eaten him to appease his hunger no doubt, but also for the sake of an
unappeasable and patriotic desire, in the glow of a great faith that
lives still, and in the pursuit of a great illusion kindled like a false
beacon by a great man to lead astray the effort of a brave nation.

Pro patria!

Looked at in that light it appears a sweet and decorous meal.

And looked at in the same light my own diet of la vache enragee appears
a fatuous and extravagant form of self-indulgence; for why should I,
the son of a land which such men as these have turned up with their
ploughshares and bedewed with their blood, undertake the pursuit of
fantastic meals of salt junk and hard tack upon the wide seas? On
the kindest view it seems an unanswerable question. Alas! I have the
conviction that there are men of unstained rectitude who are ready
to murmur scornfully the word desertion. Thus the taste of innocent
adventure may be made bitter to the palate. The part of the inexplicable
should be allowed for in appraising the conduct of men in a world where
no explanation is final. No charge of faithlessness ought to be lightly
uttered. The appearances of this perishable life are deceptive like
everything that falls under the judgment of our imperfect senses. The
inner voice may remain true enough in its secret counsel. The fidelity
to a special tradition may last through the events of an unrelated
existence, following faithfully too the traced way of an inexplicable
impulse.

It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of
contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at times
the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no possible