o the
countryside, though to me it is, as so much of the war has been, too
much like the decor of a drama. Every morning they ride by the gate,
two abreast, to exercise their lovely horses, and just before noon they
come back. All the afternoon they are passing in groups, smoking,
chatting, and laughing, and, except for their uniforms, they do not
suggest war, of which they actually know as little as I do.

After dinner, in the twilight, for the days are getting long, and the
moon is full, I sit on the lawn and listen to them singing in the street at
Voisins, and they sing wonderfully well, and they sing good music.
The other evening they sang choruses from "Louise" and "Faust,"
and a wonderful baritone sang "Vision Fugitive." The air was so still
and clear that I hardly missed a note.

A week ago tonight we were aroused late in the evening, it must have
been nearly midnight, by an alerte announcing the passing of a
Zeppelin. I got up and went out-of-doors, but neither heard nor saw
anything, except a bicycle going over the hill, and a voice calling
"Lights out." Evidently it did not get to Paris, as the papers have been
absolutely dumb.

One thing I have done this week. When the war began I bought, as
did nearly everyone else, a big map of Germany and the battle-fronts
surrounding it, and little envelopes of tiny British, Belgian, French,
Montenegrin, Servian, Russian, German, and Austrian flags,
mounted on pins. Every day, until the end of last week, I used to put
the flags in place as well as I could after studying the day's
communique.

I began to get discouraged in the hard days of last month, when day
after day I was obliged to retreat the Allied flags on the frontier, and
when the Russian offensive fell down, I simply tore the map off the
wall, and burned it, flags and all.

Of course I said to myself, in the spirit I have caught from the army,
"All these things are but incidents, and will have no effect on the final
result. A nation is not defeated while its army is still standing up in its
boots, so it is folly to bother over details."

Do you ever wonder what the poets of the future will do with this war?
Is it too stupendous for them, or, when they get it in perspective, can
they find the inspiration for words where now we have only tightened
throats and a great pride that, in an age set down as commercial,
such deeds of heroism could be?

Who will sing the dirge of General Hamilton in the little cem