that has settled on us I
seem to have plenty of time--and the mood--so, before I close, I must
say something in reply to your sad sentence in your last letter--the
reply to mine of December regarding our first big cantonnement. You
say "Oh! the pity of this terrible sacrifice of the youth of the world!!
Why aren't the middle-aged sent first--the men who have partly lived
their lives, who leave children to continue the race?" Ah, dear old girl
--you are indeed too far off to understand such a war as this. Few men
of even forty can stand the life. Only the young can bear the strain.
They not only bear it, they thrive on it, and, such of them as survive
the actual battles, will come out of it in wonderful physical trim. Of
course there are a thousand sides to the question. There are
hospitals full of the tuberculous and others with like maladies, but
those things existed before the war, only less attention was paid to
them. It is also a serious question--? getting more serious the longer
the war goes on--as to how all these men will settle into civil life again
--how many will stand sedentary pursuits after years in the open, and
how they will settle back into the injustices of class distinctions after
years of the equality of the same duty--fighting for their country.
Still if the victory is decisive, and the army is satisfied with the
peace conditions, I imagine all those things will settle themselves.

Well, Congress meets on Monday. There is no doubt in anyone's
mind of the final decision. I only hope it won't drag too long. I have
taken my flags down just to have the pleasure of putting them up
again.

I had this letter closed when I got my first direct news from the front
since the advance.

Do you remember how amused I was when I saw the Aspirant
equipped for his march in January? I was told afterward that my idea
of a light equipment for the cavalry in battle was "theoretically
beautiful," but in such a war as this absolutely impracticable. Well I
hear today that when the cavalry advanced it advanced in a
"theoretically beautiful" manner. It seems that the order was
unexpected. It caught the cavalry in the saddle during a manoeuvre,
and, just as they were, they wheeled into line and flew off in pursuit of
the Boches. They had nothing but what was on their backs--and
ammunition, of course. The result was that they had forty-eight hours
of real suffering. It was harder on the officers than on the men, and
hardest