I have Belgium on my soul. Brave little country that has given new
proof of its courage and nobility, and surprised the world with a ruler
who is a man, as well as king. It occurs to me more than ever to-day
in what a wonderful epoch we have lived. I simply can't talk about it.
The suspense is so great. I heard this morning from an officer that the
English troops are landing, though he tells me that in London they don't
yet know that the Expedition has started. If that is true, it is
wonderful. Not a word in the papers yet, but your press is not censored
as ours is. I fancy you know these things in New York before we do,
although we are now getting a newspaper from Meaux regularly. But there
is never anything illuminating in it. The attitude of the world to the
Belgian question is a shock to me. I confess to have expected more
active indignation at such an outrage.

Everything is very quiet here. Our little commune sent two hundred men
only, but to take two hundred able-bodied men away makes a big hole, and
upsets life in many ways. For some days we were without bread: bakers
gone. But the women took hold and, though the bread is not yet very
good, it serves and will as long as flour holds out. No one complains,
though we already lack many things. No merchandise can come out yet on
the railroads, all the automobiles and most of the horses are gone, and
shops are shy of staple things.

Really I don't know which are the more remarkable, the men or the women.
You may have read the proclamation of the Minister of Agriculture to the
women of France, calling on them to go into the fields and get in the
crops and prepare the ground for the sowing of the winter wheat that the
men on returning might not find their fields neglected nor their crops