embles for his dear ones, and at the same time continues his
business, often doubling, even trebling his efforts so as to replace
the absent, and still has sufficient sense of humour to remark:

"In these days when every one is a soldier, it's a hard job to play the
civilian."

Last summer an American friend said to me:

"Of course, there are some changes, but as I go about the streets day
in and day out, it hardly seems as though Paris were conscious of the
war. It is quite unbelievable."

But that very same evening when slightly after eleven, Elizabeth and I
sauntered up the darkened, deserted Faubourg St. Honore--

"Think," she said, catching my arm, "just think that behind each and
every one of those facades there is some one suffering, hoping,
weeping, perhaps in secret! Think of the awful moment when all the
bells shall solemnly toll midnight, every stroke resounding like a
dirge in the souls of those who are torn with anxiety, who crave
relief, and patiently implore a sleep that refuses to come."

The soldiers know it, know but too well the worth of all the energies
expended without thought of glory; appreciate the value of that
stoicism which consists in putting on a bold front and continuing the
every-day life, without betraying a trace of sorrow or emotion.

Many a husband is proud of his wife, many a brother of his sister, and
many a son of his father and his mother.

Even those, who all things considered would seem the farthest from the
war, suffer untold tortures. How often last autumn did H. and I pay
visits to old artist friends, men well into the sixties with no
material worries, and no one at the front; only to find them alone in
one corner of their huge studios, plunged in profound reveries, and
utterly unconscious of the oncoming night, or the rain that beat
against the skylights.

"I know, I know, it's all very well to shake yourself and say you must
work. It's easy enough to recall that in 1870 Fantin Latour shut
himself up and painted fruit and flowers, and by emulation, buoyed up
perhaps by this precedent, you sit down and sketch a still life. What
greater joy than to seek out a harmony, find the delicate suave tones,
and paint it in an unctuous medium. Yes, it's a joy, but only when
head and heart are both in it! The museums too, used to be a source of
untold pleasure, but even if they were open you wouldn't go, because
the head and the heart are 'Out there' where that wondrous y