, splendid under the moon. I lay down
+near him.' In the quietness, by the side of the dead man, nothing
+remains but beauty and peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These letters are to be anonymous, at least so long as any hope remains
+that he who was lost may return. It is enough to know that they were
+written by a Frenchman who, in love and faith, bore his part in the
+general effort, the common peril, glad to renounce himself in the pain
+and the devotion of his countrymen. By a happy fortune that he did not
+foresee when he left his clean solitude for the sweat, the servitude,
+and the throng, he no doubt produced the best of himself in these
+letters; and it may be doubted whether, in the course of a successful
+artist's life, it would have been given to him to express himself with
+so much completeness. This is a thought that may strengthen those who
+love him to accept whatever has come to pass. His soul is here, a more
+essential soul perhaps, and a more beautiful, than they had known. It
+was in war that Marcus Aurelius also wrote his thoughts. Possibly the
+worst is needful for the manifestation of the whole of human greatness.
+We marvel how the soul can so discover in itself the means to oppose
+suffering and death. Thus have many of our sons revealed themselves in
+the day of trial, to the wonder of France, until then unaware of all
+that she really was. That is how these pages touch us so closely. He who
+wrote them had attuned himself with his countrymen. Through the more
+mystical acts of his mind we perceive the sublime message sent to us
+from the front, more or less explicitly, by others of our brothers and
+our sons--the high music that goes up still from the whole of France at
+war. In all his comrades assembled for the great task, he too had
+recognised the best and the deepest things that his own heart held, and
+so he speaks of them constantly--especially of the simplest of the
+men--with so great respect and love. Far from ordinary ambitions and
+cares, the things that this rough life among the eternities brings into
+all hearts with a heretofore unknown amplitude are serenity of
+conscience and a freshness of feeling in perpetual touch with the
+harmonies of nature. These men do but reflect nature. Since they have
+renounced themselves and given themselves, all things have become simple
+for them. They have the transparence of soul and the lights of
+childhood. 'We spend childish days. We are children.' . . .
+
+This new youthfulness of heart under the contemned menace of death, this
+innocence in the daily fulfilment of heroic duty, is assured by a
+spiritual state akin to sanctity.
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS OF A SOLDIER
+
+
+_August 6, 1914._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--These are my first days of life at war, full of
+change, but the fatigue I actually feel is very different from what I
+foresaw.
+
+I am in a state of great nervous tension because of the want of sleep
+and exercise. I lead the life of a government clerk. I belong to what is
+called the depot, I am one of those doing sedentary work, and destined
+eventually to fill up the gaps in the fighting line.
+
+What we miss is news; there are no longer any papers to be had in this
+town.
+
+
+_August 13._
+
+We are without news, and so it will be for several days, the censorship
+being of the most rigorous kind.
+
+Here life is calm. The weather is magnificent, and all breathes quiet
+and confidence. We think of those who are fighting in the heat, and this
+thought makes our own situation seem even too good. The spirit among
+the reservists is excellent.
+
+
+_Sunday, August 16._
+
+To-day a walk along the Marne. Charming weather after a little rain.
+
+A welcome interlude in these troubled times. We are still without news,
+like you, but we have happily a large stock of patience. I have had some
+pleasure in the landscape, notwithstanding the invasion of red and blue.
+These fine men in red and blue have given the best impression of their
+_moral_. Great levies will be made upon our depots, to be endured with
+fortitude.
+
+
+_August 16_ (from a note-book).
+
+The monotony of military life benumbs me, but I don't complain. After
+nine years these types are to be rediscovered, a little less marked,
+improved, levelled down. Just now every one is full of grave thoughts
+because of the news from the East.
+
+The ordinary good-fellowship of the mess has been replaced by a finer
+solidarity and a praiseworthy attempt at adaptation. One of the
+advantages of our situation is that we can, as it were, play at being
+soldiers with the certainty of not wasting our time. All these childish
+and easy occupations, which are of immediate result and usefulness,
+bring back calm to the mind and soothe the nerves. Then the great stay
+which supports the men is a profound, vague feeling of brotherhood which
+turns all hearts towards those who are fighting. Each one feels that the
+slight discomfort which he endures is only a feeble tribute to the
+frightful expense of all energy and all devotedness at the front.
+
+
+_August 25._
+
+This letter will barely precede our own departure. The terrible conflict
+calls for our presence close to those who are already in the midst of
+the struggle. I leave you, grandmother and you, with the hope of seeing
+you again, and the certainty that you will approve of my doing all that
+seems to me my duty.
+
+Nothing is hopeless, and, above all, nothing has changed our idea of the
+part we have to play.
+
+Tell all those who love me a little that I think of them. I have no time
+to write to any one. My health is of the best.
+
+. . . After such an upheaval we may say that our former life is dead.
+Dear mother, let us, you and I, with all our courage adapt ourselves to
+an existence entirely different, however long it may last.
+
+Be very sure that I won't go out of my way to do anything that endangers
+our happiness, but that I'll try to satisfy my conscience, and yours. Up
+till now I am without cause for self-reproach, and so I hope to remain.
+
+
+_August 25_ (2nd letter).
+
+A second letter to tell you that, instead of our regiment, it was
+Pierre's that went. I had the joy of seeing him pass in front of me when
+I was on guard in the town. I accompanied him for a hundred yards, then
+we said good-bye. I had a feeling that we should meet again.
+
+It is the gravest of hours; the country will not die, but her
+deliverance will be snatched only at the price of frightful efforts.
+
+Pierre's regiment went covered with flowers, and singing. It was a deep
+consolation to be together till the end.
+
+It is fine of Andre[1] to have saved his drowning comrade. We don't
+realise the reserve of heroism there is in France, and among the young
+intellectual Parisians.
+
+In regard to our losses, I may tell you that whole divisions have been
+wiped out. Certain regiments have not an officer left.
+
+As for my state of mind, my first letter will perhaps tell you better
+what I believe to be my duty. Know that it would be shameful to think
+for one instant of holding back when the race demands the sacrifice. My
+only part is to carry an undefiled conscience as far as my feet may
+lead.
+
+[Footnote 1: Second Lieutenant Andre Cadoux, who died gloriously in
+battle on April 13, 1915.]
+
+
+_August 26._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--I was made happy by Maurice Barres's fine article,
+'l'Aigle et le Rossignol,' which corresponds in every detail with what I
+feel.
+
+The depots contain some failures, but also men of fine energy, among
+whom I dare not yet count myself, but with whom I hope to set out. The
+major had dispensed me from carrying a knapsack, but I carry it for
+practice and manage quite well.
+
+The only assurance which I can give you concerns my own moral and
+physical state, which is excellent. The true death would be to live in a
+conquered country, above all for me, whose art would perish.
+
+I isolate myself as much as I can, and I am really unaffected, from the
+intellectual point of view. Besides, the atmosphere of the mess is well
+above that of normal times: the trouble is that the constant moving and
+changing drags us about from place to place, and growing confidence
+falters before the perpetually recurring unknown.
+
+
+_August 30._
+
+. . . My little mother, it is certain that though we did not leave
+yesterday, it is yet only a question of hours. I won't say to you
+anything that I have already said, content only that I have from you the
+approval of which I was certain.
+
+. . . In the very hard march yesterday only one man fell out, really ill.
+France will come out of this bad pass.
+
+I can only repeat to you how well I am prepared for all eventualities,
+and that nothing can undo our twenty-seven years of happiness. I am
+resolved not to consider myself foredoomed, and I fancy the joy of
+returning, but I am ready to go to the end of my strength. If you knew
+the shame I should endure to think that I might have done something
+more!
+
+In the midst of all this sadness we live through magnificent hours, when
+the things that used to be most strange take on an august significance.
+
+
+_September 4, 6 o'clock_
+(_on the way, in the train_).
+
+We have had forty hours of a journey in which the picturesque outdoes
+even the extreme discomfort. The great problem is sleep, and the
+solution is not easy when there are forty in a cattle-truck.
+
+The train stops every instant, and we encounter the unhappy refugees.
+Then the wounded: fine spectacle of patriotism. The English army. The
+artillery.
+
+We no longer know anything, having no more papers, and we can't trust
+the rumours which fly among the distraught population.
+
+Splendid weather.
+
+
+_Saturday, September 5_ (_at the end
+of 60 hours in a cattle-truck:
+40 men to a truck_).
+
+On the same day we skirted the Seine opposite the forest of
+Fontainebleau and the banks of the Loire. Saw the chateau de Blois and
+the chateau d'Amboise. Unhappily the darkness prevented us from seeing
+more. How can I tell you what tender emotions I felt by these
+magnificent banks of the Loire!
+
+Are you bombarded by the frightful aeroplanes? I think of you in such
+conditions and above all of poor Grandmother, who indeed had little need
+to see all this! However, we must hope.
+
+We learn from wounded refugees that in the first days of August mistakes
+were made in the high command which had terrible consequences. It falls
+to us now to repair those mistakes.
+
+Masses of English troops arrive. We have crossed numbers of crowded
+trains.
+
+Well, this war will not have been the mere march-past which many
+thought, but which I never thought, it would be; but it will have
+stirred the good in all humanity. I do not speak of the magnificent
+things which have no immediate connection with the war,--but nothing
+will be lost.
+
+
+_September 5, 1914_ (_1st halting-place,
+66 hours in the cage without being
+able to stretch_).
+
+Still the same jolting and vibration, but three times after the horrible
+night there has come the glory of the morning, and all fatigue has
+disappeared.
+
+We have crossed the French country in several directions, from the
+rather harsh serenity, full of suggestiveness, of Champagne, to the rich
+robust placidity of Brittany. On the way we followed the full and noble
+banks of the Loire, and now . . .
+
+O my beautiful country, the heart of the world, where lies all that is
+divine upon earth, what monster sets upon you--a country whose offence
+is her beauty!
+
+I used to love France with sincere love, which was more than a little
+_dilettante_; I loved her as an artist, proud to live in the most
+beautiful of lands; in fact, I loved her rather as a picture might love
+its frame. It needed this horror to make me know how filial and profound
+are the ties which bind me to my country. . . .
+
+
+_September 7_
+(from a note-book).
+
+. . . We are embarked on the adventure, without any dominant feeling
+except perhaps a sufficiently calm acceptance of this fatality. But
+sensibility is kept awake by the sight of the victims, particularly the
+refugees. Poor people, truly uprooted, or rather, dead leaves in the
+storm, little souls in great circumstances.
+
+Whole trains of cattle-trucks, which can hardly be said to have changed
+their use! Trains in which is heaped up the desolation of these people
+torn from their homes, and how quickly become as beasts! Misery has
+stripped them of all their human attributes. We take them food and
+drink, and that is how they become exposed: the man drinks without
+remembering his wife and children. The woman thinks of her child. But
+other women take their time, unable to share in the general haste. Among
+these waifs there is one who assails my heart,--a grandmother of
+eighty-seven, shaken, tossed about by all these blows, being by turns
+hoisted into and let down from the rolling cages. So trembling and
+disabled, so lost. . . .
+
+
+_September 10_ (from a note-book).
+
+We arrive in a new part of the country on the track of good news: the
+strong impression is that France's future is henceforth assured.
+Everything corroborates this feeling, from the official report which
+formally announces a complete success down to the most fantastic
+rumours.
+
+
+_September 13_ (from a note-book).
+
+This is war; here are we approaching the place of horror. We have left
+behind the French villages where peace was still sleeping. Now there is
+nothing but tumult. And here are direct victims of the war.
+
+The soldiers: blood, mud and dirt. The wounded. Those whom we pass at
+first are the least suffering--wounds in arms, in hands. In most of them
+can clearly be seen, in the midst of their fatigue and distress, great
+relief at having been let off comparatively easily.
+
+Farther on, towards the ambulances, the burying of the dead: there are
+six, stretched on two waggons. Smoothed out, and covered with rags, they
+are taken to an open pit at the foot of a Calvary. Some priests conduct,
+rather than celebrate, the service, military as they have become. A
+little straw and some holy water over all, and so we pass on. After all,
+these dead are happy: they are cared-for dead. What can be said of those
+who lie farther on and who have passed away after nights of the throes
+of death and abandonment.
+
+. . . From this agony there will remain to us an immense yearning for pity
+and brotherhood and goodness.
+
+
+_Wednesday, September 16, 1914._
+
+In the horror-zone.
+
+The rainy twilight shadows the road, and suddenly, in a ditch--the dead!
+They have dragged themselves here from the battlefield--they are all
+corrupt now. The coming of darkness makes it difficult to distinguish
+their nationality, but the same great pity envelops them all. Only one
+word for them: poor boy! The night for these ignominies--and then again
+the morning. The day rises upon the swollen bodies of dead horses. In
+the corner of a wood, carnage, long cold.
+
+One sees only open sacks, ripped nose-bags. Nothing that looks like life
+remains.
+
+Among them some civilians, whose presence is due to the German
+proceeding of making French hostages march under our fire.
+
+If these notes should reach any one, may they give rise in an honest
+heart to horror of the foul crime of those responsible for this war.
+There will never be enough glory to cover all the blood and all the
+mud.
+
+
+_September 21, 1914._
+
+War in rain.
+
+It is suffering beyond what can be imagined. Three days and three nights
+without being able to do anything but tremble and moan, and yet, in
+spite of all, perfect service must be rendered.
+
+To sleep in a ditch full of water has no equivalent in Dante, but what
+can be said of the awakening, when one must watch for the moment to kill
+or to be killed!
+
+Above, the roar of the shells drowns the whistling of the wind. Every
+instant, firing. Then one crouches in the mud, and despair takes
+possession of one's soul.
+
+When this torment came to an end I had such a nervous collapse that I
+wept without knowing why--late, useless tears.
+
+
+_September 25._
+
+Hell in so calm and pastoral a place. The autumnal country pitted and
+torn by cannon!
+
+
+_September 27._
+
+If, apart from the greater lessons of the war, there are small immediate
+benefits to be had, the one that means most to me is the contemplation
+of the night sky. Never has the majesty of the night brought me so much
+consolation as during this accumulation of trials. Venus, sparkling, is
+a friend to me. . . .
+
+I am now familiar with the constellations. Some of them make great
+curves in the sky as if to encircle the throne of God. What glory! And
+how one evokes the Chaldean shepherds!
+
+O constellations! first alphabet!. . .
+
+
+_October 1._
+
+I can say that, as far as the mind goes, I have lived through great days
+when all vain preoccupations were swept away by a new spirit.
+
+If there should ever be any lapse so that only one of my letters reaches
+you, may it be one that says how beneficial, how precious have these
+torments been!
+
+
+_October 1_ (from a note-book).
+
+It follows from this that our suffering, every moment of it, should be
+considered as the most marvellous source of feeling and of progress for
+the conscience.
+
+I now know into what domain my destiny leads me. No longer towards the
+proud and illusory region of pure speculation, but in the way of all
+little daily things--it is there that I must carry the service of an
+ever-vigilant sensibility.
+
+I see how easily an upright nature may dispense with the arts of
+expression in order to be helpful in act and in influence. Precious
+lesson, which will enable me, should I return, to suffer less if fate no
+longer allows me to paint.
+
+
+_October 9._
+
+It seems that we have the order to attack. I do not want to risk this
+great event without directing my thoughts to you in the few moments of
+quiet that are left. . . . Everything here combines to maintain peace in
+the heart: the beauty of the woods in which we live, the absence of
+intellectual complications. . . . It is paradoxical, as you say, but the
+finest moments of my moral life are those that have just gone by. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Know that there will always be beauty on earth, and that man will never
+have enough wickedness to suppress it. I have gathered enough of it to
+store my life. May our destiny allow me time later to bring to fruit all
+that I have gathered now. It is something that no one can snatch from
+us, it is treasure of the soul which we have amassed.
+
+
+_October 12._
+
+Up till now your love and Providence do not forsake me. . . . We are
+still in the magnificent devastated woods, in the midst of the finest
+autumn. Nature brings many joys which dominate these horrors. Profound
+and powerful hope, whatever suffering still awaits us.
+
+
+_October 14._
+
+It is true, dear mother, that some renunciation costs a great deal of
+effort, but be sure that we both possess the necessary strength of soul
+to live through these difficult hours without catching our breath in
+painful longing at the idea of the return we both crave for.
+
+The great thing is to know the value of the present moment and to make
+it yield all that it has of good and beauty and edification. For the
+rest, no one can guarantee the future, and it would be vain and futile
+torment to live wondering what might happen to us. Don't you think that
+life has dispensed us many blessings, and that one of the last, and the
+greatest, is that we have been able to communicate with each other and
+to feel our union? There are many unfortunate people here who do not
+know where their wives and children are, who have been for three months
+isolated from all. You see that we are still among the lucky ones.
+
+Dear mother, less than ever ought we to despair, for never shall we be
+more truly convinced that all this agitation and delirium of mankind's
+are nothing in view of the share of eternity which each one carries
+within himself, and that all these monstrosities will end in a better
+future. This war is a kind of cataclysm which succeeds to the old
+physical upheavals of our globe; but have you not noticed that, in the
+midst of all this, a little of our soul is gone from us, and that we
+have lost something of our conviction of a Higher Order? Our sufferings
+come from our small human patience taking the same direction as our
+desires, noble though they may be. But as soon as we set ourselves to
+question things in order to discover their true harmony, we find rest
+unto our souls. How do we know that this violence and disorder are not
+leading the universal destinies towards a final good?
+
+Dear mother, still cherishing the firmest and most human hope, I send my
+deepest love to you and to my beloved grandmother.
+
+Send also all my love to our friends who are in trouble. Help them to
+bear everything: two crosses are less heavy to carry than one. And
+confidence in our eternal joy.
