That tree was like a soldier.

You would not believe how much harm has been done to the forests about
here: it is not so much the machine-guns as the frightful amount of
cutting necessary for making our shelters and for our fuel. Ah well, in
the midst of this devastation something told me that there will always
be beauty, in man and in tree.

For man also gives this lesson, though in him it is less easily
distinguished: it is a fine thing to see the splendid vitality of all
this youth, whose force no harvest can diminish.

_December 15, morning._

I have had your dear letter of the 9th, in which you speak of our home.
It makes me happy to feel how fine and strong is the force of life which
soon adjusts itself to each separation and uprooting. It makes me happy,
too, to think that my letters find an echo in your heart. Sometimes I
was afraid of boring you, because though our life is so fine in many
ways, it is certainly very primitive, and there are not many salient
things to relate.

If only I could follow my calling of painter I could have recourse to
these wonderful visions that lie before me, and I could find vent for
all the pent-up artist's emotion that is within me. As it is, in trying
to speak of the sky, the tree, the hill, or the horizon, I cannot use
words as subtle as they, and the infinite variety of these things can
only be named in the same general terms, which I am afraid of constantly
repeating. . . .

_December 15._

One must adapt oneself to this special kind of life, which is indigent
as far as intellectual activity goes, but marvellously rich in emotion.
I suppose that in troubled times for many centuries there have been men
who, weary of luxury, have sought in the peace of the cloister the
contemplation of eternal things; contemplation threatened by the crowd,
but a refuge even so. And so I think our life is like that of the monks
of old, who were military too, and more apt at fighting than I could
ever be. Among them, those who willed could know the joy which I now
find.

To-day I have a touching letter from Madame M----, whose spirit I love
and admire.

Changeable but very beautiful weather.

It is impossible to say more than we have already said about the
attitude we must adopt in regard to events. The important thing is to
put this attitude in practice. It is not easy, as I have learnt in these
last days, though no new difficulty had arisen to impede my path towards
wisdom.