I was thinking of the sad moments that you too endure, and that was why I encouraged you to an impersonal idea of our union.  I know how strong you are, and how prepared for this idea.  Yes, you are right, we must not meet the pain half-way.  But at times it is difficult to distinguish between the real suffering that affects us, and that which is only possible or imminent.

Mind you notice that I have perfect hope and that I count on prevailing grace, but, caring more than anything to be an artist, I am occupied in drawing all the beauty out, in drawing out the utmost beauty, as quickly as may be, none of us knowing how much time is meted to us.

January 27, afternoon.

After two bad nights in the billet owing to the lack of straw, the third night was interrupted by our sudden departure for our emplacement in the second line.

Superb weather, frost and sun.

Great Nature begins again to enfold me, and her voice, which is now powerful again, consoles me.—­But, dear, what a hole in one’s existence!  Yes, since my promotion I have lived through moments which, though less terrible, recalled the first days of September, but with the addition of many blessings.  I accept this new life, with no forecast of the future.

January 28, in the morning sun.

The hard and splendid weather has this marvellous good—­that it leaves in its great pure sky an open door for poetry.  Yes, all that I told you of that beautiful time of snow came from a heart that was comforted by such triumphant beauty.

In the Reviews you send me I have read with pleasure the articles on Moliere, on the English parliament, on Martainville, and on the religious questions of 1830. . . .

Did I tell you that I learnt from the papers of the death of Hillemacher?  That dear friend was killed in this terrible war.

February 1.

MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,—­I have your dear letters of the 26th and 27th; they do bring new life to me.

Up till now, our first-line emplacement, which this time is in the village, has been favoured with complete calm, and I have known once more those hours of grace when Nature consoles me.

My situation has this special improvement, that the drudgery I do now is done at the instance of the general good, and no longer at the dictation of mere routine.

February 2.

DEAR MOTHER,—­I go on with this letter in the billet, where the great worry of accumulated work fills up the void which Melancholy would make her own.

Dark days have come upon me, and nothingness seems the end of all, whereas all that is in my being had assured me of the plenitude of the universe.  Yes, devotion, not to individuals but to the social ideal of brotherhood, sustains me still.  Oh, what a magnificent example is to be found in Jesus and in the poor.  That righteous aristocrat, showing by His abhorrent task the infinite obligation of altruistic duty, and teaching, above all, that no return of gratitude should be demanded. . . .  To my experience of men and things I owe this tranquillity of expecting nothing from any one.  Thus duty takes an abstract form, deprived of a human object.