+
+
+_October 15, 7 o'clock._
+
+I have received your card of the 1st. What joy it gives me that we
+should be at last in touch with each other. Certainly, our thoughts have
+never been apart. You tell me of Marthe's misfortune, and I am happy
+that you can be useful to her. Dear mother, that is the task that
+belongs to us both: to be useful at the present moment without reference
+to the moment that is to follow.
+
+Yes, indeed, I feel deeply with you that I have a mission in life. But
+one must act in each instant as though that mission was having immediate
+fulfilment. Do not let us keep back one single small corner of our
+hearts for our small hopes. We must attain to this--that no catastrophe
+whatsoever shall have power to cripple our lives, to interrupt them, to
+set them out of tune. That is the finest work, and it is the work of
+this moment. The rest, that future which we must not question--you will
+see, mother dear, what it holds of beauty and goodness and truth. Not
+one of our faculties must be used in vain, and all useless anxiety is a
+harmful expense.
+
+Be happy in this great assurance that I give you--that up till now I
+have raised my soul to a height where events have had no empire over it,
+and I promise you that my effort will be still to make ready my soul as
+much as I can.
+
+Tell M---- that if fate strikes down the best, there is no injustice:
+those who survive will be the better men. Let her accept the sacrifice,
+knowing that it is not in vain. You do not know the things that are
+taught by him who falls. I do know.
+
+To him who can read life, present events have broken all habit of
+thought, but they allow him more glimpses than ever before of eternal
+beauty and order.
+
+Let us recover from the surprise of this laceration, and adapt ourselves
+without loss of time to the new state of things which turns us into
+people as privileged as Socrates and the Christian martyrs and the men
+of the Revolution. We are learning to despise all in life that is merely
+temporary, and to delight in that which life so seldom yields: the love
+of those things that are eternal.
+
+
+_October 16._
+
+We are living for some days in comparative calm; between two storms my
+company is deserving of special rest. Also I am thoroughly enjoying this
+month of October. Your fine letter of October 2 reaches me, and I am now
+full of happiness, and there is profound peace.
+
+Let us continue to arm ourselves with courage, do not let us even speak
+of patience. Nothing but to accept the present moment with all the
+treasures which it brings us. That is all there is to do, and it is
+precisely in this that all the beauty of the world is concentrated.
+There is something, dear mother, something outside all that we have
+habitually felt. Apply your courage and your love of me to uncovering
+this, and laying it bare for others.
+
+This new beauty has no reference to the ideas expressed in the words
+health, family, country. One perceives it when one distinguishes the
+share of the eternal which is in everything. But let us cherish this
+splendid presentiment of ours--that we shall meet again: it will not in
+any way impede our task. Tell M---- how much I think of her. Alas! her
+case is not unique. This war has broken many a hope; so, dear mother,
+let us put our hope there where the war cannot attain to it, in the deep
+places of our heart, and in the high places of our soul.
+
+
+_October 17, 3 o'clock._
+
+To write to you and to know that my letters reach you is a daily
+paradise to me. I watch for the hour when it is possible to write.
+
+Yes, beloved mother, you must feel a revival of courage and desire to
+live; never must a single affection, however good, be counted as a
+pretext for life. No accident should make us forget the reason we are
+alive. Of course, we can prefer this or that mission in life, but let us
+accept the one which presents itself, however surprising or passing it
+may be. You feel as I do, that happiness is in store for us, but let us
+not think of it. Let us think of the actions of to-day, of all the
+sacrifices they imply.
+
+
+_October 22._
+
+I accept all from the hands of fate, and I have captured every delight
+that lurks under cover of every moment.
+
+Ah! if men only knew how much peace they squander, and how much may be
+contained in one minute, how far less would they suffer from this
+seeming violence. No doubt there are extreme torments that I do not yet
+know, and which perhaps test the soul in a way I do not suspect, but I
+exert all the strength of my soul to accept each moment and each test.
+What is necessary is to recognise love and beauty triumphant over
+violence. No few seasons of hate and grief will have the power to
+overthrow eternal beauty, and of this beauty we all have an imperishable
+store.
+
+
+_October 23._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--I have re-read Barres's article, 'l'Aigle et le
+Rossignol.' It is still as beautiful, but it no longer seems in complete
+harmony. Now nothing exists outside the absolute present; everything
+else is like ornaments put to one side until the holiday, the far-off,
+uncertain holiday. But what does it matter!--the ornaments are treasured
+up in safety. Thus do I cherish the treasures of affection, of
+legitimate ambition, of praiseworthy aspiration. All of these I have
+covered over, and I live but in the present moment.
+
+This morning, under the fine sky, I remembered the music of yesterday: I
+was full of happiness. Forgive me for not living in an anguish of
+longing to return. I believe that you approve of my giving back our
+dearest hopes into other hands than ours.
+
+
+_October 27._
+
+If, as I hope intensely, I have the joy of seeing you again, you will
+know the miraculous way in which I have been led by Providence. I have
+only had to bow before a power and a beneficence which surpassed all my
+proud conceptions.
+
+I can say that God has been within me as I am within God, and I make
+firm resolves always to feel such a communion.
+
+You see, the thing is to put life to good account, not as we understand
+it, even in our noblest affections, but in saying to ourselves: Let us
+eat and drink to all that is eternal, for to-morrow we die to all that
+is of earth. We acquire an increase of love in that moment when we
+renounce our mean and anxious hopes.
+
+
+_October 28._
+
+This is nearly the end of the third month of a terrible trial, from
+which the lessons will be wide and salutary not only to him who will
+know how to listen, but to all the world, and therein lies the great
+consolation for those who are involved in this torment. Let it also be
+the consolation of those whose hopes are with the combatants.
+
+This consolation consists especially in the supernaturally certain
+conviction that all divine and immortal energy, working through mankind,
+far from being enfeebled, will, on the contrary, be exalted and more
+intensely effectual at the end of these storms.
+
+Happy the man who will hear the song of peace as in the 'Pastoral
+Symphony,' but happy already he who has foreknowledge of it amid the
+tumult! And what does it matter in the end that this magnificent
+prophecy is fulfilled in the absence of the prophet! He who has guessed
+this has gleaned great joy upon earth. We can leave it to a higher being
+to pronounce if the mission is accomplished.
+
+
+_October 28_ (2nd letter, almost
+at the same hour).
+
+MY DEAR, DEAR MOTHER,--Another welcome moment to spend with you. We can
+never say any but the same thing, but it is so fine a thing that it can
+always be said in new ways.
+
+To-day we are living under a sky of great clouds as swift and cold as
+those of the Dutch landscape painters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dear, I dare not wish for anything--it must not be. I must not even
+consider a partial relaxation. I assure you that the effort for
+endurance is less painful than certain times of intensive preparation
+that we have passed through. Only we can each moment brace ourselves in
+a kind of resistance against what is evil in us, and leave every door
+open to the good which comes from without.
+
+. . . I am glad that you have read Tolstoi: he also took part in war. He
+judged it; he accepted its teaching. If you can glance at the admirable
+_War and Peace_, you will find pictures that our situation recalls. It
+will make you understand the liberty for meditation that is possible to
+a soldier who desires it.
+
+As to the disability which the soul might be supposed to suffer through
+the lack of all material well-being, do not believe in it. We lead the
+life of rabbits on the first day of the season's shooting, and,
+notwithstanding that, we can enrich our souls in a magnificent way.
+
+
+_October 30._
+
+I write to you in a marvellous landscape of grey autumn lashed by the
+wind. But for me the wind has always been without sadness, because it
+brings to me the spirit of the country beyond the hill. . . .
+
+The horrible war does not succeed in tearing us from our intellectual
+habitation. In spite of moments of overwhelming noise, one more or less
+recovers oneself. The ordinary course of our present existence gives us
+a sensibility like that of a raw wound, aware of the least breath.
+Perhaps after this spoliation of our moral skin a new surface will be
+formed, and those who return will be for the time brutally insensitive.
+Never mind: this condition of crisis for the soul cannot remain without
+profit.
+
+Yesterday we were in a pretty Meuse village, all the more charming in
+contrast with the surrounding ruins.
+
+I was able to have a shirt washed, and while it dried I talked to the
+excellent woman who braves death every day to maintain her hearth. She
+has three sons, all three soldiers, and the news she has of them is
+already old. One of them passed within a few kilometres of her: his
+mother knew it and was not able to see him. Another of these Frenchwomen
+keeps the house of her son-in-law who has six children. . . .
+
+For you, duty lies in acceptance of all and, at the same time, in the
+most perfect confidence in eternal justice.
+
+Do not dwell upon the personality of those who pass away and of those
+who are left; such things are weighed only with the scales of men. We
+must gauge in ourselves the enormous value of what is better and greater
+than humanity.
+
+Dear mother, absolute confidence. In what? We both already know.
+
+
+_October 30, 10 o'clock._
+
+Up till now I have possessed the wisdom that renounces all, but now I
+hope for a wisdom that accepts all, turning towards what may be to come.
+What matter if the trap opens beneath the steps of the runner. True, he
+does not attain his end, but is he wiser who remains motionless under
+the pretext that he might fall?
+
+
+_November 1, All Saints', 8 o'clock._
+
+Last night I received your card of 24-25th. While you were looking at
+that moon, clouded from us, you were very wrong to feel yourself so
+helpless; how much reason had you to hope! At that very moment I was
+being protected by Providence in a way that rebukes all pride.
+
+The next day we had the most lovely dawn over the deeply coloured autumn
+woods in this country where I made my sketches of three years ago; but
+just here the landscape becomes accentuated and enlarged and acquires a
+pathetic majesty. How can I tell you the grandeur of the horizon! We are
+remaining in this magnificent place, and this is All Saints' Day!
+
+At the moment, I write to you in the silvery light of a sun rising over
+the valley mists; we are conscious of the sleeping country for forty
+kilometres around, and battle hardly disturbs the religious gravity of
+the scene.
+
+Do love my proposed picture! It makes a bond with my true career. If it
+is vouchsafed to me to return, the form of the picture may change, but
+its essence is contained in the sketch.
+
+_Mid-day._--Splendid All Saints' Day profaned by violence.
+
+Glory of the day. . . .
+
+
+_November 2, All Souls'._
+
+Splendid feast of sun and of joy in the glorious beauty of a Meusian
+landscape. Hope confines itself in the heart, not daring to insult the
+grief of those for whom this day is perhaps the first day of
+bereavement.
+
+Dear beloved mother, twenty-eight years ago you were in a state of
+mourning and hope to-day, the agony is as full of hope as then. It is at
+a different age that these new trials occur, but a whole life of
+submission prepares the way to supreme wisdom.
+
+What joy is this perpetual thrill in the heart of Nature! That same
+horizon of which I had watched the awakening, I saw last night bathe
+itself in rosy light; then the full moon went up into a tender sky,
+fretted by coral and saffron trees.
+
+Dear, the frightful record of martyrdom of the best French youth cannot
+go on indefinitely. It is impossible that the flower of a whole race can
+disappear.
+
+There must be some nobler task than war for the nation's genius! I have
+a secret conviction of a better near future. May our courage and our
+union lead us to this better thing. Hope, hope always! I received
+grandmother's dear letter and M.R.'s kind and affectionate card.
+
+Dear, have you this beautiful sun to-day? How noble is the country and
+how good is Nature! To him who listens she says that nothing will ever
+be lost.
+
+
+_November 4, 10 o'clock._
+
+I live only through your thoughts and in the blessings of Nature. This
+morning our chiefs menaced us with a march of twenty kilometres, and
+this threat fulfilled itself in the form of a charming walk in the
+landscape that I love so much.
+
+Exquisite vapours, which we see lifting hour by hour at the call of a
+temperate sun; and, yonder, those high plateaux which command a vast
+panorama, where everything is finely drawn, or rather is just felt in
+the mist. . . .
+
+There are hills furnished with bare trees holding up their charming
+profiles. I think of the primitives, of their sensitive and
+conscientious landscapes. What scrupulous majesty, of which the first
+sight awes with its grandeur, and the detail is profoundly moving!
+
+You see, dear mother, how God dispenses blessings that are far greater
+than griefs. It is not even a question of patience, since time has no
+longer any meaning for us, for it is not a matter of any calculable
+duration. But then, what richness of emotion in each present minute!
+
+This then is our life, of which I wrote to you that not one event must
+make of it something unachieved, interrupted; and I hope to preserve
+this wisdom. But at the same time I want to ally it with another wisdom
+which looks to the future, even if the future is forbidden to us. Yes,
+let us take all from the hands of the present (and the present brings us
+so many treasures!), but let us also prepare for the future.
+
+
+_November 5, 8 o'clock._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--Do not hide from me anything of what happens in Paris, of
+your cares, or your occupations. All that you will decide is for the
+best. My own happiness, in the midst of all this, lies just in that
+security I have in thinking of your spirit.
+
+The weather is still exquisite and very soft. To-day, without leaving
+the beautiful region to which we came on September 20th, we have
+returned to the woods. I like that less than the wide open view, but
+there is prettiness here too. And then the sky, now that the leaves have
+fallen, is so beautiful and so tender.
+
+I have written to C----. I will write to Mme. C----. I hope for a letter
+from you. If you knew how much the longer is a day without news! It is
+true I have your old letters, but the new letter has a fragrance which I
+now can't do without.
+
+
+_November 6._
+
+Yesterday, without knowing why, I was a little sad: what soldiers call
+_avoir le cafard_. My sadness arose from my having parted the day before
+with a book of notes which I had decided to send to you in a package.
+The events of the day before yesterday, albeit pacific, had so hustled
+me that I was not able to attend to this unfortunate parcel as I should
+have liked. Also, I was divided between two anxieties: the first, lest
+the package should not reach you, and lest these notes, which have been
+my life from the 1st to the 20th of October, should be lost. The second,
+on the contrary, was lest it should reach you before the arrival of
+explaining letters, which might seem strange to you, the sending-off
+having probably been done in another name, and the cover of my copybook
+bearing my directions that the notes should be forwarded to you if
+necessary.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+. . . To-day we are living in the most intimate and delicate Corot
+landscape.
+
+From the barn where we have established our outpost, I see, first, the
+road with puddles left by the rain; then some tree-stumps; then, beyond
+a meadow, a line of willows beside a charming running stream. In the
+background, a few houses are veiled in a light mist, keeping the
+delicate darks which our dear landscape-painter felt so nobly.
+
+Such is the peace of this morning. Who would believe that one has but to
+turn one's head, and there is nothing but conflagration and ruin!. . .
+
+
+_November 7, 8 A.M._
+
+I have just had your card of the 30th announcing the sending-off of a
+packet. How kind this is! how much thought is given to us! All this
+sweetness is appreciated to the full.
+
+Yesterday, a delicious November day. This morning, too much fog for the
+enjoyment of nature. But yesterday afternoon!
+
+Delicate, refined weather, in which everything is etched as it were on a
+misty mirror. The bare shrubs, near our post, have been visited by a
+flock of green birds, with white-bordered wings; the cocks have black
+heads with a white spot. How can I tell you what it was to hear the
+solitary sound of their flight in this stillness!--That is one good
+thing about war: there can be only a certain amount of evil in the
+world; now, all of this being used by man against man, beasts at any
+rate are so much the better off--at least the beasts of the wood, our
+customary victims.
+
+If you could only see the confidence of the little forest animals, such
+as the field-mice! The other day, from our leafy shelter I watched the
+movements of these little beasts. They were as pretty as a Japanese
+print, with the inside of their ears rosy like a shell. And then another
+time we watched the migration of the cranes: it is a moving thing to
+hear them cry in the dusk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+. . . What a happiness to see that you are drawing. Yes, do this for us
+both. If you knew how I itch to express in paint all our emotions! If
+you have read my letters of all this time you will know my privation,
+but also my happiness.
+
+_Monday, November 9, 7 o'clock._
+
+. . . We have returned to the wide open view that I love so much.
+Unfortunately we can only catch a glimpse of it through mouse-holes.
+Well, it is always so!. . .
+
+. . . All these days I have been feeling the charm of a country lying in
+autumn sweetness. This peace was troubled yesterday by the poignant
+sight of a burning village. It is not the first we have seen, and yet we
+have not grown used to it.
+
+We had taken up our observation-posts; it was still dark. From our
+height we saw the tremendous flare and, at daybreak, the charming
+village, sheltering in the valley, was nothing but smoke. This, in the
+silvery nimbus of a glorious morning.
+
+From our mouse-trap we had looked to the distance with its prettily
+winding road, its willow-bordered stream, its Calvary: all this harmony
+to end in the horror of destruction.
+
+The Germans had set fire to it by hand in the night; they had been
+dislodged from it after two nights of fierce fighting: their action may
+be interpreted as an intention to retreat at this point. This
+proceeding, generally detested by our soldiers, is, I think, forced by
+strategic necessity. When a village is destroyed it is very difficult
+for us in the rear to make any kind of use of it. All day we have been
+witnessing this devastation, while above our heads the little field-mice
+are taking advantage of the straw in which we are to sleep.
+
+Our existence, as infantry, is a little like that of rabbits in the
+shooting season. The more knowing of us, at any rate, are perpetually on
+the look-out for a hole. As soon as we are buried in it, we are ordered
+not to move again. These wise orders are unfortunately not always given
+with discrimination; thus, yesterday there were four of us in an
+advance-trench situated in a magnificent spot and perfectly hidden
+beneath leaves. We should have been able to delight in the landscape but
+for the good corporal, who was afraid to allow us even a little
+enjoyment of life. Later the artillery came up with a tremendous din and
+showed us the use of these superlative precautions.
+
+None the less, I have been able to enjoy the landscape--alas! a scene of
+smoke and tragedy yesterday. Be sure, beloved mother, that I do not wish
+to commit a single imprudence, but certainly this war is the triumph of
+Fate, of Providence and Destiny.
+
+I pray ardently to deserve the grace of return, but apart from a few
+moments of only human impatience, I can say that the greater part of my
+being is given up to resignation.
