he would have allowed, if not more potency, at any rate more adaptability,
to the human will. In order to do so, it would not have been necessary
to abandon his fatalistic creed. He would have seen, perhaps,
that even if we only will what we have to will, the factors which shape
the will -- of the individual, the nation, or the race -- are always changing,
and that it is not only possible but probable that the factors
which make for peace may one day gain the upper hand of those which
(for perfectly definite and tangible reasons) have hitherto made for war.
The fact remains, however, that he shouldered his knapsack
without any theoretic distaste for the soldier's calling.
In so far he was more happily situated than thousands who have made
all the better soldiers for their intense detestation of the stupidity of war.
But this in no way detracts from his loyalty to his personal ideal,
or from the high chivalry of his devotion to France.

The story of his life as a soldier shall be told, so far as possible,
in his own words.

After some brief preliminary training at Rouen he was sent to Toulouse.
Thence, on September 28, 1914, he wrote as follows:

==
2me Regiment Etranger,
Bataillon C., 1re. Cie, 3me Section.
Toulouse, Sept. 28, 1914.

Dear Mother,

. . . We have been putting in our time here at very hard drilling,
and are supposed to have learned in six weeks what the ordinary recruit,