ind so touching has grown
simpler; it makes less stir and wins closer to our heart. And this is
why destiny sought out in obscurity a little hospital nurse, one of
many thousands of others. The sight of her unpretentious portrait does
not tell one whether she was rich or poor, a humble member of the
middle classes or a great lady. She would pass unnoticed anywhere
until the hour of trial, when glory recognizes its elect; and it seems
as though goodness had almost eliminated the individual contours of
her face, so that it might the more closely resemble the pensive and
sad smiling faces of all the good women in the world.

Beneath those features one might indeed have read the hidden devotion
and quiet heroism of all the women who do their duty, that is, of
those whom we see about us day by day, working, hoping, keeping vigil,
solacing and succouring others, wearing themselves out without
complaint, suffering in secret and mourning their dead in silence.

4

She passed like a flash of light which for one moment illumined that
vast and innumerable multitude, confirming our confidence and our
admiration. She has added a final beauty to the great revelations of
this war; for the war, which has taught us many things that will never
fade from our memory, has above all revealed us to ourselves. In the
first days of the terrible ordeal, we did not know for certain how men
and women would comport themselves. In vain did we interrogate the
past, hoping thereby to learn something of the future. There was no
past that would serve for a comparison. Our eyes were drawn back to
the present; and we closed them, full of uneasiness. In what condition
should we find ourselves facing duty, sacrifice, suffering and death,
after so many years of peace, well-being and pleasure, of heedlessness
and moral indifference? What had been the vast and invisible journey
of the human conscience and of those secret forces which are the
whole of man, during this long respite, when they had never been
called upon to confront fate? Were they asleep, were they weakened or
lost, would they respond to the call of destiny, or had they sunk so
deep that they would never recover the energy to ascend to the surface
of life? There was a moment of anguish and silence; and lo, suddenly,
in the midst of this anguish and silence, the most splendid response,
the most magnificent cry of resurrection, of righteousness, of heroism
and sacrifice that the earth has ever