+
+
+_November 10, 11 o'clock._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--What shall I say to you to-day--a day monotonous
+with fog. Occupations that are stupefying, not in themselves, but
+because of the insipid companionship. I fall back on myself. Yesterday I
+wrote you a long letter, telling you among other things how dear your
+letters are to me. When I began to write on this sheet I was a little
+weary and troubled, but now that I am with you I become happy, and I
+immediately remember whatever good fortune this day has brought me.
+
+This morning the lieutenant sent me to get some wire from headquarters,
+in a devastated village which we have surrounded for six weeks. I went
+down through the orchards full of the last fallen plums. A few careless
+soldiers were gathering them up into baskets. A charming scene, purely
+pastoral and bucolic, in spite of the red trousers--very faded after
+three months' campaign. . . .
+
+I am happy in the affection of Ch---- R----. His is a nature according
+in all its elements with my own. I am sure that he will not be cross
+with me for not writing, especially if you give a kind message from me
+to his wife.
+
+The little task confided to me meant walking from nightfall until nine
+o'clock, but I occasionally lay down in a shelter or in a barn instead
+of getting back to the trenches for the night.
+
+I do not have good nights of reading now, but sometimes when S---- and I
+are lying side by side in the trench, you would not believe what a
+mirage we evoke and what joy we have in stirred-up memories. Ah, how
+science and intellectual phenomena lead us into a very heaven of
+legends, and what pleasure I get from the marvellous history of this
+metal, or that acid! For me the thousand and one nights are renewing
+themselves. And then at waking, sometimes, the blessing of a dawn. That
+is the life I have led since the 13th or 14th of October. I ask for
+nothing, I am content that in such a war we should have relatively a
+great deal of calm.
+
+You cannot imagine what a consolation it is to know that you give your
+heart to what concerns me. What pleasure I have in imagining you
+interested in my books, looking at my engravings!. . .
+
+_November 12, 3 o'clock._
+
+. . . To-day we have had a march as pleasant as the first one, in weather
+of great beauty. We saw, in the blue and rosy distance, the far-off peak
+of the Metz hills, and the immense panorama scattered over with
+villages, some of which gathered up the morning light, while others were
+merely suggested.
+
+This is the broad outline of our existence: for three days we stay close
+to the enemy, living in well-constructed shelters which are improved
+each time; then we spend three days a little way back; and then three
+days in billets in a neighbouring village, generally the same. We even
+gradually form habits--very passing ones, but still, we have a certain
+amount of contact with the civil population which has been so sorely
+tried. The woollen things are very effectual and precious.
+
+. . . We have good people to deal with. The dear woman from whose dwelling
+I write to you, and with whom I stayed before, wears herself to death
+to give us a little of what reminds us of home.
+
+But, dear mother, what reminds me of home is here in my heart. It is not
+eating on plates or sitting on a chair that counts. It is your love,
+which I feel so near. . . .
+
+
+_November 14._
+
+Since half-past eight on the evening of the 12th we have been dragged
+about from place to place in the prospect of our taking part in a
+violent movement. We left at night, and in the calm of nature my
+thoughts cleared themselves a little, after the two days in billets
+during which one becomes a little too material. Our reinforcement went
+up by stealth. We awaited our orders in a barn, where we slept on the
+floor. Then we filed into the woods and fields, which the day, breaking
+through grey, red, and purple clouds, slowly lit up, in surroundings the
+most romantic and pathetic that could be imagined. In the full daylight
+of a charming morning we learnt that the troops ahead of us had
+inflicted enormous losses on the enemy, and had even made a very slight
+advance. We then returned to our usual posts, and here I am again,
+beholding once more the splendour of the French country, so touching in
+this grey, windy, and impassioned November, with sunshine thrown in
+patches upon infinite horizons.
+
+Dear mother, how beautiful it is, this region of spacious dignity, where
+all is noble and proportioned, where outlines are so beautifully
+defined!--the road bordered with trees diminishing towards the frontier,
+hills, and beyond them misty heights which one guesses to be the German
+Vosges. There is the scenery, and here is something better than the
+scenery. There is a Beethoven melody and a piece by Liszt called
+'Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude.' Certainly we have no solitude,
+but if you turn the pages of Albert Samain's poems you will find an
+aphorism by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam: 'Know that there will always be
+solitude on earth for those who are worthy of it.' This solitude of a
+soul that can ignore all that is not in tune with it. . . .
+
+I have had two letters from you, of the 6th and 7th. Perhaps this
+evening I shall have another. Do not let us allow our courage to be
+concerned only with the waiting for letters from each other. But the
+letters are our life, they are what bring us our joys, our happiness, it
+is through them that we take delight in the sights of this world and of
+this time.
+
+If your eyes are not strong, that is a reason for not writing, but apart
+from your health do not by depriving me of letters hold back your heart
+from me.
+
+
+_November 14_ (2nd letter).
+
+DEAR MOTHER WHOM I LOVE,--Here we are again in our usual billet, and my
+heart is full of thoughts all tending towards you. I cannot tell you all
+that I feel in every moment, yet how much I should like to share with
+you the many pleasures that come one by one even in this monotonous life
+of ours, as a broken thread drops its pearls.
+
+I should like to be able to admire with you this lovely cloud, this
+stretch of country which so fills us with reverence, to listen with you
+to the poetry of the wind from beyond the mountain, as when we walked
+together at Boulogne. But here a great many prosaic occupations prevent
+me from speaking to you as I feel.
+
+I sent you with my baggage my note-book from August 18 to October 20.[2]
+These notes were made when we could easily get at our light bags, in the
+calm of our trench-days, when our danger stopped our chattering, and I
+could let my heart speak. I found a happiness more intense, wider and
+fuller, to write to you about. That was a time of paradise for me. But I
+don't like the billets, because the comfort and the security, relaxing
+our minds, bring about a great deal of uproar which I don't like. You
+know how much I have always needed quiet and solitude. Still, I have
+excellent friends, and the officers are very kind.
+
+But with a little patience and a few thoughts about you I can be happy.
+How kind this first half of November has been! I have not suffered once
+from cold. And how lovely it was! That All Saints' Day was nothing but a
+long hymn--from the night, with its pure moonlight on the dark amber of
+the autumn trees, to the tender twilight. The immense rosy dream of
+this misty plain, stretching out towards the near hills. . . . What a
+song of praise! and many days since then have sung the glory of God.
+Coeli ennarrant. . . .
+
+That is what those days brought to me.
+
+[Footnote 2: Part of this note-book has already been given.]
+
+
+_November 15, 7 o'clock._
+
+Yesterday the wild weather, fine to see from the shelter of our billet,
+brought me apprehensions for to-night's departure, but when I woke the
+sky was the purest and starriest that one could dream of! How grateful I
+felt!
+
+What we fear most is the rain, which penetrates through everything when
+we are without fire or shelter. The cold is nothing--we are armed
+against it beforehand.
+
+. . . In spite of all, how much I appreciated the sight of this vast plain
+upon which we descended, lashed by the great wind. Above the low horizon
+was the wide grey sky in which, here and there, pale rents recalled the
+vanished blue.--A black, tragic Calvary in silhouette--then some
+skeleton trees! What a place! This is where I can think of you, and of
+my beloved music. To-day I have the atmosphere that I want.
+
+. . . I should like to define the form of my conviction of better things
+in the near future, resulting from this war. These events prepare the
+way to a new life: that of the United States of Europe.
+
+After the conflict, those who will have completely and filially
+fulfilled their obligation to their country will find themselves
+confronted by duties yet more grave, and the realisation of things that
+are now impossible. Then will be the time for them to throw their
+efforts into the future. They must use their energies to wipe out the
+trace of the shattering contact of nations. The French Revolution,
+notwithstanding its mistakes, notwithstanding some backsliding in
+practice, some failure in construction, did none the less establish in
+man's soul this fine theory of national unity. Well! the horrors of the
+1914 war lead to the unity of Europe, to the unity of the race. This new
+state will not be established without blows and spoliation and strife
+for an indefinite time, but without doubt the door is now open towards
+the new horizon.
+
+
+To Madame C----.
+
+_November 16._
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND,--How much pleasure and comfort your letter gives me, and
+how your warm friendship sustains my courage!
+
+What you say to me about my mother binds me closer to existence. Thank
+you for your splendid and constant affection.
+
+. . . What shall I tell you of my life? Through the weariness and the
+vicissitudes I am upheld by the contemplation of Nature which for two
+months has been accumulating the emotion and the pathos of this
+impassioned season. One of my habitual stations is on the heights which
+overlook the immense Woevre plain. How beautiful it is! and what a
+blessing to follow, each hour of the day and evening, the kindling
+colours of the autumn leaves! This frightful human uproar cannot succeed
+in troubling the majestic serenity of Nature! There are moments when man
+seems to go beyond anything that could be imagined; but a soul that is
+prepared can soon perceive the harmony which overlooks and reconciles
+all this dissonance. Do not think that I remain insensible to the agony
+of scenes that we behold all too often: villages wiped out by the
+artillery that is hurled upon them; smoke by day, light by night; the
+misery of a flying population under shell-fire. Each instant brings some
+shock straight to one's heart. That is why I take refuge in this high
+consolation, because without some discipline of the heart I could not
+suffer thus and not be undone.
+
+
+_November 17, in the morning._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,-- . . . I write to you in the happiness of the dawn over my
+dear village. The night, which began with rain, has brought us again a
+pure and glorious sky. I see once more my distant horizons, my peaked
+hills, the harmonious lines of my valleys. From this height where I
+stand who would guess that agricultural and peaceful village to be in
+reality nothing but a heap of ruins, in which not a house is spared, and
+in which no human being can survive the hell of artillery!
+
+As I write, the sun falls upon the belfry which I see framed in the
+still sombre tree close beside me, while far away, beneath the last
+hills, the last swelling of the ground, the plain begins to reveal its
+precious detail in the rosy and golden atmosphere.
+
+
+_November 17, 11 o'clock._
+
+The splendid weather is my great consolation. I live rather like an
+invalid sent to some magnificent country, whom the treatment compels to
+unpleasant and fatiguing occupations. Between Leysin and the trench
+where I am at present there has been only uncertainty. Nothing new has
+happened to our company since October 13.
+
+This is a strange kind of war. It is like that between neighbours on bad
+terms. Consider that some of the trenches are separated from the enemy
+by hardly 100 metres, and that the combatants fling projectiles across
+with their hands: you see that these neighbours make use of violent
+methods.
+
+As for me, I really live only when I am with you, and when I feel the
+splendour of the surroundings.
+
+Even in the middle of conversations, I am able to preserve the
+sensation of solitude of thought which is necessary to me.
+
+
+_November 18._
+
+This morning, daylight showed us a country covered with hoar-frost, a
+universal whiteness over hills and forest. My little village looks
+thoroughly chilled.
+
+I had spent the greater part of the night in a warm shelter, and I could
+have stayed there, thanks to the kindness of my superiors, but I am
+foolish and timid, and I rejoined my comrades from 1 o'clock till
+half-past 4.
+
+Curiously enough, we can easily bear the cold: an admirable article of
+clothing, which nearly all of us possess, is a flour-sack which can be
+worn, according to the occasion, as a little shoulder-cape, or as a bag
+for the feet. In either case it is an excellent preserver of heat.
+
+
+_11 o'clock._
+
+For the moment there runs in my mind a pretty and touching air by
+Handel. Also, an allegro from our organ duets: joyful and brilliant
+music, overflowing with life. Dear Handel! Often he consoles me.
+
+Beethoven comes back only rarely to my mind, but when his music does
+awake in me, it touches something so vital that it is always as though a
+hand were drawing aside a curtain from the mystery of the Creation.
+
+Poor dear Great Masters! Shall it be counted a crime against them that
+they were Germans? How is it possible to think of Schumann as a
+barbarian?
+
+Yesterday this country recalled to my mind what you played to me ten
+years ago, the Rheingold: 'Libre etendu sur la hauteur.' But the outlook
+of our French art had this superiority over the beautiful music of that
+wretched man--it had composure and clarity and reason. Yes, our French
+art was never turbid.
+
+As for Wagner, however beautiful his music, and however irresistible and
+attractive his genius, I believe it would be a less substantial loss to
+French taste to be deprived of him than of his great classical
+compatriots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I can say with truth that in those moments when the idea of a possible
+return comes to me, it is never the thought of the comfort or the
+well-being that preoccupies me. It is something higher and nobler which
+turns my thoughts towards this form of hope. Can I say that it is even
+something different from the immense joy of our meeting again? It is
+rather the hope of taking up again our common effort, our association,
+of which the aim is the development of our souls, and the best use we
+can make of them upon earth.
+
+
+_November 19, in the morning._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--To-day I was wakened at dawn by a violent
+cannonade, unusual at that hour. Just then some of the men came back
+frozen by a night in the trenches. I got up to fetch them some wood, and
+then, on the opposite slope of the valley, the fusillade burst out
+fully. I mounted as high as I could, and I saw the promise of the sun in
+the pure sky.
+
+Suddenly, from the opposite hill (one of those hills I love so much), I
+heard an uproar, and shouting: 'Forward! Forward!' It was a bayonet
+charge. This was my first experience of one--not that I saw anything;
+the still-dark hour, and, probably, the disposition of the ground,
+prevented me. But what I heard was enough to give me the feeling of the
+attack.
+
+Up till then I had never imagined how different is the courage required
+by this kind of anonymous warfare from the traditional valour in war, as
+conceived by the civilian. And the clamour of this morning reminds me,
+in the midst of my calm, that young men, without any personal motive of
+hate, can and must fling themselves upon those who are waiting to kill
+them.
+
+But the sun rises over my country. It lightens the valley, and from my
+height I can see two villages, two ruins, one of which I saw ablaze for
+three nights. Near to me, two crosses made of white wood. . . . French
+blood flows in 1914. . . .
+
+
+_November 20._
+
+From the window near which I write I see the rising sun. It shines upon
+the hoar-frost, and gradually I discover the beautiful country which is
+undergoing such horrors. It appears that there were many victims in the
+bayonet charge which I heard yesterday. Among others, we are without
+tidings of two sections of the regiment which formed part of our
+brigade. While these others were working out their destiny, I was on the
+crest of the most beautiful hill (I was very much exposed also at other
+times). I saw the daybreak; I was full of emotion in beholding the peace
+of Nature, and I realised the contrast between the pettiness of human
+violence and the majesty of the surroundings.
+
+That time of pain for you, from September 9th to October 13th,
+corresponds exactly with my first phase of war. On September 9th I
+arrived, and detrained almost within reach of the terrible battle of the
+Marne, which was in progress 35 kilometres away. On the 12th I rejoined
+the 106th, and thenceforward led the life of a combatant. On October
+13th, as I told you, we left the lovely woods, where the enemy artillery
+and infantry had done a lot of mischief among us, especially on the 3rd.
+Our little community lost on that day a heart of gold, a wonderful boy,
+grown too good to live. On the 4th, an excellent comrade, an
+architectural student, was wounded fairly severely in the arm, but the
+news which he has since sent of himself is good. Then until the 13th,
+terrible day, we lived through some hard times, especially as the
+danger, real enough, was exaggerated by the feeling of suffocation and
+of the unknown which hemmed us round in those woods, so fine at any
+other time.
+
+The important thing is to bear in mind the significance of every moment.
+The problem is of perpetual urgency. On one side the providential
+blessing, up till the present, of complete immunity. On the other, the
+hazards of the future. That is how our wish to do good should be applied
+to the present moment. There is no satisfaction to be had in questioning
+the future, but I believe that every effort made now will avail us then.
+It is a heroic struggle to sustain, but let us count not only on
+ourselves but on another force so much more powerful than our human
+means.
+
+
+_November 21._
+
+To-day we lead a _bourgeoise_ life, almost too comfortable. The cold
+keeps us with the extraordinary woman who lodges us whenever we visit
+the village where we are billeted three days out of nine.
+
+I will not tell you about the pretty view from the window where I write,
+but I will speak of the interior which shelters many of our days. By day
+we live in two rooms divided by a glass partition, and, looking through
+from one room to another, we can admire either the fine fire in the
+great chimney-place or the magnificent wardrobe and the Meuse beds made
+of fine old brass. All the delicate life of these two old women (the
+mother, 87 years old, and the daughter) is completely disorganised by
+the roughness, the rudeness, the kind hearts and the generosity of the
+soldiers. These women accept all that comes and are most devoted.
+
+As for Spinoza, whose spirit you already possess, I think that you can
+go straight to the last theorems. You will be sure to have intuitive
+understanding of what he says about the soul's repose. Yes, those are
+moments experienced by us too rarely in our weakness, but they suffice
+to let us discover in ourselves, through the blows and buffetings of our
+poor human nature, a certain tendency towards what is permanent and
+what is final; and we realise the splendid inheritance of divinity to
+which we are the heirs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dear mother, what a happy day I have just spent with you.
+
+There were three of us: we two and the pretty landscape from my window.
+
+Seen from here, winter gives a woolly and muffled air to things. Two
+clouds, or rather mists, wrap the near hillside without taking any
+delicacy from the drawing of the shrubs on the crest; the sky is light
+green. All is filtered. Everything sleeps. This is the time for
+night-attacks, the cries of the charge, the watch in the trenches. Let
+our prayers of every moment ask for the end of this state of things. Let
+us wish for rest for all, a great amends, recompense for all grief and
+pain and separation.
+
+YOUR SON.
+
+
+_Sunday, November 22, 9.30._
+
+I write to you this morning from my favourite place, without anything
+having happened since last night that is worth recording--save perhaps
+the thousand flitting nothings in the landscape. I got up with the sun,
+which now floods all the space with silver. The cold is still keen, but
+by piling on our woollen things we get the better of it on these nights
+in billets. There is only this to say: that to-morrow we go to our
+trenches in the second line, in the woods that are now thin and
+monotonous. Of our three stations, that is the one I perhaps like the
+least, because the sky is exiled behind high branches. It is more a
+landscape for R----, but flat, and spoilt by the kind of existence that
+one leads there.
