ttes.

The silhouette catches the picture better than color. Gaunt, naked,
ruined cathedrals, homes, towers, and forests are better pictured in
black silhouettes than any other way. There is nothing much left in
some places in France but silhouettes.

Those who have seen Rheims know that the best reproduction of its ruins
has been conveyed by the simple silhouette of the artist. There it
stands outlined against the sky. Rheims that was once the wonder of
the world is now naked ruins, tottering walls, with its towers still
standing, looming against the sky like tottering trees. And when,
during the past year, the walls fell, they:

"Left a lonesome place against the sky"

of all the world.

The church at Albert was like that. Only a silhouette can describe or
picture it. There it stood against the sky by day and night, with the
figure on its top leaning. The old legend of the soldiers that when
the figure of the Virgin fell to the earth the war would end has been
dissipated, for during the last drive that figure fell, and the tower
with it. But forever (although it has fallen to dust and debris,
because of descriptions we have seen of it) it shall stand out in our
memories like a lonely, toppling tree against a crimson sunset!

Every day on the Toul line we used to drive through a village that had
been shelled until it was in ruins. Only the tower and the walls of a
beautiful little church remained. Every other house in the village was
razed to the ground. Nothing else remained.

There it stands to this day, for when I saw it last in June it was
still standing as it was in January. Every evening about sunset we
used to drive down that way, taking supplies to the front-line huts.
Many things stand out in one's memory of a certain road over which he
drives night after night and day after day. There is the cross at the
forks of the roads. There is the old monastery, battered and in ruins,
that stood out like a gaunt ghost of the vandal Hun. There was the
little God's acre along the road which we passed every day. There were
always the observation-balloons against the evening sky. There were
always the fleet-winged birds of the air outlined against the evening.
There were always the marching men and the ambulance trains. But
standing out above them all, etched with the acid of regret and anger
and horror, stood that lonely tower. Night after night we approached
it with a beautiful sunset off to