ng in the pretty garden of the chateau,
or reading up in the library. We have cleaned this up now,
and it is an altogether curious sensation to recline here in an easy-chair,
reading some fine old book, and just taking the precaution
not to stay in front of the glassless windows through which
the sharpshooters can snipe at you from their posts in the thickets
on the slopes of the plateau, not six hundred metres away.
Sometimes our artillery opens up and then you lay down your book for a while,
and, looking through a peek-hole, watch the 75's and 120's
throw up fountains of dirt and debris all along the line
of the enemy's trenches.

==

"Spring has come here at last," so the letter closes, "and we are having
beautiful weather. I am going in swimming in the Aisne this afternoon
for the first time. In fine health and spirits."

During the summer, the Legion was moved about a good deal
from sector to sector, and Alan often found himself in pleasant places,
and got a good deal of positive enjoyment out of his life.
On June 18, 1915, he wrote to his mother:

==

You must not be anxious about my not coming back. The chances are
about ten to one that I will. But if I should not, you must be proud,
like a Spartan mother, and feel that it is your contribution
to the triumph of the cause whose righteousness you feel so keenly.
Everybody should take part in this struggle which is to have
so decisive an effect, not only on the nations engaged but on all humanity.
There should be no neutrals, but everyone should bear some part of the burden.
If so large a part should fall to your share, you would be in so far
superior to other women and should be correspondingly proud.
There would be nothing to regret, for I could not have done otherwise
than I did, and I think I could not have done better.
Death is nothing terrible after all. It may mean something
even more wonderful than life. It cannot possibly mean anything worse
to the good soldier.

==

The same note recurs in a letter of two weeks later (July 3):

==

Whether I am on the winning or losing side is not the point with me:
it is being on the side where my sympathies lie that matters,
and I am ready to see it through to the end. Success in life
means doing that thing than which nothing else conceivable
seems more noble or satisfying or remunerative, and this enviable state
I can truly say that I enjoy, for had I the choice I would be
nowhere else in the worl