+
+Hostilities seem to be recommencing in our region with a certain amount
+of energy. This morning we can hear a violent fusillade, a thing very
+rare in this kind of war, in which attacks are generally made at night,
+the day being practically reserved for artillery bombardments.
+
+Dear mother, let us put our hope in the strength of soul which will make
+petition each hour, each minute. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+. . . Yes, it gives me pleasure to tell you about my life; it is a fine
+life in so many ways. Often, at night, as I walk along the road where
+my little duty takes me, I am full of happiness to be able thus to
+communicate with the greatness of Nature, with the sky and its
+harmonious pattern of stars, with the large and gracious curves of these
+hills; and though the danger is always present, I think that not only
+your courage, your consciousness of the eternal, but also your love for
+me will make you approve of my not stopping perpetually to puzzle over
+the enigma.
+
+So my present life brings extreme degrees of feeling, which cannot be
+measured by time. Feeling produced, for instance, by beautiful leafage,
+the dawn, a delicate landscape, a touching moon. These are all things in
+which qualities at once fleeting and permanent isolate the human heart
+from all preoccupations which lead us in these times either to
+despairing anxiety, or to abject materialism, or again to a cheap
+optimism, which I wish to replace by the high hope that is common to us
+all, and which does not rely on human events.
+
+All my tenderness and constant love for grandmother; for you, courage,
+calm, perfect resignation without effort.
+
+
+_November 23._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--Here we are arrived in our shelters in the second line. We
+lodge in earth huts, where the fire smokes us out as much as it warms
+us. The weather, which during the night was overcast, has given us a
+charming blue and rosy morning. Unfortunately the woods have less to say
+to me than the marvellous spaces of our front lines. Still, all is
+beautiful here.
+
+Yesterday my day was made up of the happiness of writing to you; I went
+into the village church without being urged by a single romantic feeling
+nor any desire for comfort from without. My conception of divine harmony
+did not need to be supported by any outward form, or popular symbol.
+
+Then I had the great good fortune to go with a carriage into the
+surrounding country. Oh, the marvellous landscape--still of blue and
+rosy colour, paled by the mist! All this rich and luminous delicacy
+found definite accents in the abrupt spots made by people scattered
+about the open. My landscape, always primitive in its precision, now
+took on a subtlety of nuances, a richness of variety essentially modern.
+
+One moment I recalled the peculiar outer suburbs of Paris with their
+innumerable notes and their suppressed effects. But here there is more
+frankness and candour. Here everything was simply rose and blue against
+a pale grey ground.
+
+My driver, getting into difficulty with his horse, entrusted the whip to
+me to touch up the animal: I must have looked like a little mechanical
+toy.
+
+We passed by the Calvaries which keep guard over the Meuse villages, a
+few trees gathered round the cross.
+
+
+_November 24, 3.30_
+(back from the march).
+
+I have just received a letter of the 16th and a card, and a dear letter
+of the 18th. These two last tell me of the arrival of my packet. How
+glad I am to hear that! For a moment I asked myself whether I was right
+to send you these impressions, but, between us two, life has never been
+and can never be anything but a perpetual investigation in the region
+of eternal truths, fervent attention to the truth each earthly spectacle
+presents. And so I do not regret sending you those little notes.
+
+My worst sufferings were during the rainy days of September. Those days
+are a bitter memory to every one. We slept interlocked, face against
+face, hands crossed, in a deluge of water and mud. It would be
+impossible to imagine our despair.
+
+To crown all, after these frightful hours, they told us that the enemy
+was training his machine-guns upon us, and that we must attack him.
+However, we were relieved; the explosion was violent.
+
+As for my still unwritten verse, '_Soleil si pale_,' etc., it relates to
+the 11th, 12th, and 13th of October, and, generally, to the time of the
+battle in the woods, which lasted for our regiment from September 22nd
+to October 13th. What struck me so much was to see the sun rise upon the
+victims.
+
+Since then I have written nothing, but for a prayer which I sent you
+five or six days ago. I composed it while I was on duty on the road.
+
+
+_November 25, in the morning._
+
+. . . Yesterday, in the course of that march, I lived in a picture by my
+beloved primitives. Coming out of the wood, as we went down a long road,
+we had close by us a large farm-house, plumed by a group of bare trees
+beside a frozen pool.
+
+Then, in the under-perspective so cleverly used by my dear painters with
+their air of simplicity, a road, unwinding itself, with its slopes and
+hills, bound in by shrubs, and some solitary trees: all this precise,
+fine, etched, and yet softened. A little bridge spanning a stream, a man
+on horseback passing close to the little bridge, carefully silhouetted,
+and then a little carriage: delicate balance of values, discreet, yet
+well maintained--all this in front of a horizon of noble woods. A kind
+of grey weather which has replaced the enchantment, so modern in
+feeling, of the nuances of last Sunday, takes me back to that incisive
+consciousness which moves us as a Breughel and the other masters, whose
+names escape me. Like this, too, the clear and orderly thronging in
+Albert Duerer backgrounds.
+
+
+_November 26._
+
+DEAREST MOTHER,--I didn't succeed in finishing this letter yesterday. We
+were very busy. And now to-day it is still dark. From my dug-out, where
+I have just arrived in the front line, I send you my great love; I am
+very happy. I feel that the work I am to do in future is taking shape in
+myself. What does it matter if Providence does not allow me to bring it
+to light? I have firm hope, and above all I have confidence in eternal
+justice, however it may surprise our human ideas. . . .
+
+
+_November 28._
+
+The position we occupy is 45 metres away from the enemy. The roads of
+approach are curious and even picturesque in their harshness, emphasised
+by the greyness of the weather.
+
+Our troops, having dodged by night the enemy's vigilance, and come up
+from the valley to the mid-heights where the rising ground protects them
+from the infantry fire, find shelters hollowed from the side of the
+hill, burrows where those who are not on guard can have some sleep and
+the warmth of an Improvised hearth. Then, farther on, just where the
+landscape becomes magnificent in freedom, expanse, and light, the
+winding furrow, called the communication trench, begins. Concealed thus,
+we arrive in the trench, and it is truly a spectacle of war, severe and
+not without grandeur--this long passage which has a grey sky for
+ceiling, and in which the floor is covered over with recent snow. Here
+the last infantry units are stationed--units, generally, of feeble
+effective. The enemy is not more than a hundred metres away. From there
+continues the communication trench, more and more deep and winding, in
+which I feel anew the emotion I always get from contact with newly
+turned earth. The excavating for the banking-up works stirs something in
+me: it is as if the energy of this disembowelled earth took hold of me
+and told me the history of life.
+
+Two or three sappers are at work lengthening the hollows, watched by the
+Germans who, from point to point, can snipe the insufficiently protected
+places. At this end the last sentry guards about forty metres.
+
+You can picture the contrast between all this military organisation and
+the peace that used to reign here. Think what an astonishment it is to
+me to remember that where I now look the labourer once walked behind his
+plough, and that the sun, whose glory I contemplate as a prisoner
+contemplates liberty, shone upon him freely on these heights.
+
+Then, too, when at dusk I come out into the open, what an ecstasy! I
+won't speak to you of this, for I feel I must be silent about these
+joys. They must not be exposed: they are birds that love silence. . . .
+Let us confine our speech to that essential happiness which is not
+easily affrighted--the happiness of feeling ourselves prepared equally
+for all.
+
+_November 29, in the morning_
+(from a billet).
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--Yesterday evening I left the first line trenches
+in broken weather which, in the night, after my arrival here, turned
+into rain. I watch it falling through the fog from my favourite window.
+If you like I will tell you of the wonders I saw yesterday.
+
+From the position described in my letter of yesterday, can be seen, as
+I have often written to you, the most marvellous horizon. Yesterday a
+terrible wind rent a low veil of clouds which grew red at their summits.
+Perhaps the background of my 'Haheyna' will give you a faint idea of
+what it was. But how much more majestic and full of animation was the
+emotion I experienced yesterday.
+
+The hills and valleys passed in turn from light to shade, now defined,
+now veiled, according to the movement of the mists. High up, blue spaces
+fringed with light.
+
+Such was the beauty of yesterday. Shall I speak of the evenings that
+went before, when, on my way along the road, the moon brought out the
+pattern of the trees, the pathetic Calvaries, the touching spectacle of
+houses which one knew were ruins, but which night seemed to make stand
+forth again like an appeal for peace.
+
+I am glad to see you like Verlaine. Read the fine preface by Coppee to
+the selected works, which you will find in my library.
+
+His fervour has a spontaneity, I might almost say a grossness, which
+always repels me a little, just because it belongs to that kind of
+Catholic fervour which on its figurative side will always leave me cold.
+But what a poet!
+
+He has been my almost daily delight both here and when I was in Paris;
+often the music of his _Paysages Tristes_ comes back to me, exactly
+expressing the emotion of certain hours. His life is as touching as that
+of a sick animal, and one almost wonders that a like indignity has not
+withered the exquisite flowers of his poetry. His conversion, that of an
+artist rather than of a thinker, followed on a great upsetting of his
+existence which resulted from grave faults of his. (He was in prison.)
+
+In the _Lys Rouge_ Anatole France has drawn a striking portrait of him,
+under the name of Choulette; perhaps you will find we have this book.
+
+In _Sagesse_ the poems are fine and striking because of the true impulse
+and sincerity of the remorse. A little as though the cry of the _Nuit de
+Mai_ resounded all through his work.
+
+Our two great poets of the last century, Musset and Verlaine, were two
+unhappy beings without any moral principle with which to stake up their
+flowers of thought--yet what magnificent and intoxicating flowers.
+
+Perhaps I tire you when I speak thus on random subjects, but to do so
+enables me to plunge back into my old life for a little while. Since I
+had the happiness of getting your letters, I have not taken note of
+anything. Do not think that distractions by the way make me forgetful of
+our need and hope, but I believe it is just the beautiful adornment of
+life which gives it, for you and me, its value.
+
+I am still expecting letters from you after that of the 22nd, but I am
+sure to get them here in this billet. Thank you for the parcel you
+promise: poor mothers, what pains they all take!
+
+
+_December 1, in the morning_
+(from a billet).
+
+I remember the satisfaction I felt in my freedom when I was exempted
+from my military duties. It seemed to me that if, at twenty-seven years
+old, I had been obliged to return to the regiment, my life and career
+would have been irretrievably lost. And here I am now, twenty-eight
+years old, back in the army, far from my work, my responsibilities, my
+ambitions--and yet never has life brought me such a full measure of
+finer feelings; never have I been able to record such freshness of
+sensibility, such security of conscience. So those are the blessings
+arising out of the thing which my reasonable human foresight envisaged
+as disaster. And thus continues the lesson of Providence which,
+upsetting all my fears, makes good arise out of every change of
+situation.
+
+The two last sunrises, yesterday and to-day, were lovely. . . .
+
+I feel inclined to make you a little sketch of the view from my
+window. . . .
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is done from memory; in your imagination you must add streaks of
+purple colour, making the most dramatic effect, and an infinite stretch
+of open country to right and left. This is what I have been able again
+and again to look upon, during this time. At this moment, the soft sky
+brings into harmony the orchards where we work. My little job dispenses
+me from digging for the time. Such are the happinesses which, from afar,
+had the appearance of calamities.
+
+
+_December 1_ (2nd letter).
+
+I have just received your letters of the 25th, 26th, and 27th, as well
+as a dear letter from Grandmother, so valiant, so full of spirit, and so
+clear-minded. It gave me great pleasure, and brings me a dear hope, of
+which I accept the augury with joy. Each one of your beloved letters,
+too, gives me the best of what life holds for me. My first letter of
+to-day replies to what you say about the acceptation of trials and the
+destruction of idols.
+
+You will see that I think absolutely as you do, and I trust that there
+is in this hour no impeding idol in my heart. . . .
+
+I think that my last prayer is in fact very simple. The spirit of the
+place could not have borne to be clothed in an art that was overloaded.
+God was everywhere, and everywhere was harmony: the road at night, of
+which I speak to you so often, the starry sky, the valley full of the
+murmuring of water, the trees, the Calvaries, the hills near and far.
+There would not have been any room for artifice. It is useless for me to
+give up being an artist, but I hope always to be sincere and to use art
+as it were only for the clothing of my conscience.
+
+
+_December 5, in the morning._
+
+. . . We have come out of our burrows, and three days of imprisonment are
+followed by a morning in the open. It would be impossible to imagine
+such a state of mud.
+
+Your pretty aluminium watch is the admiration of everybody.
+
+Is Andre's wound serious? The mothers endure terrible agony in this war,
+but courage--nothing will be lost. As for me, I get on all right, and am
+as happy as one may be.
+
+A terrific wind to-day, chasing the fine clouds. Keen air, in which the
+branches thrive. Beautiful moonlight on all these nights, all the more
+appreciated if one has been cheated of the day.
+
+Dear, I am writing badly to-day because we are bewildered by the full
+daylight after those long hours of darkness, but my heart goes out to
+you and rests with you.
+
+. . . Let us bring to everything the spirit of courage. Let us have
+confidence in God always, whatever happens. How much I feel, as you do,
+that one can adore Him only with one's spirit! And like you I think that
+we must avoid all pride which condemns the ways of other people. Let our
+love lead us in union towards the universal Providence. Let us, in
+constant prayer, give back our destiny into His hands. Let us humbly
+admit to Him our human hopes, trying at every moment to link them to
+eternal wisdom. It is a task which now seems full of difficulty, but
+difficulty is in everything in life.
+
+
+_Sunday, December 6._
+
+I am happy to see you so determinedly courageous. We have need of
+courage, or, rather, we have need of something difficult to obtain,
+which is neither patience nor overconfidence, but a certain belief in
+the order of things, the power to be able to say of every trial that it
+is well.
+
+Our instinct for life makes us try to free ourselves from our
+obligations when they are too cruel, too oft-repeated, but, as I am
+happy to know, you have been able to see what Spinoza understood by
+human liberty. Inaccessible ideal, to which one must cling
+nevertheless. . . .
+
+. . . Dear mother, these trials that we must accept are long, but
+notwithstanding their unchanging form one cannot call them monotonous,
+since they call upon courage which must be perpetually new. Let us unite
+together for God to grant us strength and resource in accepting
+everything. . . .
+
+You know what I call religion: that which unites in man all his ideas of
+the universal and the eternal, those two forms of God. Religion, in the
+ordinary sense of the word, is but the binding together of certain moral
+and disciplinary formulas with the fine poetic imagery of the great
+biblical and Christian philosophies.
+
+Do not let us offend any one. Looked at properly, religious formulas,
+however apart they may remain from my own habit of mind, seem to me
+praiseworthy and sympathetic in all that they contain of aspiration and
+beauty and form.
+
+Dear mother whom I love, let us always hope: trials are legion, but
+beauty remains. Let us pray that we may long continue to contemplate
+it. . . .
+
+
+_Monday, December 7._
+
+MY BELOVED MOTHER,--I am writing this in the night . . . by six o'clock
+in the morning military life will be in full swing.
+
+My candle is stuck on a bayonet, and every now and then a drop of water
+falls on to my nose. My poor companions try to light a reluctant fire.
+Our time in the trenches transforms us into lumps of mud.
+
+The general good humour is admirable. However the men may long to
+return, they accept none the less heroically the vicissitudes of the
+situation. Their courage, infinitely less 'literary' than mine, is so
+much the more practical and adaptable; but each bird has its cry, and
+mine has never been a war-cry. I am happy to have felt myself responsive
+to all these blows, and my hope lies in the thought that they will have
+forged my soul. Also I place confidence in God and whatever He holds in
+store for me.
+
+I seem to foresee my work in the future. Not that I build much on this
+presentiment, for all artists have conceived work which has never come
+to light. Mozart was about to make a new start when he died, and
+Beethoven planned the 'Tenth Symphony' in ignorance of the all too brief
+time that was to be allowed him by destiny.
+
+It is the duty of the artist to open his flowers without dread of frost,
+and perhaps God will allow my efforts to fulfil themselves in the
+future. My very various attempts at work all have an indescribable
+immaturity about them still, a halting execution, which consorts badly
+with the real loftiness of the intention. It seems to me that my art
+will not quite expand until my life is further advanced. Let us pray
+that God will allow me to attain. . . .
+
+As for what is in your own heart, I have such confidence in your courage
+that this certainty is my great comfort in this hour. I know that my
+mother has gained that freedom of soul which allows contemplation of the
+universal scheme of things. I know from my own experience how
+intermittent is this wisdom, but even to taste of it is already to
+possess God. It is the security I derive from knowledge of your soul and
+your love, that enables me to think of the future in whatever form it
+may come.
+
+
+_December 9._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--P---- L----, in his charming letter, tells me he would
+willingly exchange his philosophers for a gun. He is quite wrong. For
+one thing, Spinoza is a most valuable aid in the trenches; and then it
+is those who are still in a position to profit by culture and progress
+who must now carry on French thought. They have an overwhelmingly
+difficult task, calling for far more initiative than ours. We are free
+of all burden. I think our existence is like that of the early monks:
+hard, regular discipline and freedom from all external obligations.
+
+
+_December 10_
+(a marvellous morning).
+
+Our third day in billets brings us the sweetness of friendly weather.
+The inveterate deluge of our time in the first line relents a little,
+and the sun shows itself timidly.
+
+Our situation, which has been pleasant enough during the last two
+months, may now be expected entirely to change.
+
+The impregnability of the positions threatens to make the war
+interminable; one of the two adversaries must use his offensive to
+unlock the situation and precipitate events. I think the high command
+faces this probability--and I hardly dare tell you that I cannot regret
+anything that increases the danger.
