ty. Perhaps this is due to the open-air life with its
simplified standards, freed from all the complex exigencies of
society's laws, and unhampered by conventionalities, as well as to
the constant throb of excitement, caused by the activity, the
adventure, and the uncertainty of fate.

The very massing together of so many individuals, with every will
merged into one that strives with gigantic effort toward a common
end, and the consequent simplicity and directness of all purpose,
seem to release and unhinge all the primitive, aboriginal forces
stored in the human soul, and tend to create the indescribable
atmosphere of exultation which envelopes everything and
everybody as with a magic cloak.

It is extraordinary how quickly suggestions of luxury, culture,
refinement, in fact all the gentler aspects of life, which one had
considered to be an integral part of one's life are quickly forgotten,
and, more than that, not even missed. Centuries drop from one,
and one becomes a primeval man, nearing the cave-dweller in an
incredibly short time. For twenty-one days I went without taking off
my clothes, sleeping on wet grass or in mud, or in the swamps,
wherever need be, and with nothing but my cape to cover me.
Nothing disturbs one. One night, while sleeping, we were drenched
to the skin by torrential rains. We never stirred, but waited for the
sun to dry us out again. Many things considered necessities of
civilization simply drop out of existence. A toothbrush was not
imaginable. We ate instinctively, when we had food, with our hands.
If we had stopped to think of it at all, we should have thought it
ludicrous to use knife and fork.

We were all looking like shaggy, lean wolves, from the necessity of
subsisting on next to nothing. I remember having gone for more
than three days at a time without any food whatsoever, and many a
time we had to lick the dew from the grass for want of water. A
certain fierceness arises in you, an absolute indifference to anything
the world holds except your duty of fighting. You are eating a crust
of bread, and a man is shot dead in the trench next to you. You
look calmly at him for a moment, and then go on eating your bread.
Why not? There is nothing to be done. In the end you talk of your
own death with as little excitement as you would of a luncheon
engagement. There is nothing left in your mind but the fact that
hordes of men to whom you belong are fighting against other
hor