life, thank God, together."

She wrote me earlier, in 1917, while I was waiting to be called to a
Southern training camp:

"I plan a home some day of the most Spartan simplicity, all our needs
cut down to the lowest and plainest of possessions, and yet a spirit
of hospitality, of contentment, of gaiety, of self-reliance and mutual
helpfulness. Books and bookshelves..."

And of the Army:

"It so often makes me think of the religious orders. The combination
of the most heroic impulses with the most commonplace drudgery. The
extraordinary fluctuations of feeling, thinking at one time that it is
the only thing in the world to do ... and then the feeling, what am I
doing this for, anyway, other people do not find it necessary... As
one nun said to me, 'You do not have to accept a Carmelite vocation--
but, you have to either accept or refuse it.' The choice is laid
before everyone, but once it is, all the coward has to do is to stand
aside."

This last illustrates how she always saw the necessities of those she
loved in terms of the spirit. Napoleon is reported to have said of
Jesus Christ: "He speaks from the soul as never man spoke; the soul is
sufficient for him, as he is sufficient for the soul."

So she thought. And her letters contain many quotations she formed her
life by: