1

When I speak of this little soldier who fell a few days ago, up there
in the Vosges, it is not that I may mourn him publicly. It behoves us
in these days to mourn our dead in secret. Personal sorrows no longer
count; and we must learn how to suppress them in the presence of that
greater sorrow which extends over all the world, the particular sorrow
of the mothers who are setting us an example of the most heroic
silence that human suffering has been taught to observe since
suffering first visited womankind. For the admirable silence of the
mothers is one of the great and striking lessons of this war. Amid
that tragic and sublime silence no regret dare make itself heard.

But, though my grief remains dumb, my admiration can still raise its
voice; and in speaking of this young soldier, who had not reached
man's estate and who died as the bravest of men, I speak of all his
brothers-in-arms and hail thousands like him in his name, which name
becomes a great and glorious symbol; for at this time, when a
prodigious wave of unselfishness and courage, surging up from the very
depths of the human race, uplifts the men who are fighting and giving
their lives for its future, they all resemble one another in the same
perfection.


2

My friend Raymond Bon was a sergeant in the 27th battalion of the
Chasseurs Alpins. He left for the front in August, 1914, with the
other recruits of the 1915 class, which means that he was hardly
twenty years of age; and he won his stripes on the battlefield, after