dreams to me, and now, on the verge of battle, bid
me a sublime farewell.

Those years of scepticism and gay frivolity in
which we in France grew up are avenged in you;
your faith, which is ours, you protect from their
poisonous influence; and with you that faith
triumphs on the battlefield. "A war of revenge"
is the cry. Yea! revenge indeed; but in no spirit
of Chauvinism. The revenge of faith against all
the egotisms of the senses and of the spirit--the
surrender of self to eternal ideas.

One of the most powerful of the young French
novelists--Corporal X.--writes to me:--

"What are our lives, our books, compared with the
magnitude of the aim? The war of the Revolution against
feudalism is beginning anew. The armies of the Republic
will secure the triumph of democracy in Europe and com-
plete the work of the Convention. We are fighting for
more than our hearths and homes, for the awakening of
liberty." Another of these young people, of noble spirit
and pure heart, who will be, if he lives, the first art critic
of our time--Lieutenant X.:--

"My friend, could you see our Army as I do, you would
be thrilled with admiration for our people, for this noble
race. An enthusiasm, like an outburst of the Marseillaise,
thrills them; heroic, earnest, and even religious. I have
seen the three divisions of my army corps set out; the men
of active service first, young men of twenty marching with
firm and rapid steps, without a cry, without a gesture, like

-38-