men, accompanied by their women, and leading the children by the hand,
taking the short cut to the station which leads over the hill, right by
my gate, to Couilly. It has been so thrilling that I find myself
forgetting that it is tragic. It is so different from anything I ever
saw before. Here is a nation--which two weeks ago was torn by political
dissension--suddenly united, and with a spirit that I have never seen
before.

I am old enough to remember well the days of our Civil War, when
regiments of volunteers, with flying flags and bands of music, marched
through our streets in Boston, on the way to the front. Crowds of
stay-at-homes, throngs of women and children lined the sidewalks,
shouting deliriously, and waving handkerchiefs, inspired by the marching
soldiers, with guns on their shoulders, and the strains of martial
music, varied with the then popular "The girl I left behind me," or,
"When this cruel war is over." But this is quite different. There are
no marching soldiers, no flying flags, no bands of music. It is the
rising up of a Nation as one man--all classes shoulder to shoulder, with
but one idea--"Lift up your hearts, and long live France." I rather pity
those who have not seen it.

Since the day when war was declared, and when the Chamber of
Deputies--all party feeling forgotten--stood on its feet and listened to
Paul Deschanel's terse, remarkable speech, even here in this little
commune, whose silence is broken only by the rumbling of the trains
passing, in view of my garden, on the way to the frontier, and the
footsteps of the groups on the way to the train, I have seen sights that
have moved me as nothing I have ever met in life before has done. Day
after day I have watched the men and their families pass silently, and
an hour later have seen the women come back leading the children. One