But, dear mother, what reminds me of home is here in my heart. It is not
eating on plates or sitting on a chair that counts. It is your love,
which I feel so near. . . .


_November 14._

Since half-past eight on the evening of the 12th we have been dragged
about from place to place in the prospect of our taking part in a
violent movement. We left at night, and in the calm of nature my
thoughts cleared themselves a little, after the two days in billets
during which one becomes a little too material. Our reinforcement went
up by stealth. We awaited our orders in a barn, where we slept on the
floor. Then we filed into the woods and fields, which the day, breaking
through grey, red, and purple clouds, slowly lit up, in surroundings the
most romantic and pathetic that could be imagined. In the full daylight
of a charming morning we learnt that the troops ahead of us had
inflicted enormous losses on the enemy, and had even made a very slight
advance. We then returned to our usual posts, and here I am again,
beholding once more the splendour of the French country, so touching in
this grey, windy, and impassioned November, with sunshine thrown in
patches upon infinite horizons.

Dear mother, how beautiful it is, this region of spacious dignity, where
all is noble and proportioned, where outlines are so beautifully
defined!--the road bordered with trees diminishing towards the frontier,
hills, and beyond them misty heights which one guesses to be the German
Vosges. There is the scenery, and here is something better than the
scenery. There is a Beethoven melody and a piece by Liszt called
'Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude.' Certainly we have no solitude,