La Creste, Huiry, Couilly. S et M.

September 16, 1914 Dear Old Girl:--

More and more I find that we humans are queer animals.

All through those early, busy, exciting days of September,--can it be
only a fortnight ago?--I was possessed, like the "busy bee," to
"employ each shining hour" by writing out my adventures. Yet, no
sooner was the menace of those days gone, than, for days at a time,
I had no desire to see a pen.

Perhaps it was because we were so absolutely alone, and because,
for days, I had no chance to send you the letters I had written, nor to
get any cable to you to tell you that all was well.

There was a strange sort of soulagement in the conviction that we
had, as my neighbors say, "échappé bien." I suppose it is human. It
was like the first days of a real convalescence--life is so good, the
world is so beautiful. The war was still going on. We still heard the
cannon--they are booming this minute--but we had not seen the
spiked helmets dashing up my hill, nor watched the walls of our little
hamlet fall. I imagine that if human nature were not just like that, Life
could never be beautiful to any thinking person. We all know that,
though it be not today, it is to be, but we seem to be fitted for that,
and the idea does not spoil life one bit.

It is very silent here most of the time. We are so few. Everybody
works. No one talks much. With the cannon booming out there no