If only I could follow my calling of painter I could have recourse to these wonderful visions that lie before me, and I could find vent for all the pent-up artist’s emotion that is within me.  As it is, in trying to speak of the sky, the tree, the hill, or the horizon, I cannot use words as subtle as they, and the infinite variety of these things can only be named in the same general terms, which I am afraid of constantly repeating. . . .

December 15.

One must adapt oneself to this special kind of life, which is indigent as far as intellectual activity goes, but marvellously rich in emotion.  I suppose that in troubled times for many centuries there have been men who, weary of luxury, have sought in the peace of the cloister the contemplation of eternal things; contemplation threatened by the crowd, but a refuge even so.  And so I think our life is like that of the monks of old, who were military too, and more apt at fighting than I could ever be.  Among them, those who willed could know the joy which I now find.

To-day I have a touching letter from Madame M——­, whose spirit I love and admire.

Changeable but very beautiful weather.

It is impossible to say more than we have already said about the attitude we must adopt in regard to events.  The important thing is to put this attitude in practice.  It is not easy, as I have learnt in these last days, though no new difficulty had arisen to impede my path towards wisdom.

. . .  Tormenting anxiety can sometimes be mistaken for an alert conscience.

December 16.

Yesterday in our shelter I got out your little album—­very much damaged, alas—­and I tried to copy some of the lines of the landscape.  I was stopped by the cold, and I was returning dissatisfied when I suddenly had the idea of making one of my friends sit for me.  How can I tell you what a joy it was to get a good result!  I believe that my little pencil proved entirely successful.  The sketch has been sent away in a letter to some friend of his.  It was such a true joy to me to feel I had not lost my faculty.

December 17 (in a new billet).

. . .  Last night we left behind all that was familiar when we came out of the first-line trenches after three days of perfect peace there.  We were told off to the billet which we occupied on October 6th and 7th.  One can feel in the air the wind of change.  I don’t know what may come, but the serenity of the weather to-day seems an augury of happiness.

These have been days of marvellous scenes, which I can appreciate better now than during those few days of discouragement, which came because I allowed myself to reckon things according to our miserable human standards.

I write to you by a window from which I watch the sunset.  You see that goodness is everywhere for us.

3 o’clock.

. . .  I take up this letter once more in the twilight of an exceptional winter:  the day fades away as calmly as it came.  I am watching the women washing clothes under the lines of trees on the river bank; there is peace everywhere—­I think even in our hearts.  Night falls. . . .