wish I could recover in myself the extreme sensibilities I felt before
the fiery trial, so that I might describe for you the colours and the
aspects of the drama we have passed through. But just now I am in a
state of numbness, pleasant enough in itself, yet apt to hinder my
vision of things present and my forecasts of things to come. I have to
make an effort to keep hold of eternal and essential things; perhaps I
shall succeed in time.

And yet certain sights on the wasted field of war had so noble a lesson,
a teaching so persuasive, that I should love to share with you the great
certainties of those days. How harmonious is death within the natural
soil, how admirable is the manner of man's return to the substance of
his mother earth, compared with the poverty of funeral ceremonial!
Yesterday I thought of those poor dead as forsaken things. But I had
been present at the burial of an officer, and it seems to me that Nature
is more compassionate than man. Yes indeed, the soldier's death is close
to natural things. It is a frank horror, a horror that does not attempt
to cheat the law of violence. I often passed close to bodies that were
gradually passing into the clay, and their change seemed more comforting
than the cold and unchanging aspect of the tombs of town cemeteries.
From our life in the open we have gained a freedom of conception, an
amplitude of thought and of habit, which will for ever make cities
horrible and artificial to those who survive the war.

Dear mother, I write but ill of things that I have greatly felt. Let us
seek refuge in the peace of spring and in the treasure of the present
moment.

_March 7, half-past ten._

DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,--I am filling up the idleness of this morning. I am
rejoicing in the clear waters of the Meuse that give life to dales and
gardens. The play of the current over weeds and pebbles makes a soothing
sight for my tired eyes, and expresses the calm life of this big village
that is sheltered by the Meuse hills. The church here is thronged with
soldiers who possess, as I do, a definite intuition of the Ideal, but
who seek it by more stated and less immediate means.

I am to board for a fortnight in the house in which, nearly two months
ago, our joyous company used to meet. To-day I have seen the tears of
these same friends, weeping to hear of the wounded and the dead.

I received your sleeping-sack, which is quite right. I am worried with
rheumatism, which has spoilt