+
+Our life, of which a third part is flatly bourgeois and the two other
+parts present just about the same dangers as, say, chemical works do,
+will end by deadening all sensibility. It is true we shall be grieved to
+leave what we are used to, but perhaps we were getting too accustomed to
+a state of well-being which could not last.
+
+My own circumstances are perhaps going to change. I shall probably lose
+my course, being mentioned for promotion to the rank of corporal, which
+means being constantly in the trenches and various duties in the first
+line. I hope God will continue to bless me.
+
+. . . I feel that we have nothing to ask. If there should be in us
+something eternal which we must still manifest on earth, we may be sure
+that God will let us do it.
+
+
+_December_ 10 (2nd letter).
+
+Happily you and I live in a domain where everything unites us without
+our having to write our thoughts. . . .
+
+The weather is overcast again and promises us a wet time in the first
+and second lines.
+
+The day declines, and a great melancholy falls too upon everything. This
+is the hour of sadness for those who are far away, for all the soldiers
+whose hearts are with their homes, and who see night closing down upon
+the earth.
+
+I come to you, and immediately my heart grows warm. I can feel your
+attentive tenderness, and the wisdom which inspires your courage.
+Sometimes I am afraid of always saying the same thing, but how can I
+find new words for my poor love, tossed always through the same
+vicissitudes? Now that we are going to set out, perhaps we shall have to
+leave behind many cherished keepsakes, but the soul should not be
+strongly tied to fetiches. We are fond of clinging to many things, but
+love can do without them.
+
+
+_December 12, 10 o'clock_ (card).
+
+A soft day under the rain. All goes well in our melancholy woods. In
+various parts of the neighbourhood there has been a terrible cannonade.
+
+Received your letters of the 4th and 6th. They brought me happiness:
+they are the true joy of life. I am glad you visited C----. I hope to
+write to you at greater length. It is not that I have less leisure than
+usual, but I am going through a time when I am less sensible to the
+beauty of things. I long for true wisdom. . . .
+
+
+_December 12, 7 o'clock._
+
+To-day, in spite of the changing beauty of sun and rain, I did not feel
+alive to Nature. Yet never was there such grace and goodness in the
+skies.
+
+The landscape, with the little bridge and the man on horseback of which
+I have told you, softened under the splendour of the clouds. But I had
+lapsed from my former sense of the benediction of God, when suddenly
+the beauty, all the beauty, of a certain tree spoke to my inmost heart.
+It told me of fairness that never fails; of the greenness of ivy and the
+redness of autumn, the rigidity of winter in the branches;--and then I
+understood that an instant of such contemplation is the whole of life,
+the very reward of existence, beside which all human expectation is
+nothing but a bad dream.
+
+
+_Sunday, December 13._
+
+. . . After a refreshing night I walked to-day in these woods where for
+three months the dead have strewn the ground. To-day the vanishing
+autumn displayed its richness, and the same beauty of mossy trunks spoke
+to me, as it did yesterday, of eternal joy.
+
+I am sure it needs an enormous effort to feel all this, but it must be
+felt if we are to understand how little the general harmony is disturbed
+by that which intolerably assails our emotions.
+
+We must feel that all human uprooting is only a little thing, and what
+is truly ourselves is the life of the soul.
+
+
+_December 14_ (splendid weather,
+with all the calm returned).
+
+We are still here in the region of the first line, but in a place where
+we can lift our heads and behold the charm of my Meusian hills, clearing
+in the delicate weather.
+
+Above the village and the orchards I see the lines of birches and firs.
+Some have their skeletons coloured with a diaphanous violet marked with
+white. Others build up the horizon with stronger lines.
+
+I have been strengthened by the splendid lesson given me by a beautiful
+tree during a march. Ah, dear mother, we may all disappear and Nature
+will remain, and the gift I had from her of a moment of herself is
+enough to justify a whole existence. That tree was like a soldier.
+
+You would not believe how much harm has been done to the forests about
+here: it is not so much the machine-guns as the frightful amount of
+cutting necessary for making our shelters and for our fuel. Ah well, in
+the midst of this devastation something told me that there will always
+be beauty, in man and in tree.
+
+For man also gives this lesson, though in him it is less easily
+distinguished: it is a fine thing to see the splendid vitality of all
+this youth, whose force no harvest can diminish.
+
+
+_December 15, morning._
+
+I have had your dear letter of the 9th, in which you speak of our home.
+It makes me happy to feel how fine and strong is the force of life which
+soon adjusts itself to each separation and uprooting. It makes me happy,
+too, to think that my letters find an echo in your heart. Sometimes I
+was afraid of boring you, because though our life is so fine in many
+ways, it is certainly very primitive, and there are not many salient
+things to relate.
+
+If only I could follow my calling of painter I could have recourse to
+these wonderful visions that lie before me, and I could find vent for
+all the pent-up artist's emotion that is within me. As it is, in trying
+to speak of the sky, the tree, the hill, or the horizon, I cannot use
+words as subtle as they, and the infinite variety of these things can
+only be named in the same general terms, which I am afraid of constantly
+repeating. . . .
+
+
+_December 15._
+
+One must adapt oneself to this special kind of life, which is indigent
+as far as intellectual activity goes, but marvellously rich in emotion.
+I suppose that in troubled times for many centuries there have been men
+who, weary of luxury, have sought in the peace of the cloister the
+contemplation of eternal things; contemplation threatened by the crowd,
+but a refuge even so. And so I think our life is like that of the monks
+of old, who were military too, and more apt at fighting than I could
+ever be. Among them, those who willed could know the joy which I now
+find.
+
+To-day I have a touching letter from Madame M----, whose spirit I love
+and admire.
+
+Changeable but very beautiful weather.
+
+It is impossible to say more than we have already said about the
+attitude we must adopt in regard to events. The important thing is to
+put this attitude in practice. It is not easy, as I have learnt in these
+last days, though no new difficulty had arisen to impede my path towards
+wisdom.
+
+. . . Tormenting anxiety can sometimes be mistaken for an alert
+conscience.
+
+
+_December 16._
+
+Yesterday in our shelter I got out your little album--very much damaged,
+alas--and I tried to copy some of the lines of the landscape. I was
+stopped by the cold, and I was returning dissatisfied when I suddenly
+had the idea of making one of my friends sit for me. How can I tell you
+what a joy it was to get a good result! I believe that my little pencil
+proved entirely successful. The sketch has been sent away in a letter to
+some friend of his. It was such a true joy to me to feel I had not lost
+my faculty.
+
+
+_December 17_ (in a new billet).
+
+. . . Last night we left behind all that was familiar when we came out of
+the first-line trenches after three days of perfect peace there. We were
+told off to the billet which we occupied on October 6th and 7th. One
+can feel in the air the wind of change. I don't know what may come, but
+the serenity of the weather to-day seems an augury of happiness.
+
+These have been days of marvellous scenes, which I can appreciate better
+now than during those few days of discouragement, which came because I
+allowed myself to reckon things according to our miserable human
+standards.
+
+I write to you by a window from which I watch the sunset. You see that
+goodness is everywhere for us.
+
+
+_3 o'clock._
+
+. . . I take up this letter once more in the twilight of an exceptional
+winter: the day fades away as calmly as it came. I am watching the women
+washing clothes under the lines of trees on the river bank; there is
+peace everywhere--I think even in our hearts. Night falls. . . .
+
+
+_December 19_ (in a billet).
+
+A sweet day, ending here round the table. Quiet, drawing, music. I can
+think with calm of the length of the days to come when I realise how
+swift have been these days that are past. Half the month is gone, and
+Christmas comes in the midst of war. The only thing for me is to adapt
+myself entirely to these conditions of existence, and, owing to my union
+with you, to gain a degree of acceptance which is of an order higher
+than human courage.
+
+
+_December 21, morning._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--I have told you freely in my letters of my
+happiness; but the rock ahead of happiness is that poor humanity is in
+perpetual fear of losing it. In spite of all experience, we do not
+realise that in the eternal scheme of things a new happiness always
+grows at the side of an old one.
+
+For myself, I have not to look for a new one. I have only to try to
+reconcile two wisdoms. One, which is human, prompts me to cultivate my
+happiness, but the other teaches me that human happiness is a most
+perishable flower.
+
+We may say: Let us make use of the joys chosen by an upright conscience;
+but let us never forget how swiftly these pass.
+
+Yes, the Holy Scriptures contain the finest and most poetical
+philosophy. I think they owe it to their affiliation to the oldest
+philosophies. There are many disputable things in Edouard Schure, but
+what remains is the divination which made him climb through all doctrine
+to the infinitely distant Source of human wisdom.
+
+Do you know that those touching traditions of the Good Shepherd and the
+Divine Mother, so happily employed in our Christian religions, are the
+creations of the oldest symbolism? The Greeks derived them from their
+own spiritual ancestors; with them the good shepherd was called Hermes,
+the god of the migration of souls. In the same way, the type of our
+Madonna is the great Demeter, the mother who bears an infant in her
+arms.
+
+One feels that all religions, as they succeeded each other, transmitted
+the same body of symbols, renewed each time by humanity's
+perpetually-young spirit of poetry.
+
+
+_December 23_ (in the dark).
+
+I had begun this letter yesterday, when I was forced to leave off. It
+was then splendid weather, which has lasted fairly well. But we are now
+back again in our first lines. This time we are occupying the village
+itself, our pretty Corot village of two months ago. But our outpost is
+situated in a house where we are obliged to show no sign of life, so as
+to conceal our presence from the enemy. And so here we are at nine
+o'clock in the morning, in a darkness that would make it seem to be late
+on Christmas eve.
+
+Your dear letter lately received has given me great joy. It is true that
+Grace and Inspiration are two names for the same thing.
+
+If you are going to see the pictures of the great poet Gustave Moreau,
+you will see a panel called _La vie de l'humanite_ (I believe). It
+consists of nine sections in three divisions, called _l'Age d'or, l'Age
+d'argent, l'Age de fer_. Above is a pediment from which Christ presides
+over this human panorama. But this is where this great genius has the
+same intuition as you had: each of the three parts bears the name of a
+hero--Adam, Orpheus, and Cain, and each one represents three periods.
+Now, the periods of the golden age are called Ecstasy, Prayer, and
+Sleep, while the periods of the silver age are called Inspiration, Song,
+and Tears.
+
+Ecstasy is the same as Grace, because the picture shows Adam and Eve in
+the purity of their souls, in a scene of flowers, and in the enjoyment
+of divine contemplation. The harmony of Nature itself urges them on in
+their impulse towards God.
+
+In the silver age, Inspiration is still Grace, but just beginning to be
+complicated by human artifice. The poet Orpheus perpetually contemplates
+God, but the Muse is always at his elbow, the symbol of human art is
+already born; and that great human manifestation of God, Song, brings
+with it grief and tears.
+
+Following out the cycle and coming to human evil, Gustave Moreau shows
+the iron age--Cain condemned to labour and sorrow.
+
+This work shows that the divine moment may be seized, but is fugitive
+and can never remain with man. It explains our failures. People say that
+the picture is too literary, but it touches the heart of those who wish
+to break through the ice with which all human expression is chilled.
+
+Undoubtedly Rembrandt was the Poet of genius _par excellence_, at the
+same time as he was pure Painter. But let us grant that ours is a less
+rich time, our temperaments less universal; and let us recognise the
+beauty of Gustave Moreau's poem, of which, in two words, you expressed
+the spirit.
+
+YOUR SON.
+
+
+_December 24, morning._
+
+Our first day in the outpost passed away in the calm of a country
+awaiting snow. It came in the night.
+
+In the back gardens, which lie in sight of the Germans, I went out to
+see it, where it emphasised and ennobled the least of things. Then I
+came back to my candle, and I write on a table where my neighbour is
+grating chocolate. So that is war.
+
+Military life has some amusing surprises. We had to come to the first
+line before two non-commissioned officers found a bath and could bathe
+themselves. As for me, I have made myself a water-jug out of a part of a
+75.
+
+. . . I will not speak of patience, since a reserve of mere patience may
+be useless preparation for the unknown quantity. But I must say that the
+time goes extremely quickly.
+
+We spend child-like days; indeed we are children in regard to these
+events, and the benefit of this war will have been to restore youth to
+the hearts of those who return.
+
+Dear mother, our village has just had a visit from two shells. Will they
+be followed by others? May God help us! The other day they sent us a
+hundred and fifteen, to wound one man in the wrist!
+
+A house in which a section of our company is living is in flames. We
+have not seen a soul stirring. We can only hope that it is well with
+them.
+
+I am deeply happy to have lived through these few months. They have
+taught me what one can make of one's life, in any circumstances.
+
+My fellow-soldiers are splendid examples of the French spirit. . . .
+They swagger, but their swagger is only the outer form of a deep and
+magnificent courage.
+
+My great fault as an artist is that I am always wanting to clothe the
+soul of the race in some beautiful garment painted in my own colours.
+And when people irritate me it is that they are soiling these beautiful
+robes; but, as a matter of fact, they would find them a bad encumbrance
+in the way of their plain duty.
+
+
+_Christmas Morning._
+
+What a unique night!--night without parallel, in which beauty has
+triumphed, in which mankind, notwithstanding their delirium of
+slaughter, have proved the reality of their conscience.
+
+During the intermittent bombardments a song has never ceased to rise
+from the whole line.
+
+Opposite to us a most beautiful tenor was declaiming the enemy's
+Christmas. Much farther off, beyond the ridges, where our lines begin
+again, the _Marseillaise_ replied. The marvellous night lavished on us
+her stars and meteors. Hymns, hymns, from end to end.
+
+It was the eternal longing for harmony, the indomitable claim for order
+and beauty and concord.
+
+As for me, I cherished old memories in meditating on the sweetness of
+the Childhood of Christ. The freshness, the dewy youthfulness of this
+French music, were very moving to me. I remembered the celebrated
+_Sommeil des Pelerins_ and the shepherds' chorus. A phrase which is sung
+by the Virgin thrilled me: '_Le Seigneur, pour mon fils, a beni cet
+asile_.' The melody rang in my ears while I was in that little house,
+with its neighbour in flames, and itself given over to a precarious
+fate.
+
+I thought of all happinesses bestowed; I thought that you were perhaps
+at this moment calling down a blessing upon my abode. The sky was so
+lovely that it seemed to smile favourably upon all petition; but what I
+want strength to ask for perpetually is consistent wisdom--wisdom which,
+human though it may be, is none the less safe from anything that may
+assail it.
+
+The sun is flooding the country and yet I write by candle-light; now and
+then I go out into the back gardens to see the sun. All is light, peace
+falling from on high upon the deserted country.
+
+I come back to our room, where the brass of the pretty Meusian beds and
+the carved wood of the cupboards shine in the half-light. All these
+things have suffered through the rough use the soldiers put them to, but
+we have real comfort here. We have found table-implements and a
+dinner-service, and for two days running we made chocolate in a
+soup-tureen. Luxury!
+
+O dear mother, if God allows me the joy of returning, what youth will
+this extraordinary time have brought back to me! As I wrote to my friend
+P----, I lead the life of a child in the midst of people so simple that
+even my rudimentary existence is complicated in comparison with my
+surroundings.
+
+Mother dear, the length of this war tries our power of passive will, but
+I feel that everything is coming out as I was able to foresee. I think
+that these long spells of inactivity will give repose to the
+intellectual machine. If I ever have the happiness of once more making
+use of mine, it is sure to take a little time to get moving again, but
+with what new vigour! My last work was one of pure thought, and my
+ambition, which all things justify, is to give a more plastic form to my
+thought as it develops.
+
+
+_Sunday, December 27, 9 o'clock_
+(5th day in the first line).
+
+It appears that the terrible position, courageously held by us on
+October 14th, and immediately lost by our successors, has been retaken,
+and 200 metres more, but at the price of a hundred casualties.
+
+Dear mother, want of sleep robs me of all intelligence. True, one needs
+little of that for the general run of existence here, but I should have
+liked to speak to you. The only consolation is that our love needs no
+expression.
+
+Very little to tell you. I was quite stupefied by the day's work
+yesterday, spent entirely in darkness. From my place I had only a
+glimpse of a pretty tree against the sky.
+
+To-day, in the charming early morning I saw a beautiful and extremely
+brilliant star. I had gone to fetch some coal and water, and on the way
+back, when daylight had already come, that extraordinary star still
+persisted. My corporal, who, like me, was dodging from bush to bush back
+to our house, said:
+
+'Do you know what that star is? It is the sign for the enemy's patrol to
+rally.'
+
+It was true, and at first I felt outraged at this profanation of the
+sky, and then (apart from the ingenuity of the thing) I told myself that
+this star meant, for those poor creatures on the other side, that they
+could take the direction of safety. I felt less angry about it then. The
+sign had given me so much joy as a star that I decided to stick to my
+first impression.
+
+
+_December 30._
+
+Your Christmas letter came last night. Perhaps in this very hour when I
+am writing to you, mine of the same day is reaching you. At that time,
+in spite of the risk, I was enjoying all the beauty, but to-day I
+confess it is poisoned for me by what we hear of the last slaughter.
+
+On the 26th we were made to remain on duty, in positions occupied only
+at night as a rule. Our purely defensive position was lucky that day,
+for we were exposed only to slight artillery fire; but on our right a
+regiment of our division, in one of the terrible emplacements of
+October 14th, received an awful punishment, of which the inconclusive
+result cost several hundred lives. Here in our great village, where our
+kind hostess knew, as we did, the victims, all is sadness.
+
+
+_Same day._
+
+. . . Nothing attacks the soul. The torture can certainly be very great,
+especially the apprehension, but questions coming from the distance can
+be silenced by acceptation of what is close. The weather is sweet and
+soft, and Nature is indifferent. The dead will not spoil the spring. . . .
