which I
described the torments of my soul; but I had not had time to copy it,
when I received my summons. What is my wife to do now with her four
children? As an old man, of course, you cannot do anything yourself for
my folks, but you might ask some of your friends in their leisure to
visit my orphaned family. I beg you earnestly that if my wife proves
unable to bear the agony of her helplessness with her burden of children
and makes up her mind to go to you for help and counsel, you will receive
and console her. Although she does not know you personally, she believes
in your word, and that means much. I was not able to resist the summons,
but I say beforehand that through me not one Japanese family shall be
orphaned. My God! how dreadful is all this--how distressing and painful
to abandon all by which one lives and in which one is concerned."

The second letter is as follows: "Kindest Lyof Nikolaevitch, Only one day
of actual service has passed, and I have already lived through an
eternity of most desperate torments. From 8 o'clock in the morning till 9
in the evening we have been crowded and knocked about to and fro in the
barrack yard, like a herd of cattle. The comedy of medical examination
was three times repeated, and those who had reported themselves ill did
not receive even ten minutes' attention before they were marked
'Satisfactory.' When we, these two thousand satisfactory individuals,
were driven from the military commander to the barracks, along the road
spread out for almost a verst stood a crowd of relatives, mothers, and
wives with infants in arms; and if you had only heard and seen how they
clasped their fathers, husbands, sons, and hanging round their necks
wailed hopelessly! Generally I behave in a reserved way and can restrain
my feelings, but I could not hold out, and I also wept. [In journalistic
language this same is expressed thus: "The upheaval of patriotic feeling
is immense."] Where is the standard that can measure all this immensity
of woe now spreading itself over almost one-third of the world? And we,
we are now that food for cannon, which in the near future will be offered
as sacrifice to the God of vengeance and horror. I cannot manage to
establish my inner balance. Oh! how I execrate myself for this
double-mindedness which prevents my serving one Master and God."

This man does not yet sufficiently believe that what destroys the body is
not dreadful, but that which destroys both the bod