ions. Between Leysin and the trench
where I am at present there has been only uncertainty. Nothing new has
happened to our company since October 13.

This is a strange kind of war. It is like that between neighbours on bad
terms. Consider that some of the trenches are separated from the enemy
by hardly 100 metres, and that the combatants fling projectiles across
with their hands: you see that these neighbours make use of violent
methods.

As for me, I really live only when I am with you, and when I feel the
splendour of the surroundings.

Even in the middle of conversations, I am able to preserve the
sensation of solitude of thought which is necessary to me.

_November 18._

This morning, daylight showed us a country covered with hoar-frost, a
universal whiteness over hills and forest. My little village looks
thoroughly chilled.

I had spent the greater part of the night in a warm shelter, and I could
have stayed there, thanks to the kindness of my superiors, but I am
foolish and timid, and I rejoined my comrades from 1 o'clock till
half-past 4.

Curiously enough, we can easily bear the cold: an admirable article of
clothing, which nearly all of us possess, is a flour-sack which can be
worn, according to the occasion, as a little shoulder-cape, or as a bag
for the feet. In either case it is an excellent preserver of heat.

_11 o'clock._

For the moment there runs in my mind a pretty and touching air by
Handel. Also, an allegro from our organ duets: joyful and brilliant
music, overflowing with life. Dear Handel! Often he consoles me.

Beethoven comes back only rarely to my mind, but when his music does
awake in me, it touches something so vital that it is always as though a
hand were drawing aside a curtain from the mystery of the Creation.

Poor dear Great Masters! Shall it be counted a crime against them that
they were Germans? How is it possible to think of Schumann as a
barbarian?

Yesterday this country recalled to my mind what you played to me ten
years ago, the Rheingold: 'Libre etendu sur la hauteur.' But the outlook
of our French art had this superiority over the beautiful music of that
wretched man--it had composure and clarity and reason. Yes, our French
art was never turbid.

As for Wagner, however beautiful his music, and however irresistible and
attractive his genius, I believe it would be a less substantial loss to
French taste to be deprived of him than of his great classical
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