n to say 'Thy will be
done.' So, according to the power and the measure of my faculties, I
would be he who to the very end never despaired of his share in the
building of the Temple. I would be the workman who, knowing full well
that his scaffolding will give way and who has no hope of safety, goes
on with his stone-carving of decoration on the cathedral front.
Decoration. I am not one who will ever be able to lift the blocks of
stone. But there are others for that job. Yes, I am getting back into a
little quiet thinking. The equable tranquillity I had hoped for is not
yet mine; but I have occasional glimpses of that region of peace and
light in which all things, even our love, is renewed and transfigured.

I am now at the foot of a peaked hill where Nature has brought the
loveliest lines of design together. Man is hunting man, and in a moment
they will be locked in fight. Meanwhile the lark is rising.

Even as I write, a strange serenity possesses me.
Something--extraordinary comfort. Be it a human quality, be it a
revelation from on high. All around me men are asleep.

_February 14_ (5th day in
the front line).

All is movement about us; we too are afoot. Even as the inevitable takes
shape, peace revisits my heart at last. My beloved country is defiled
by these detestable preparations of battle; the silence is rent by the
preliminary gun-fire; man succeeds for a time in cancelling all the
beauty of the world. But I think it will even yet find a place of
refuge. For twenty-four hours now I have been my own self.

Dear mother, I was wrong to think so much of my 'tower of ivory.' What
we too often take for a tower of ivory is nothing more than an old
cheese where a hermit rat has made his house.

Rather, may a better spirit move me to gratitude for the salutary shocks
that tossed me out of too pleasant a place of peace; let us be thankful
for the dispensation which, during certain hours--hours far apart but
never to be forgotten--made a man of me.

No, no, I will not mourn over my dead youth. It led me by steep and
devious ways to the tablelands where the mists that hung over
intelligence are no more.

_February 16._

In these latter days I have passed through certain hours, made decisive
hours for me by the visibility of great and universal problems. We have
now been for five days in the front line, with exceedingly hard work,
hampered by the terrible mud. As our days have followed each other, and
as my