What joy is this perpetual thrill in the heart of Nature!  That same horizon of which I had watched the awakening, I saw last night bathe itself in rosy light; then the full moon went up into a tender sky, fretted by coral and saffron trees.

Dear, the frightful record of martyrdom of the best French youth cannot go on indefinitely.  It is impossible that the flower of a whole race can disappear.

There must be some nobler task than war for the nation’s genius!  I have a secret conviction of a better near future.  May our courage and our union lead us to this better thing.  Hope, hope always!  I received grandmother’s dear letter and M.R.’s kind and affectionate card.

Dear, have you this beautiful sun to-day?  How noble is the country and how good is Nature!  To him who listens she says that nothing will ever be lost.

November 4, 10 o’clock.

I live only through your thoughts and in the blessings of Nature.  This morning our chiefs menaced us with a march of twenty kilometres, and this threat fulfilled itself in the form of a charming walk in the landscape that I love so much.

Exquisite vapours, which we see lifting hour by hour at the call of a temperate sun; and, yonder, those high plateaux which command a vast panorama, where everything is finely drawn, or rather is just felt in the mist. . . .

There are hills furnished with bare trees holding up their charming profiles.  I think of the primitives, of their sensitive and conscientious landscapes.  What scrupulous majesty, of which the first sight awes with its grandeur, and the detail is profoundly moving!

You see, dear mother, how God dispenses blessings that are far greater than griefs.  It is not even a question of patience, since time has no longer any meaning for us, for it is not a matter of any calculable duration.  But then, what richness of emotion in each present minute!

This then is our life, of which I wrote to you that not one event must make of it something unachieved, interrupted; and I hope to preserve this wisdom.  But at the same time I want to ally it with another wisdom which looks to the future, even if the future is forbidden to us.  Yes, let us take all from the hands of the present (and the present brings us so many treasures!), but let us also prepare for the future.

November 5, 8 o’clock.

DEAR MOTHER,—­Do not hide from me anything of what happens in Paris, of your cares, or your occupations.  All that you will decide is for the best.  My own happiness, in the midst of all this, lies just in that security I have in thinking of your spirit.

The weather is still exquisite and very soft.  To-day, without leaving the beautiful region to which we came on September 20th, we have returned to the woods.  I like that less than the wide open view, but there is prettiness here too.  And then the sky, now that the leaves have fallen, is so beautiful and so tender.