+
+And then, once the horror of the moment is over, when one sees its place
+taken by only the memory of those who have gone, there is a kind of
+sweetness in the thought of what _really exists_. In these solemn woods
+one realises the inanity of sepulchres and the pomp of funerals. The
+souls of the brave have no need of all that. . . .
+
+
+_4 o'clock._
+
+I have just finished the fourth portrait, a lieutenant in my company. He
+is delighted. Daylight fades. I send you my thoughts, full of
+cheerfulness. Hope and wisdom.
+
+
+_January 3, 1915._
+
+. . . Yesterday, after the first satisfaction of finding myself freed
+from manual work, I contemplated my stripes, and I felt some
+humiliation, because instead of the great anonymous superiority of the
+ordinary soldier which had put me beyond all military valuation, I had
+now the distinction of being a low number in military rank!
+
+But then I felt that each time I looked at my little bits of red wool I
+should remember my social duty, a duty which my leaning towards
+individualism makes me forget only too often. So I knew I was still free
+to cultivate my soul, having this final effort to demand of it.
+
+
+_January 4, despatched on the 7th_
+(in a mine).
+
+I am writing to you at the entrance to an underground passage which
+leads under the enemy emplacement. My little job is to look out for the
+safety of the sappers, who are hollowing out and supporting and
+consolidating an excavation about twelve metres deep already. To get to
+this place we have to plunge into mud up to our thighs, but during the
+eight hours we spend here we are sheltered by earthworks several metres
+thick.
+
+I have six men, with whom I have led an existence of sleeplessness and
+privation for three days: this is the benefit I derive from the joyful
+event of my new status; but as a matter of fact I am glad to take part
+in these trials again.
+
+Besides, in a few days the temporary post which I held before may be
+given to me altogether. Horrible weather, and to make matters worse, I
+burnt an absolutely new boot, and am soaking wet, like the others, but
+in excellent health.
+
+Dear, I am now going to sleep a little.
+
+
+_January 6, evening._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--Here we are in a billet after seventy-two consecutive
+hours without sleep, living in a nameless treacly substance--rain and
+filth.
+
+I have had several letters from you, dear beloved mother; the last is
+dated January 1. How I love them! But before speaking of them I must
+sleep a little.
+
+
+_January 7, towards mid-day._
+
+This interrupted letter winds up at the police-station, where my section
+is on guard. The weather is still horrible. It's unspeakable, this
+derangement of our whole existence. We are under water: the walls are of
+mud, and the floor and ceiling too.
+
+
+_January 9._
+
+. . . My consolations fail me in these days, on account of the weather.
+This horrible mess lets me see nothing whatever. I close with an ardent
+appeal to our love, and in the certainty of a justice higher than our
+own. . . .
+
+Dear mother, as to sending things, I am really in need of nothing.
+Penury now is of another kind, but courage, always! Yet is it even sure
+that moral effort bears any fruit?
+
+
+_January 13, morning_ (in the trench).
+
+I hope that when you think of me you will have in mind all those who
+have left everything behind: their family, their surroundings, their
+whole social environment; all those of whom their nearest and dearest
+think only in the past, saying, 'We had once a brother, who, many years
+ago, withdrew from this world, we know nothing of his fate.' Then I,
+feeling that you too have abandoned all human attachment, will walk
+freely in this life, closed to all ordinary relations.
+
+I don't regret my new rank; it has brought me many troubles but a great
+deal of experience, and, as a matter of fact, some ameliorations.
+
+So I want to continue to live as fully as possible in this moment, and
+that will be all the easier for me if I can feel that you have brought
+yourself to the idea that my present life cannot in any way be lost.
+
+I did not tell you enough what pleasure the _Revues Hebdomadaires_ gave
+me. I found some extracts from that speech on Lamartine which I am
+passionately fond of. Circumstances led this poet to give to his art
+only the lowest place. Life in general closed him round, imposing on his
+great heart a more serious and immediate task than that which awaited
+his genius.
+
+
+_January 15_ (in a new billet), 12.30 P.M.
+
+We no longer have any issue whatever in sight.
+
+My only sanction is in my conscience. We must confide ourselves to an
+impersonal justice, independent of any human factor, and to a useful and
+harmonious destiny, in spite of the horrors of its form.
+
+
+_January 17, afternoon_ (in a billet).
+
+What shall I say to you on this strange January afternoon, when thunder
+is followed by snow?
+
+Our billet provides us with many commodities, but above all with an
+intoxicating beauty and poetry. Imagine a lake in a park sheltered by
+high hills, and a castle, or, rather, a splendid country house. We lodge
+in the domestic offices, but I don't need any wonderful home comforts
+to perfect the dream-like existence that I have led here for three days.
+Last night we were visited by some singers. We were very far from the
+music that I love, but the popular and sentimental tunes were quite able
+to replace a finer art, because of the ardent conviction of the singer.
+The workman who sang these songs, which were decent, in fact moral (a
+rather questionable moral, perhaps, but still a moral), so put his soul
+into it that the timbre of his voice was altogether too moving for our
+hostesses. Here are the ideal people: perhaps their ideal may be said
+not to exist and to be purely negative, but months of suffering have
+taught me to honour it.
+
+I have just seen that Charles Peguy died at the beginning of the war.
+How terribly French thought will have been mown down! What surpasses our
+understanding (and yet what is only natural) is that civilians are able
+to continue their normal life while we are in torment. I saw in the _Cri
+de Paris_, which drifted as far as here, a list of concert programmes.
+What a contrast! However, mother dear, the essential thing is to have
+known beauty in moments of grace.
+
+The weather is frightful, but one can feel the coming of spring. At a
+time like this nothing can speak of individual hope, only of great
+general certainties.
+
+
+_January 19._
+
+We have been since yesterday in our second line positions; we came to
+them in marvellous snow and frost. A furious sky, with charming rosy
+colour in it, floated over the visionary forest in the snow; the trees,
+limpid blue low down, brown and fretted above, the earth white.
+
+I have received two parcels; the _Chanson de Roland_ gives me infinite
+pleasure--particularly the Introduction, treating of the national epic
+and of the Mahabharata which, it seems, tells of the fight between the
+spirits of good and evil.
+
+I am happy in your lovely letters. As for the sufferings which you
+forebode for me, they are really very tolerable.
+
+But what we must recognise, and without shame, is that we are a
+_bourgeois_ people. We have tasted of the honey of civilisation--poisoned
+honey, no doubt. But no, surely that sweetness is true, and we should
+not be called upon to make of our ordinary existence a preparation for
+violence. I know that violence may be salutary to us, especially if in
+the midst of it we do not lose sight of normal order and calm.
+
+Order leads to eternal rest. Violence makes life go round. We have, for
+our object, order and eternal rest; but without the violence which lets
+loose reserves of energy, we should be too inclined to consider order as
+already attained. But anticipated order can only be a lethargy which
+retards the coming of positive order.
+
+Our sufferings arise only from our disappointment in this delay; the
+coming of true order is too long for human patience. In any case,
+however suffering, we would rather not be doers of violence. It is as
+when matter in fusion solidifies too quickly and in the wrong shape: it
+has to be put to the fire again. This is the part violence plays in
+human evolution; but that salutary violence must not make us forget what
+our aesthetic citizenship had acquired in the way of perdurable peace and
+harmony. But our suffering comes precisely from the fact that we do not
+forget it!
+
+
+_January 20, morning._
+
+Do not think that I ever deprive myself of sleep. In that matter our
+regiment is very fitful: one time we sleep for three days and three
+nights; another time, the opposite.
+
+Now Nature gives me her support once more. The frightful spell of rain
+is interrupted by fine cold days. We live in the midst of beautiful
+frost and snow; the hard earth gives us a firm footing.
+
+My little grade gets me some solitude. I no longer have my happy walks
+by night, but I have them in the day; my exemption from the hardest work
+gives me time to realise the beauty of things.
+
+Yesterday, an unspeakable sunset. A filmy atmosphere, with shreds of
+tender colour; underneath, the blue cold of the snow.
+
+Dear mother, it is a night of home-sickness. These familiar verses came
+to me in the peace:
+
+          'Mon enfant, ma soeur,
+           Songe a la douceur
+           D'aller la-bas vivre ensemble
+           Au pays qui te ressemble.'
+
+Yes, Beaudelaire's _Invitation au voyage_ seemed to take wing in the
+exquisite sky. Oh, I was far from war. Well, to return to earthly
+things: in coming back I nearly missed my dinner.
+
+
+_January 20, evening._
+
+Acceptation always. Adaptation to the life which goes on and on, taking
+no notice of our little postulations.
+
+
+_January 21._
+
+We are in our first-line emplacements. The snow has followed us, but
+alas, the thaw too. Happily, in this emplacement we don't live in water
+as we do in the trenches.
+
+Can any one describe the grace of winter trees? Did I already tell you
+what Anatole France says in the _Mannequin d'Osier_? He loves their
+delicate outlines and their intimate beauty more when they are uncovered
+in winter. I too love the marvellous intricate pattern of their branches
+against the sky.
+
+From my post I can see our poor village, which is collapsing more and
+more. Each day shells are destroying it. The church is hollowed out, but
+its old charm remains in its ruins; it crouches so prettily between the
+two delicately defined hills.
+
+We were very happy in the second line. That time of snow was really
+beautiful and clement. I told you yesterday about the sunset the other
+day. And, before that, our arrival in the marvellous woods. . . .
+
+
+_January 22._
+
+. . . I have sent you a few verses; I don't know what they are worth,
+but they reconciled me to life. And then our last billet was really
+wonderful in its beauty. Water running over pebbles . . . vast, limpid
+waters at the end of the park. Sleeping ponds, dreaming walks, which
+none of this brutality has succeeded in defiling. To-day, sun on the
+snow. The beauty of the snow was deeply moving, though certainly we had
+some bad days, days on which there was nothing for us but the wretched
+mud.
+
+It seems that we won't be coming back to this pretty billet. Evidently
+they are making ready for something; the regularity of our winter
+existence has come to an end.
+
+
+_2 o'clock._
+
+Splendid weather, herald of the spring, and we can make the most of it,
+because in this place we are allowed to put our noses out of doors.
+
+I write badly to-day. I can only send you my love. This war is long, and
+I can't even speak of patience.
+
+My only happiness is that during these five and a half months I have so
+often been able to tell you that everything was not ugliness. . . .
+
+
+_January 23._
+
+. . . As for me, I have no desires left. When my trials are really hard to
+bear, I rest content with my own unhappiness, without facing other
+things.
+
+When they become less hard, then I begin to think, to dream, and the
+past that is dear to me seems to have that same remote poetry which in
+happier days drew my thoughts to distant countries. A familiar street,
+or certain well-known corners, spring suddenly to my mind--just as in
+other days islands of dreams and legendary countries used to rise at the
+call of certain music and verse. But now there is no need of verse or
+music; the intensity of dear memories is enough.
+
+I have not even any idea of what a new life could be; I only know that
+we are making life here and now.
+
+For whom, and for what age? It hardly matters. What I do know, and what
+is affirmed in the very depths of my being, is that this harvest of
+French genius will be safely stored, and that the intellect of our race
+will not suffer for the deep cuts that have been made in it.
+
+Who will say that the rough peasant, comrade of the fallen thinker, will
+not be the inheritor of his thoughts? No experience can falsify this
+magnificent intuition. The peasant's son who has witnessed the death of
+the young scholar or artist will perhaps take up the interrupted work,
+be perhaps a link in the chain of evolution which has been for a moment
+suspended. This is the real sacrifice: to renounce the hope of being
+the torch-bearer. To a child in a game it is a fine thing to carry the
+flag; but for a man, it is enough to know that the flag will yet be
+carried. And that is what every moment of great august Nature brings
+home to me. Every moment reassures my heart: Nature makes flags out of
+anything. They are more beautiful than those to which our little habits
+cling. And there will always be eyes to see and cherish the lessons of
+earth and sky.
+
+
+_January 26._
+
+Your dear letter of the 20th reached me last night. You must not be
+angry with me if occasionally, as in my letter of the 13th, I lack the
+very thing I am always forcing myself to acquire. But I ask you to
+consider what can be the thoughts of one who is young, in the fulness of
+productiveness, at the hour when life is flowering, if he is snatched
+away, and cast upon barren soil where all he has cherished fails him.
+
+Well, after the first wrench he finds that life has not forsaken him,
+and sets to work upon the new ungrateful ground. The effort calls for
+such a concentration of energy as leaves no time for either hopes or
+fears. It is the constant effort at adaptation, and I manage it, except
+only in moments of the rebellion (quickly suppressed) of the thoughts
+and wishes of the past. But I need my whole strength at times for
+keeping down the pangs of memory and accepting what is.
+
+I was thinking of the sad moments that you too endure, and that was why
+I encouraged you to an impersonal idea of our union. I know how strong
+you are, and how prepared for this idea. Yes, you are right, we must not
+meet the pain half-way. But at times it is difficult to distinguish
+between the real suffering that affects us, and that which is only
+possible or imminent.
+
+Mind you notice that _I have perfect hope_ and that I count on
+prevailing grace, but, caring more than anything to be an artist, I am
+occupied in drawing all the beauty out, in drawing out the utmost
+beauty, as quickly as may be, none of us knowing how much time is meted
+to us.
+
+
+_January 27, afternoon._
+
+After two bad nights in the billet owing to the lack of straw, the third
+night was interrupted by our sudden departure for our emplacement in the
+second line.
+
+Superb weather, frost and sun.
+
+Great Nature begins again to enfold me, and her voice, which is now
+powerful again, consoles me.--But, dear, what a hole in one's existence!
+Yes, since my promotion I have lived through moments which, though less
+terrible, recalled the first days of September, but with the addition of
+many blessings. I accept this new life, with no forecast of the future.
+
+
+_January 28, in the morning sun._
+
+The hard and splendid weather has this marvellous good--that it leaves
+in its great pure sky an open door for poetry. Yes, all that I told you
+of that beautiful time of snow came from a heart that was comforted by
+such triumphant beauty.
+
+In the Reviews you send me I have read with pleasure the articles on
+Moliere, on the English parliament, on Martainville, and on the
+religious questions of 1830. . . .
+
+Did I tell you that I learnt from the papers of the death of
+Hillemacher? That dear friend was killed in this terrible war.
+
+
+_February 1._
+
+MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,--I have your dear letters of the 26th and 27th;
+they do bring new life to me.
+
+Up till now, our first-line emplacement, which this time is in the
+village, has been favoured with complete calm, and I have known once
+more those hours of grace when Nature consoles me.
+
+My situation has this special improvement, that the drudgery I do now is
+done at the instance of the general good, and no longer at the dictation
+of mere routine.
+
+
+_February 2._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--I go on with this letter in the billet, where the great
+worry of accumulated work fills up the void which Melancholy would make
+her own.
+
+Dark days have come upon me, and nothingness seems the end of all,
+whereas all that is in my being had assured me of the plenitude of the
+universe. Yes, devotion, not to individuals but to the social ideal of
+brotherhood, sustains me still. Oh, what a magnificent example is to be
+found in Jesus and in the poor. That righteous aristocrat, showing by
+His abhorrent task the infinite obligation of altruistic duty, and
+teaching, above all, that no return of gratitude should be demanded. . . .
+To my experience of men and things I owe this tranquillity of
+expecting nothing from any one. Thus duty takes an abstract form,
+deprived of a human object.
+
+An unspeakable sunrise to-day! Another spring draws near. . . . I want
+to tell you about our three days in the first line.
+
+Snow and frost. We went down the slopes leading to our emplacement in
+the village. The night was then so beautiful that it moved the heart of
+every soldier to see it. I could never say enough about the fine
+delicacy of this country. How can I explain to you the chiselled effect,
+allied to the dream-like mists, with the moon soaring above? For three
+days my night-service took me straight to the heart of this purity,
+this whiteness.
+
+Tarnished gold-work of the trees. And, in spite of the mist, many
+colours, rose and blue.
+
+There are hours of such beauty that those who take them to themselves
+can hardly die. I was well in front of the first lines, and never did I
+feel better protected. This morning, when I came, a pink and green
+sunrise over the blue and rosy snow; the open country marked with woods
+and covered fields; far off, the distance, in which the silvery Meuse
+fades away. O Beauty, in spite of all!
+
+
+_February 2._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--Your letter of the 29th has this moment come to
+the billet. A nameless day, a day without form, yet a day in which the
+spring most mysteriously begins to stir. Warm air in the lengthening
+days; a sudden softening, a weakening of Nature. Alas, how sweet this
+emotion would be if it could be felt outside this slavery, but the
+weakness which comes ordinarily with spring only serves here to make
+burdens heavier.
+
+Dear mother, how glad I am to feel the sympathy of those who are far
+away. Ah, what sweetness there is!
+
+I am delighted by the Reviews; in an admirable article on Louis Veuillot
+I noticed this phrase: 'O my God, take away my despair and leave my
+grief!' Yes, we must not misunderstand the fruitful lesson taught by
+grief, and if I return from this war it will most certainly be with a
+soul formed and enriched.
+
+I also read with pleasure the lectures on Moliere, and in him, as
+elsewhere, I have viewed again the solitude in which the highest souls
+wander. But I owe it to my old sentimental wounds never to suffer again
+through the acts of others. My dearly loved mother, I will write to you
+better to-morrow.
+
+
+_February 4._
+
+Last night, on coming back to the barn, drunkenness, quarrels, cries,
+songs and yells. Such is life!. . . But when morning came and the
+wakening from sleep still brought me memories of this, I got up before
+the time, and found outside a friendly moon, and the great night taking
+wing, and a dawn which had pity on me. The blessed spring day gilds
+everything and scatters its promises and hopes.
+
+Dear, I was reflecting on Tolstoi's title, _War and Peace_. I used to
+think that he wanted to express the antithesis of these two states, but
+now I ask myself if he did not connect these two contraries in one and
+the same folly--if the fortunes of humanity, whether at war or at peace,
+were not equally a burden to his mind. By all means let us keep faithful
+to our efforts to be good; but in spite of ourselves we take this
+precept a little in the sense of the placards: 'Be good to animals.' How
+hard it is, in the midst of daily duties, to keep guard upon oneself.
