reminders, such as your letter, that one was once localised and had a
familiar history. If I come back, I shall be like Rip Van Winkle, or a
Robinson Crusoe--like any and all of the creatures of legend and history
to whom abnormality has grown to seem normal. If you can imagine
yourself living in a world in which every day is a demonstration of a
Puritan's conception of what happens when the last trump sounds, then
you have some idea of my queer situation. One has come to a point when
death seems very inconsiderable and only failure to do one's duty is an
utter loss. Love and the future, and all the sweet and tender dreams of
by-gone days are like a house in which the blinds are lowered and from
which the sight has gone. Landscapes have lost their beauty, everything
God-made and man-made is destroyed except man's power to endure with a
smile the things he once most dreaded, because he believes that only so
may he be righteous in his own eyes. How one has longed for that sure
confidence in the petty failings of little living--the confidence to
believe that he can stand up and suffer for principle! God has given all
men who are out here that opportunity--the supremest that can be hoped
for--so, in spite of exile, Christmas for most of us will be a happy
day. Does one see more truly life's worth on a battlefield? I often ask
myself that question. Is the contempt that is hourly shown for life the
real standard of life's worth? I shrug my shoulders at my own
unanswerable questions--all I know is that I move daily with men who
have everything to live for who, nevertheless, are urged by an
unconscious magnanimity to die. I don't think any of our dead pity
themselves--but they would have done so if they had faltered in their
choice. One lives only from sunrise to sunrise, but there's a more real
happiness in this brief living than I ever knew before, because it is so
exactingly worth while.

Thank you again for your kindness.