He made no attempt to fill his eloquent silences; and so I left. As
the car gathered speed, plunging into the pastoral solitudes, I looked
back. The last sight I had of Domrémy was a grey little garden, made
sacred by the centuries, and an American soldier standing with a
French child in his arms, her golden hair lying thickly against his
neck.

On the surface the American is unemotionally practical, but at heart
he is a dreamer, first, last and always. If the Americans have merited
any criticism in France, it is owing to the vastness of their plans;
the tremendous dream of their preparations postpones the beginning of
the reality. Their mistake, if they have made a mistake, is an error
of generosity. They are building with a view to flinging millions
into the line when thousands a little earlier would be of superlative
advantage. They had the choice of dribbling their men over in small
contingents or of waiting till they could put a fighting-force into
the field so overwhelming in equipment and numbers that its weight
would be decisive. They were urged to learn wisdom from England's
example and not to waste their strength by putting men into the
trenches in a hurry before they were properly trained. England was
compelled to adopt this chivalrous folly by the crying need of France.
It looked in the Spring of 1917, before Russia had broken down or the
pressure on the Italian front had become so menacing, as though the
Allies could afford to ask America to conduct her war on the lines
of big business. America jumped at the chance--big business being the
task to which her national genius was best suited. If her Allies could
hold on long enough, she would build her fleet and appear with an army
of millions that would bring the war to a rapid end. Her rôle was to
be that of the toreador in the European bull-fight.