+
+
+_February 5._
+
+A sleepless night. Hateful return to the barn. Such a fearful row that
+the corporals had to complain. Punishments.
+
+In the morning, on the march, and, in order to rest us, work to-night!
+
+
+_February 6._
+
+MY DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--After the sleepless night in our billet, we had
+to supply a working-party all the following night. So I have been
+sleeping up till the very moment of writing to you. Sleep and Night are
+refuges which give life still one attraction.
+
+Mother dear, I am living over again the lovely legend of Sarpedon; and
+that exquisite flower of Greek poetry really gives me comfort. If you
+will read this passage of the _Iliad_ in my beautiful translation by
+Lecomte de l'Isle, you will see that Zeus utters in regard to destiny
+certain words in which the divine and the eternal shine out as nobly as
+in the Christian Passion. He suffers, and his fatherly heart undergoes a
+long battle, but finally he permits his son to die, and Hypnos and
+Thanatos are sent to gather up the beloved remains.
+
+Hypnos--that is Sleep. To think that I should come to that, I for whom
+every waking hour was a waking joy, I for whom every moment of action
+was a thrill of pride. I catch myself longing for the escape of Sleep
+from the tumult that besets me. But the splendid Greek optimism shines
+out as in those vases at the Louvre. By the two, Hypnos and Thanatos,
+Sarpedon is lifted to a life beyond his human death; and assuredly Sleep
+and Death do wonderfully magnify and continue our mortal fate.
+
+Thanatos--that is a mystery, and it is a terror only because the urgency
+of our transitory desires makes us misconceive the mystery. But read
+over again the great peaceful words of Maeterlinck in his book on death,
+words ringing with compassion for our fears in the tremendous passage of
+mortality.
+
+
+_February 7._
+
+MOST DEAR AND MOST BELOVED,--I have your splendid letter of the first.
+Please don't hesitate to write what you think I would call mere chatter.
+Your love and the absolute identity of our two hearts appear in all your
+letters. And that is all I really care for. Yet they tell me a thousand
+things that interest me too.
+
+We are living through hours of heavy labour. My rank gives me respite
+now and then; but for the men it means five nights at a time without
+sleep, and this repeatedly.
+
+
+_February 9._
+
+Another breathing-space in which, almost at my last gasp, I get a brief
+peace. The little reviving breath comes again. I have had the good luck
+to be appointed corporal on guard in delightful quarters, where I am in
+command. Perfect spring weather. And what can I say of this Nature?
+Never before have I so fully felt her amplitude of life. Hours and
+seasons following one another surely, infallibly, unalterably, in
+unchanging unity; the looker-on has a glimpse of the immensity of the
+force that first set them afoot.
+
+I had often known the delight of watching the nearer coming of a season,
+but it had not before been given to me to live in that delight moment by
+moment. It is so that one learns, without the help of any kind of
+science, a certain intuition, vague perhaps, but altogether
+indisputable, of the Absolute. There was a man of science, possibly a
+great one, who declared that he had not discovered God under his
+scalpel. What a shocking mistake for an able mind to make! Where was the
+need of a scalpel, when the joy and the thrill of our senses are
+all-sufficient to convince us of the purpose commanding our whole
+evolution? The poet watches the coming of the seasons as it were great
+ships that will, he knows, set sail again. At times the storm may delay
+them, but at their next coming they will bring with them the rich
+fragrance of the unknown coasts. A season coming again to our own shores
+seems to bring us delights which it has learnt by long travel.
+
+Ah, dearest mother, if one could have again a retreat for the soul! O
+solitude, for those worthy to possess it! How seldom is it inviolate!
+
+
+_February 11._
+
+It may possibly be a great intended privilege for our generation to be a
+witness of these horrors, but what a terrible price to pay! Well, faith,
+eternal faith, is over all. Faith in an evolution, an Order, beyond our
+human patience.
+
+
+_February 11_ (2nd day in
+the front line).
+
+In such hours as these one must perforce take refuge in the extra-human
+principle of sacrifice; it is impossible for mere humanity to go
+further.
+
+Let go all poor human hope. Seek something beyond; perhaps you have
+already found it. As for me, I feel myself to be unworthy in such days
+to be anything more than a memory. I picked some flowers in the mud.
+Keep them in remembrance of me.
+
+
+_5 o'clock._
+
+Courage through all, courage in spite of all.
+
+
+_February 13_ (4th day in
+the front line).
+
+BELOVED,--After the days of tears and of rebellion of the heart that
+have so shaken me, I pull myself together again to say 'Thy will be
+done.' So, according to the power and the measure of my faculties, I
+would be he who to the very end never despaired of his share in the
+building of the Temple. I would be the workman who, knowing full well
+that his scaffolding will give way and who has no hope of safety, goes
+on with his stone-carving of decoration on the cathedral front.
+Decoration. I am not one who will ever be able to lift the blocks of
+stone. But there are others for that job. Yes, I am getting back into a
+little quiet thinking. The equable tranquillity I had hoped for is not
+yet mine; but I have occasional glimpses of that region of peace and
+light in which all things, even our love, is renewed and transfigured.
+
+I am now at the foot of a peaked hill where Nature has brought the
+loveliest lines of design together. Man is hunting man, and in a moment
+they will be locked in fight. Meanwhile the lark is rising.
+
+Even as I write, a strange serenity possesses me.
+Something--extraordinary comfort. Be it a human quality, be it a
+revelation from on high. All around me men are asleep.
+
+
+_February 14_ (5th day in
+the front line).
+
+All is movement about us; we too are afoot. Even as the inevitable takes
+shape, peace revisits my heart at last. My beloved country is defiled
+by these detestable preparations of battle; the silence is rent by the
+preliminary gun-fire; man succeeds for a time in cancelling all the
+beauty of the world. But I think it will even yet find a place of
+refuge. For twenty-four hours now I have been my own self.
+
+Dear mother, I was wrong to think so much of my 'tower of ivory.' What
+we too often take for a tower of ivory is nothing more than an old
+cheese where a hermit rat has made his house.
+
+Rather, may a better spirit move me to gratitude for the salutary shocks
+that tossed me out of too pleasant a place of peace; let us be thankful
+for the dispensation which, during certain hours--hours far apart but
+never to be forgotten--made a man of me.
+
+No, no, I will not mourn over my dead youth. It led me by steep and
+devious ways to the tablelands where the mists that hung over
+intelligence are no more.
+
+
+_February 16._
+
+In these latter days I have passed through certain hours, made decisive
+hours for me by the visibility of great and universal problems. We have
+now been for five days in the front line, with exceedingly hard work,
+hampered by the terrible mud. As our days have followed each other, and
+as my own struggle against the frightful sadness of my soul continued,
+the military situation was growing more tense, and the preparation for
+action was pushing on. Then came the announcement of the order of
+attack. There was only a day left--perhaps two days. It was then I wrote
+you two letters, I think those of the 13th and 14th; and really, as I
+was writing, I had within my heart such a plenitude of conviction, such
+a sweetness of feeling, as give incontrovertible assurance of the
+reality of the beautiful and the good. The bombardment of our position
+was violent; but nothing that man can do is able to stifle or silence
+what Nature has to say to the human soul.
+
+One night, between the 14th and the 15th, we were placed in trenches
+that were raked by machine-guns. Our men were so exhausted that they
+were obliged to give place to another battalion. We were waiting in the
+wet and the cold of night when suddenly the notice came that we were
+relieved. We could not tell why. But we are here again in this village,
+where the men deluge their poor hearts with wine. I am in the midst of
+them.
+
+Dear mother, if there is one thing absolute in human feeling, it is
+pain. I had lived hitherto in the contemplation of the interesting
+relations of different emotions, losing sight of the price, the
+intrinsic value, of life itself. But now I know what is essential life.
+It is that which clears the soul's way to the Absolute. But I suffered
+less in that time of waiting than I am suffering now from certain
+companionships.
+
+
+
+_February 16, 9 o'clock._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I was at dinner when they came to tell me we were
+off. I knew it would be so; the counter-orders that put off the attack
+cost us the march of forty kilometres in addition to the fatigues we had
+to undergo in the first line. As we were leaving our sector I noticed
+the arrival of such a quantity of artillery that I knew well enough the
+pause was at an end. But the soul has its own peace. It is frosty
+weather, with a sky full of stars.
+
+
+_February 19_ (sent off in the full
+swing of battle).
+
+One word only. We are in the hands of God. Never, never, have we so
+needed the wisdom of confidence. Death prevails, but it does not reign.
+Life is still noble. Friends of mine killed and wounded yesterday and
+the day before. Dearest, our messengers may be greatly delayed.
+
+
+_February 22._
+
+We are in billets after the great battle. And this time I saw it all. I
+did my duty; I knew that by the feeling of my men for me. But the best
+are dead. Bitter loss. This heroic regiment. We gained our object. Will
+write at more length.
+
+
+_February 22_ (1st day in billet).
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I will tell you about the goodness of God, and the
+horror of these things. The heaviness of heart that weighed me down this
+month and a half past was for the coming anguish to be undergone in
+these last twenty days.
+
+We reached the scene of action on the 17th. The preparation ceased to
+interest me; I was all expectation of the event. It broke out at three
+o'clock: the explosion of seven mines under the enemy's trenches. It was
+like a distant thunder. Next, five hundred guns created the hell into
+which we leapt.
+
+Night was coming on when we established ourselves in the positions we
+had taken. All that night I was actively at work for the security of our
+men, who had not suffered much. I had to cover great tracts, over which
+were scattered the wounded and the dead of both sides. My heart yearned
+over them, but I had nothing better than words to give them. In the
+morning we were driven, with serious loss, back to our previous
+positions, but in the evening we attacked again; we retook our whole
+advance; here again I did my duty. In my advance I got the sword of an
+officer who surrendered; after that I placed my men for guarding our
+ground. The captain ordered me to his side, and I gave him the plan of
+our position. He was telling me of his decision to have me mentioned,
+when he was killed before my eyes.
+
+Briefly, under the frightful fire of those three days, I organised and
+kept going the work of supplying cartridges; in this job five of my men
+were wounded. Our losses are terrible; those of the enemy greater still.
+You cannot imagine, beloved mother, what man will do against man. For
+five days my shoes have been slippery with human brains, I have walked
+among lungs, among entrails. The men eat, what little they have to eat,
+at the side of the dead. Our regiment was heroic; we have no officers
+left. They all died as brave men. Two good friends--one of them a fine
+model of my own for one of my last pictures--are killed. That was one of
+the terrible incidents of the evening. A white body, splendid under the
+moon! I lay down near him. The beauty of things awoke again for me.
+
+At last, after five days of horror that lost us twelve hundred men, we
+were ordered back from the scene of abomination.
+
+The regiment has been mentioned in despatches.
+
+Dear mother, how shall I ever speak of the unspeakable things I have had
+to see? But how shall I ever tell of the certainties this tempest has
+made clear to me? Duty; effort.
+
+
+_February 23._
+
+DEAREST BELOVED MOTHER,--A second day in billets. To-morrow we go to the
+front. Darling, I can't write to-day. Let us draw ever nearer to the
+eternal, let us remain devoted to our duty. I know how your thoughts fly
+to meet mine, and I turn mine towards the happiness of wisdom. Let us
+take courage; let me be brave among these young dead men, and be you
+brave in readiness. God is over us.
+
+
+_February 26_
+(a splendid afternoon).
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--Here we are again upon the battlefield. We have climbed
+the hill from which it would be better to praise the glory of God than
+to condemn the horrors of men. Innumerable dead at the setting-out of
+our march; but they grow fewer, leaving here and there some poor stray
+body, the colour of clay--a painful encounter. Our losses are what are
+called 'serious' in despatches.
+
+At all events I can assure you that our men are admirable and their
+resignation is heroic. All deplore this infamous war, but nearly all
+feel that the fulfilment of a hideous duty is the one only thing that
+justifies the horrible necessity of living at such a time as this.
+
+Dear mother, I cannot write more. The plain is settling to sleep under
+colours of violet and rose. How can things be so horrible?
+
+
+_February 28_ (in a billet).
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER, AND DEAR BELOVED GRANDMOTHER,--I am writing to you,
+having just struggled out of a most appalling nightmare, and out of
+Dantesque scenes that I have lived through. Things that Gustave Dore had
+the courage to picture through the text of the _Divina Commedia_ have
+come to pass, with all the variety and circumstance of fact. In the
+midst of labours that happily tend to deaden one's feelings, I have been
+able to gather the better fruits of pain.
+
+On the 24th, in the evening, we returned to our positions, from which
+the more hideous of the traces of battle had been partly removed. Only a
+few places were still scattered with fragments of men that were taking
+on the semblance of that clay to which they were returning. The weather
+was fine and cold, and the heights we had gained brought us into the
+very sky. The immensities appeared only as lights: the higher light, a
+brilliance of stars; the lower light, a glow of fires. The frightful
+bombardment with which the Germans overwhelm us is really a waste of
+fireworks.
+
+I lay in a dug-out from which I could follow the moon, and watch for
+daybreak. Now and again a shell crumbled the soil about me, and deafened
+me; then silence came again upon the frozen earth. I have paid the
+price, I have paid dearly, but I have had moments of solitude that were
+full of God.
+
+I really think I have tried to adapt myself to my work, for, as I told
+you, I am proposed for the rank of sergeant and for mention in
+despatches. Ah, but, dearest mother, this war is long, too long for men
+who had something else to do in the world! What you tell me of the kind
+feeling there is for me in Paris gives me pleasure; but--am I not to be
+brought out of this for a better kind of usefulness? Why am I so
+sacrificed, when so many others, not my equals, are spared? Yet I had
+something worth doing to do in the world. Well, if God does not intend
+to take away this cup from me, His will be done.
+
+
+_March 3_ (in a billet).
+
+This is the fourth day of rest, for me almost a holiday time. Rather a
+sad holiday, I own; it reminds me of certain visits to Marlotte. These
+days have been spent in attempts to recover from physical fatigue and
+moral weariness, and in the filling up of vacant hours. Still, a kind of
+holiday, a halt rather, giving one time to arrange one's impressions, so
+long confused by the violence of action.
+
+I have been stupefied by the noise of the shells. Think--from the French
+side alone forty thousand have passed over our heads, and from the
+German side about as many, with this difference, that the enemy shells
+burst right upon us. For my own part, I was buried by three 305 shells
+at once, to say nothing of the innumerable shrapnel going off close by.
+You may gather that my brain was a good deal shaken. And now I am
+reading. I have just read in a magazine an article on three new novels,
+and that reading relieved many of the cares of battle.
+
+I have received a most beautiful letter from Andre, who must be a
+neighbour of mine out here. He thinks as I do about our dreadful war
+literature. What does flourish is a faculty of musical improvisation.
+All last night I heard the loveliest symphonies, fully orchestral; and I
+am bound to say that they owed their best to the great music that is
+Germany's.
+
+After my experiences I must really let myself go a little in the
+pleasure of this furtive sun of March.
+
+
+_March 5_ (6th day in billets).
+
+I wish I could recover in myself the extreme sensibilities I felt before
+the fiery trial, so that I might describe for you the colours and the
+aspects of the drama we have passed through. But just now I am in a
+state of numbness, pleasant enough in itself, yet apt to hinder my
+vision of things present and my forecasts of things to come. I have to
+make an effort to keep hold of eternal and essential things; perhaps I
+shall succeed in time.
+
+And yet certain sights on the wasted field of war had so noble a lesson,
+a teaching so persuasive, that I should love to share with you the great
+certainties of those days. How harmonious is death within the natural
+soil, how admirable is the manner of man's return to the substance of
+his mother earth, compared with the poverty of funeral ceremonial!
+Yesterday I thought of those poor dead as forsaken things. But I had
+been present at the burial of an officer, and it seems to me that Nature
+is more compassionate than man. Yes indeed, the soldier's death is close
+to natural things. It is a frank horror, a horror that does not attempt
+to cheat the law of violence. I often passed close to bodies that were
+gradually passing into the clay, and their change seemed more comforting
+than the cold and unchanging aspect of the tombs of town cemeteries.
+From our life in the open we have gained a freedom of conception, an
+amplitude of thought and of habit, which will for ever make cities
+horrible and artificial to those who survive the war.
+
+Dear mother, I write but ill of things that I have greatly felt. Let us
+seek refuge in the peace of spring and in the treasure of the present
+moment.
+
+
+_March 7, half-past ten._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I am filling up the idleness of this morning. I am
+rejoicing in the clear waters of the Meuse that give life to dales and
+gardens. The play of the current over weeds and pebbles makes a soothing
+sight for my tired eyes, and expresses the calm life of this big village
+that is sheltered by the Meuse hills. The church here is thronged with
+soldiers who possess, as I do, a definite intuition of the Ideal, but
+who seek it by more stated and less immediate means.
+
+I am to board for a fortnight in the house in which, nearly two months
+ago, our joyous company used to meet. To-day I have seen the tears of
+these same friends, weeping to hear of the wounded and the dead.
+
+I received your sleeping-sack, which is quite right. I am worried with
+rheumatism, which has spoilt many of my nights in billets these two
+months past.
+
+Darling mother, here is a calm in the noise of that barrack-life which
+must now be ours. As there are none here but non-commissioned officers,
+they are all ordered to hard jobs, and I shall renew my acquaintance
+with brooms and burdens. We have been warned; we shall have to work with
+our hands. And so we learn to direct others.
+
+
+_March 7_ (another letter).
+
+Soft weather after rain. Bells in the evening; flowing waters singing
+under the bridges; trees settling to sleep.
