I’ve had a most beautiful day, the best since I left you.  I didn’t speak to a soul all day, and found a place up behind Sans Souci on the edge of a wood looking out over a ryefield to an old windmill, and there I sat for hours; and after I had finished remembering what I could of the Scholar Gypsy, which is what one generally does when one sits in summer on the edge of a cornfield, I sorted out my thoughts.  They’ve been getting confused lately in the rush of work day after day, as confused as the drawer I keep my gloves and ribbons in, thrusting them in as I take them off and never having time to tidy.  Life tears along, and I have hardly time to look at my treasures.  I’m going to look at them and count them up on Sundays.  As the summer goes on I’ll pilgrimage out every Sunday to the woods, as regularly as the pious go to church, and for much the same reason,—­to consider, and praise, and thank.

I took your two letters with me, reading them again in the woods.  They seemed even more dear out there where it was beautiful.  You sound so content, darling mother, about me, and so full of belief in me.  You may be very sure that if a human being, by trying and working, can justify your dear belief it’s your Chris. The snapshot of the border full of Canterbury bells makes me able to picture you.  Do you wear the old garden hat I loved you so in when you garden?  Tell me, because I want to think of you exactly.  It makes my mouth water, those Canterbury bells.  I can see their lovely colours, their pink and blue and purple, with the white Sweet Williams and the pale lilac violas you write about.  Well, there’s nothing of that in the Lutzowstrasse.  No wonder I went away from it this morning to go out and look for June in the woods.  The woods were a little thin and austere, for there has been no rain lately, but how enchanting after the barren dustiness of my Berlin street!  I did love it so.  And I felt so free and glorious, coming off on my own for my hard-earned Sunday outing, just like any other young man.

The train going down was full of officers, and they all looked very smart and efficient and satisfied with themselves and life.  In my compartment they were talking together eagerly all the way, talking shop with unaffected appetite, as though shop were so interesting that even on Sundays they couldn’t let it be, and poring together over maps.  No trace of stolidity.  But where is this stolidity one has heard about?  Compared to the Germans I’ve seen, it is we who are stolid; stolid, and slow, and bored.  The last thing these people are is bored.  On the contrary, the officers had that same excitement about them, that same strung-upness, that the men boarders at Frau Berg’s have.