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,
in times of peace, takes all his two years at. We rise at 5,
and work stops in the afternoon at 5. A twelve hours day at one sou a day.
I hope to earn higher wages than this in time to come, but I never expect
to work harder. The early rising hour is splendid for it gives one the chance
to see the most beautiful part of these beautiful autumn days in the South.
We march up to a lovely open field on the end of the ridge
behind the barracks, walking right into the rising sun.
From this panorama, spread about on three sides is incomparably fine
-- yellow cornfields, vineyards, harvest-fields where
the workers and their teams can be seen moving about in tiny figures --
poplars, little hamlets and church-towers, and far away to the south
the blue line of the Pyrenees, the high peaks capped with snow.
It makes one in love with life, it is all so peaceful and beautiful.
But Nature to me is not only hills and blue skies and flowers,
but the Universe, the totality of things, reality as it most obviously
presents itself to us; and in this universe strife and sternness
play as big a part as love and tenderness, and cannot be shirked