+
+
+_March 11._
+
+DARLING MOTHER,--I have nothing to say about my life, which is filled up
+with manual labour. At moments perhaps some image appears, some memory
+rises. I have just read a fine article by Renan on the origins of the
+Bible. I found it in a _Revue des Deux Mondes_ of 1886. If later I can
+remember something of it, I may be able to put my very scattered
+notions on that matter into better order.
+
+I feel as though I were recovering from typhoid fever. What I chiefly
+enjoy is water; the running and the sleeping waters of the Meuse. The
+springs play on weeds and pebbles. The ponds lie quiet under great
+trees. Streams and waterfalls. On the steep hillsides the snow looks
+brilliant and visionary. I live in all these things without forms of
+words. And I am rather ashamed to be vegetating, though I think all must
+pass through this phase, just removed from the hell of the front. I eat,
+and when my horrid rheumatism allows, I sleep.
+
+Don't be angry with my inferiority. I feel as though my armour had been
+taken off. Well, I can't help it.
+
+
+_5 o'clock._
+
+I am a good deal tired by drill. But the fine air of the Meuse keeps me
+in health. Dear mother, I wish I might always seek all that is noble and
+good. I wish I might always feel within myself the inspiration that
+urges towards the true treasures of life. But alas! just now I have a
+mind of lead.
+
+
+_March 14, Sunday morning,
+in the Sabbath peace._
+
+DEAREST MOTHER,--Your good, life-giving letters have come at last, after
+my long privation, the price I paid for my enjoyment of rest. The pretty
+town is waking in the haze of the river, the waters hurry over their
+clean stones. All things have that look of moderation and charming
+finish that is characteristic of this part of the country.
+
+I read a little, but I am so overtired by the physical exertion to which
+we are compelled, that I fall asleep on the instant. We are digging
+trenches and trenches.
+
+Dear mother, to go back to those wonderful times of the end of February,
+I must repeat that my memory of them is something like that of an
+experiment in science. I had conceived violence under a theoretic
+formula; I had divined its part in the worlds. But I had not yet
+witnessed its actual practice, except in infinitely small examples. And
+now at last violence was displayed before me on such a scale that my
+whole faculty of receptiveness was called upon to face it. Well, it was
+interesting; and I may tell you that I never relaxed from my attitude of
+cool and impersonal watchfulness. What I had kept about me of my own
+individuality was a certain visual perceptiveness that caused me to
+register the setting of things, a setting that dramatised itself as
+'artistically' as in any stage-management. During all those minutes I
+never relaxed in my resolve to see 'how it was.'
+
+I was very happy to find that the 'intoxication of slaughter' never had
+any possession of me. I hope it will always be so. Unfortunately,
+contact with the German race has for ever spoilt my opinion of those
+people. I cannot quite succeed in quelling a sensibility and a
+humanitarianism that I know to be misplaced, and that would make me the
+dupe of a treacherous enemy; but I have come to tolerate things which I
+had held in abomination as the very negation of life.
+
+I have seen the French soldier fight. He is terrible in action, and
+after action magnanimous. That is the phrase. It is a very common
+commonplace; our greatest writers and the humblest of our schoolboys
+have trotted it out alike; and now my decadent ex-intellectualism finds
+nothing better to say at the sight of the soul of the Frenchman.
+
+
+To Madame de L.
+
+_March 14, 1915._
+
+My mother has told me of the new trial that has just come upon you.
+Truly life is crushing for some souls. I know your fortitude, and I know
+that you are only too well used to sorrow; but how much I wish that you
+had been spared this blow! My mother had written to me of the lack of
+any news of Colonel B., and she was anxious. It is the grief of those
+dear to us that troubles us out here. But there is in the sight of a
+soldier's death a lesson of greatness and of immortality that arms our
+hearts; and our desire is that our beloved ones might share it with us.
+Be sure that the Colonel's example will bear magnificent fruit. I know,
+for I have seen it, what heroism transfigures the soldier whose leader
+has fallen.
+
+As for myself, the time has been rife with tragedies; throughout I have
+tried to do my duty.
+
+I saw all my superior officers killed, and the whole regiment decimated.
+There can be no more human hope for those who are cast into this
+furnace. I place myself in the hands of God, asking of Him that He would
+keep me in such a state of heart and soul as may enable me to enjoy and
+love in His creation all the beauty that man has not yet denied and
+concealed.
+
+All else has lost proportion in my life.
+
+
+_March 15_ (a post-card).
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I suppose that by now you know my good fortune in
+getting this platoon. Whatever God intends for me, this halt has given
+me the opportunity of regaining possession of myself, and of preparing
+myself to accept whatever may befall me. I send you my love and the
+union of our hearts in the face of fate.
+
+
+_March 17._
+
+A charming morning. A white sun swathing itself in mist, the fine
+outlines of trees on the heights, and the great spaces in light. It is a
+pause full of good luck. The other day, reading an old _Revue des Deux
+Mondes_ of 1880, I came upon an excellent article as one might come upon
+a noble palace with vaulted roof and decorated walls. It was on Egypt,
+and was signed George Perrot.
+
+Yesterday my battalion left these billets. I am obliged to stay behind
+for my instruction as sergeant. How thankful I am for this respite,
+laborious as it is, that gives me a chance of recovering what I care for
+most--a clear mind, and a heart open to the spirit of Nature.
+
+I forgot to tell you that a day or two ago, during the storm, I saw the
+cranes coming home towards evening. A lull in the weather allowed me to
+hear their cry. To think how long it is since I saw them take flight
+from here! It was at the beginning of the winter, and they left
+everything the sadder for their going. And now it was for me like the
+coming of the dove to the ark; not that I deceived myself as to the
+dangers that had not ceased, but that these ambassadors of the air
+brought me a visible assurance of the universal peace beyond our human
+strife.
+
+And yesterday the wild geese made for the north. They flew in various
+order, tracing regular formations in the sky; and then they disappeared
+over the horizon like a floating ribbon.
+
+I am much gratified by M.C.'s appreciation. I always had a love of
+letters, even as a child, and I am only sorry that the break in my
+education, brought about by myself, leaves so many blanks. I keep,
+however, throughout all changes and chances, the faculty of gleaning to
+right and left some fallen grain. Of course, as I leave out the future,
+I say nothing of my wish to be introduced to him in happier times--that
+is out of our department just now.
+
+I have written to Madame L. It is the last blow for her. The fate of
+some of us is as it were a medal on which are struck the image and
+superscription of sorrow. Adversity has worked so well that there is no
+room for any symbol of joy. But I think that this dedication of a life
+to grief is not unaccompanied by a secret compensation in the conviction
+that misfortune is at last complete; it is something to reach the
+high-water mark of the waters of sorrow. The fate of such sufferers
+seems to me to be an outpost showing others whence tribulation
+approaches.
+
+Day by day a new crop is raised in the little military burial-ground
+here. And, over all, the triumphant spring.
+
+
+_March 20._
+
+Our holiday is coming to an end in sweetness, while all is tumult and
+carnage not far off. I think the regiment has had a long march.
+
+
+_March 20._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--After so many graces granted me, I ought to have
+more confidence, and I intend to do my best to give myself wholly into
+the hands of God; but these are hard times. I have just heard of the
+death, among many others, of the friend whose bed I shared in our
+billet. He had just been appointed Second Lieutenant. Mother dear: Love.
+That is the only human feeling we may cherish now.
+
+
+_March 21._
+
+DEAR GRANDMOTHER,--As the day of trial draws near I send you all my
+love. I can do no more. We are probably called upon to make such a
+sacrifice as forbids us to dwell upon our ties. Let us pray that the
+certitude of Goodness and Beauty may not fail us when we suffer.
+
+
+_March 21, Sunday, with
+lovely sunshine._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I think that we may be kept here one day more, and
+that we shall leave on Tuesday. I don't know where I shall rejoin my
+battalion, or in what state I shall find it, for the action seems to be
+violent and long. Rumours are very contradictory as to our gains. But
+all agree as to the large number of casualties. We can hear a tremendous
+cannonade, and the good weather no doubt induces the command on both
+sides to move.
+
+I should have wished to say many things about the noble Nature that
+surrounds us with its glory, but my thoughts are gone on in advance,
+there where the sun does not see men gathered together to honour him,
+but shines only upon their hatred, and where the moon, too, looks upon
+treachery and anguish.
+
+The other day, overlooking this great prospect of earth welcoming the
+spring, I remembered the joy I once had to be a man. And now to be a
+man----
+
+Our neighbour regiment, that of R.L., has returned with a few of its
+companies reduced to some two-score men.
+
+I dare not now speak of hope. The grace for which one may still pray is
+a complete sense of what beauty the passing hour can still yield us. It
+is a new manner of 'living one's life' that literature had not foreseen.
+
+Dear Grandmother, how well your tenderness has served to keep me up in
+my time of trial.
+
+
+_March 22._
+
+A splendid sun; looking on it one is amazed to see the world at war.
+Spring has come in triumph. It has surprised mankind in the act of
+hatred, in the act of outrage upon creation. The despatches tell us
+little, fortunately, of what is happening.
+
+Being now these twenty-one days away from the front, I find it difficult
+to re-accustom myself to the thought of the monstrous things going on
+there. Indeed, dear mother, I know that your life and mine have had but
+one object, one aim, and that even in the time we are passing through,
+we have never lost sight of it, but have constantly tried to draw
+nearer.
+
+Therefore our lives may not have been altogether useless. This is the
+only thought to comfort an ambitious soul--to forecast the influence and
+the consequences of its acts.
+
+I believe that if longer life had been granted me I should never have
+relaxed in my purpose. Having no certainty but that of the present, I
+have tried to put myself to the best use.
+
+
+_March 25._
+
+Here I am living this life in the earth again. I found the very hole
+that I left last month. Nothing has been done while I was away; a
+formidable attack was attempted, but it failed. The regiments ordered to
+engage had neither our dash nor our perfect steadiness under fire. They
+succeeded only in getting themselves cut to pieces, and in bringing upon
+us the most atrocious bombardment that ever was. It seems the action
+before this was nothing to be compared with it. My company lost a great
+many men by the aerial bombs. These projectiles measure a metre in
+height and twenty-seven centimetres in diameter; they describe a high
+curve, and fall vertically, exploding in the narrowest passages. We are
+several metres deep underground. Pleasant weather. At night we go to the
+surface for our hard work.
+
+Dearest, I wanted to say a heap of things about our joys, but some of
+them are best left quiet, unawakened. All coarse, common pleasure would
+frighten them away--they might die.
+
+I am writing again after a sleep. We get all the sleep we can in our
+dug-outs.
+
+I had a pile of thoughts that fatigue prevents my putting in order; but
+I remember that I evoked Beethoven. I am now precisely at the age he had
+reached when disaster came upon him; and I admired his great example,
+his energies at work in spite of suffering. The impediment must have
+seemed to him as grave as what is before me seems to us; but he
+conquered. To my mind Beethoven is the most magnificent of human
+translations of the creative Power.
+
+I am writing badly, for I am still asleep.
+
+How easy, how kind were all the circumstances of my return! I left the
+house alone, but passing a battery of artillery I was accosted by the
+non-commissioned officers with offers of the most friendly hospitality.
+The artillery are devoted to the Tenth, for we defend them; and as the
+good fellows are not even exposed to the rain they pity us exceedingly.
+
+I must close abruptly, loving you for your courage that so sustains me.
+Whatever happens, I have recovered joy. The night I came was so lovely!
+
+
+_March 26._
+
+DEARLY BELOVED MOTHER,--Nothing new in our position; the organising goes
+on. Interesting but not easy work. The fine weather prospers it. Now and
+again our pickaxes come upon a poor dead man whom the war harasses even
+in his grave.
+
+
+_March 28_ (on the heights; a grey
+Sunday; weather broken by
+yesterday's bombardment).
+
+We are again in full fight. A great attack from our side has repeated
+the carnage of last week. My company, which was cut up in the last
+assault, was spared this time; we had nothing to do but occupy a sector
+of the defence. So we got only the splashes of the fighting.
+
+On the loveliest Saturday of this spring I had a distant view of the
+battle; I saw the crawling beast that a battalion looks like, twisting
+as it advances under the smoke of the guns. The _chasseurs a pied_ go
+forward in spite of the machine-guns and of the bombardment, French and
+German. These fine fellows did what they had to do in spite of all, and
+have made amends for the check we had last week when our attack was a
+failure.
+
+For a month past I have been living Raffet's lithographs, with this
+difference, that in his time one could be an eyewitness in comparative
+safety at the distance where I stood, for the guns of those days did not
+shoot far. But I saw fine things in that great plain beneath our
+heights; a hundred thousand fires of bursting shells. And the
+_chasseurs_ climbing, climbing.
+
+
+_Sunday, March 28_ (2nd letter).
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--Radiant weather rose this morning. I have been a long way
+over our sector, and now the bombardment begins again, and grows.
+
+And still I turn my thoughts to hope. Whatever happens, I pray for
+wisdom for you and for me.
+
+Dearest, I feel at times how easy it would be to turn again to those
+pursuits that were once the charm and the interest of my life. At times
+I catch myself, in this lovely spring, so bent upon painting that I
+could mourn because I paint no more. But I compel myself to master all
+the resources of my will and to keep them to the difficult straits of
+this life.
+
+
+_April 1._
+
+A sun that lays bare the lovely youth of the spring. The stream of the
+Meuse runs through this rich and comely village, which the echoes of the
+cannonade reach only as a dull thud, their meaning lost.
+
+We have had to change again, as the reinforcements are arriving in such
+numbers that our places are wanted; and it is always our regiment that
+has to turn out.
+
+But to-day all is freshness and light. The great rich plain that is
+edged by the Meuse uplands has its distance all invested in the
+tenderest silver tones.
+
+I am pleased with Gabrielle's letter; it shows me what things will be
+laid upon the heart of France when these events are at an end. A
+touching letter from Pierre, cured at last of his terrible wound. A
+splendid letter from Grandmother. How she longs for our meeting again! I
+cannot speak of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I finish this letter by the waterside, recalling with delight the joys I
+used to have in painting. Before me are the sparkling rays of spring.
+
+
+_April 3_ (post-card).
+
+Only a word from the second line. We are in the spring woods. Sun and
+rain at play in the sky. Courage through all.
+
+
+_April 3_ (2nd letter).
+
+I wish I had written you better letters in these days, every minute of
+which has been sweet to me, even when we were in the front line. But I
+confess that I was satisfied just to let myself live in the beauty of
+the days, serene days in spite of the clamours of war. We know nothing
+of what is to happen. But there is more movement--coming and going.
+Shall we have to bear the shock again?
+
+Think what it was for us when we were last in the front line, to have to
+spend whole days in the dug-out that the odious bombardment had
+compelled us to hollow out of the hillside ten metres deep. There, in
+complete darkness, night was awaited for the chance to get out. But once
+my fellow non-commissioned officers and I began humming the nine
+symphonies of Beethoven. I cannot tell what thrill woke those notes
+within us. They seemed to kindle great lights in the cave. We forgot the
+Chinese torture of being unable to lie, or sit, or stand.
+
+The life of a sergeant in billets is really quite pleasant. But I take
+no advantage. As to the front, I hope Providence will give me strength
+of heart to do my duty there to the very end. A good friend of mine, who
+was my section-chief, has been appointed adjutant to our company. This
+is all trivial enough; but, dearest, I am in a rather feeble state; I
+was not well after the events of last month. So I let myself glide over
+the gentle slopes of my life. Suppose one comes to skirt a precipice?
+May Providence keep us away from the edge!
+
+
+_April 4._
+
+DARLING MOTHER,--A time of anxious waiting, big with the menace of near
+things. Meanwhile, however, idleness and quiet. I am not able to think,
+and I give myself up to my fate. Beloved, don't find fault with me if
+for a month past I have been below the mark. Love me, and tell our
+friends to love me.
+
+Did you get my photograph? It was taken at the fortunate time of our
+position here, when we were having peaceful days, with no immediate
+enemy except the cold. A few days later I was made corporal, and my life
+became hard enough, burdened with very ungrateful labours. After that,
+the storm; and the lights of that storm are still bright in my life.
+
+
+_April 4, evening of Easter Sunday._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--We are again in the immediate care of God. At two o'clock
+we march towards the storm. Beloved, I think of you, I think of you
+both. I love you, and I entrust the three of us to the Providence of
+God. May everything that happens find us ready! In the full power of my
+soul, I pray for this, on your behalf, on mine: hope through all; but,
+before all else, Wisdom and Love.
+
+I kiss you, without more words. All my mind is now set upon the hard
+work to be done.
+
+
+_April 5, 1 o'clock A.M._
+
+DEAR MOTHER AND DEAR GRANDMOTHER,--We are off. Courage. Wisdom and Love.
+Perhaps all this is ordained for the good of all. I can but send you my
+whole love. My life is lived in you alone.
+
+
+_April 5, towards noon._
+
+DEAR MOTHER,--We are now to be put to the proof. Up to this moment there
+has been no sign that mercy was failing us. It is for us to strive to
+deserve it. This afternoon we shall need all our resolution, and we
+shall have to call upon the supreme Wisdom for help.
+
+Dear beloved Mother, dear Grandmother, I wish I could still have the
+delight of getting your letters. Let us pray that we may be strengthened
+even in what is before us now.
+
+Dear Darling, once more all my love for you both.
+
+YOUR SON.
+
+
+_April 6, noon._
+
+DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--It is mid-day, and we are at the forward position,
+in readiness. I send you my whole love. Whatever comes to pass, life has
+had its beauty.
+
+
+_It was in the fight of this day, April 6, that the writer of these
+letters disappeared._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh
+University Press
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+Periods added to a few date-lines to conform to rest of text.
+
+Page 95, A space in the text was replaced with "us as". This has been
+surmised. "moves us as a Breughel . . ."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters of a Soldier, by Anonymous
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