You accuse me in your last letter of being flippant in what seems to you tragic circumstances.  I am sorry that I make that impression on you.  I am not a bit flippant.  I can only advise you to come over here, and live a little in this atmosphere, and see how you would feel.  I am afraid that no amount of imagining what one will or will not do prepares one to know what one will really do face to face with such actualities as I live amongst.  I must confess that had I had anyone dear to me here, anyone for whose safety or moral courage I was—­or imagined I was—­responsible (for, after all, we are responsible for no one), my frame of mind and perhaps my acts might have been different.  I don’t know.  Why, none of the men that I see have the air of feeling they are heroes—­they just seem to think of it all as if it were merely “in the day’s work.”

For example, do you remember that handsome younger brother of my sculptor friend—­the English boy who was in the heavy artillery, and had been in China and North Nigeria with Sir Frederick Ludgard as an aide-de-camp, and finally as assistant governor general?  Well, he was with the first division of the British Expedition which landed in France in the middle of August.  He made all that long, hard retreat from Belgium to the Marne, and was in the terrible Battle of the Rivers.  I am enclosing a letter I have just received from him, because I think it very characteristic.  Besides, if you remember him, I am sure that it will interest you.  I don’t know where it is from—­they are not allowed to tell.  It came, as army letters do, without any stamp—­the carriage is free—­with the round red stamp of the censor, a crown in the middle, and the words “Passed by the Censor,” and the number printed around it.  Here it is: 

My dearest M-

October 30, 1914

Last night I heard your account of your experiences between September 1 and 9, and it made me boil anew with disappointment that my attempts to reach Huiry on September 4 were frustrated.  I was disappointed enough at the time, but then my regret was tempered by the thought that you were probably safe in Paris, and I should only find an empty house at La Creste.  Now that I know that I should have found you—­you!!!—­it makes me wild, even after this interval of time, to have missed a sight of you.  Now let me tell you how it came about that you nearly received a visit from me.

I left England August 17, with the 48th Heavy Battery (3d division).  We landed at Rouen, and went by train, via Amiens, to Houtmont, a few kilometres west of Mauberge.  There we detrained one morning at two o’clock, marched through Malplaquet into Belgium, and came in contact with the enemy at once.