the next morning, by
which time I was twenty miles from you, and not in a condition to want
anything but sleep and food. That was our farthest point south. But,
sad to say, in our advance we went by a road farther east, and quite
out of reach of you, and crossed the Marne at a place called Nanteuil.
I got your first letter about one day's march south of Mons.

Best love, dearest M------. Write again.

Isn't that a calm way to state such a trying experience as that retreat?
It is only a sample of a soldier's letter.

If he were disappointed you can imagine that I was. Luckily I had
seen him in June, when he was here on a visit, having just returned
from North Nigeria, after five years in the civil service, to take up his
grade in the army, little dreaming there was to be a war at once.

If he had come that afternoon imagine what I should have felt to see
him ride down by the picket at the gate. He would have found me
pouring tea for Captain Edwards of the Bedfords. It would have surely
added a touch of reality to the battle of the next days. Of course I
knew he was somewhere out there, but to have seen him actually
riding away to it would have been different. Yet it might not, for I am
sure his conversation would have been as calm as his letters, and
they read as much as if he were taking an exciting pleasure trip, with
interesting risks thrown in, as anything else. That is so English. On
some future day I suppose we shall sit together on the lawn--he will
probably lie on it--and swap wonderful stories, for I am going to be
one of the veterans of this war.

I must own that when I read the letter I found it suggestive of the days
that are gone. Imagine marching through Malplaquet and over all that
West Flanders country with its memories of Marlborough, and where,
had the Dutch left the Duke a free hand, he would have marched on
Paris--with other Allies--as he did on Lille. I must own that history, with
its records of bitter enemies yesterday, bosom friends today, does not
inspire one with much hope of seeing the dreamer's vision of
universal peace realized.

Still, I must confess that the attitude of French and English to one
another today is almost thrilling. The English Tommy Atkins and the
French poilu are delightful together. For that matter, the French
peasants love the English. They never saw any before, and their
admiration and devotion to "Tommee," as they call him, is
unbounded. They think him so "chic,