I have seen the French soldier fight.  He is terrible in action, and after action magnanimous.  That is the phrase.  It is a very common commonplace; our greatest writers and the humblest of our schoolboys have trotted it out alike; and now my decadent ex-intellectualism finds nothing better to say at the sight of the soul of the Frenchman.

To Madame de L.

March 14, 1915.

My mother has told me of the new trial that has just come upon you.  Truly life is crushing for some souls.  I know your fortitude, and I know that you are only too well used to sorrow; but how much I wish that you had been spared this blow!  My mother had written to me of the lack of any news of Colonel B., and she was anxious.  It is the grief of those dear to us that troubles us out here.  But there is in the sight of a soldier’s death a lesson of greatness and of immortality that arms our hearts; and our desire is that our beloved ones might share it with us.  Be sure that the Colonel’s example will bear magnificent fruit.  I know, for I have seen it, what heroism transfigures the soldier whose leader has fallen.

As for myself, the time has been rife with tragedies; throughout I have tried to do my duty.

I saw all my superior officers killed, and the whole regiment decimated.  There can be no more human hope for those who are cast into this furnace.  I place myself in the hands of God, asking of Him that He would keep me in such a state of heart and soul as may enable me to enjoy and love in His creation all the beauty that man has not yet denied and concealed.

All else has lost proportion in my life.

March 15 (a post-card).

DEAR BELOVED MOTHER,—­I suppose that by now you know my good fortune in getting this platoon.  Whatever God intends for me, this halt has given me the opportunity of regaining possession of myself, and of preparing myself to accept whatever may befall me.  I send you my love and the union of our hearts in the face of fate.

March 17.

A charming morning.  A white sun swathing itself in mist, the fine outlines of trees on the heights, and the great spaces in light.  It is a pause full of good luck.  The other day, reading an old Revue des Deux Mondes of 1880, I came upon an excellent article as one might come upon a noble palace with vaulted roof and decorated walls.  It was on Egypt, and was signed George Perrot.

Yesterday my battalion left these billets.  I am obliged to stay behind for my instruction as sergeant.  How thankful I am for this respite, laborious as it is, that gives me a chance of recovering what I care for most—­a clear mind, and a heart open to the spirit of Nature.

I forgot to tell you that a day or two ago, during the storm, I saw the cranes coming home towards evening.  A lull in the weather allowed me to hear their cry.  To think how long it is since I saw them take flight from here!  It was at the beginning of the winter, and they left everything the sadder for their going.  And now it was for me like the coming of the dove to the ark; not that I deceived myself as to the dangers that had not ceased, but that these ambassadors of the air brought me a visible assurance of the universal peace beyond our human strife.