They "surrendered" as the Americans say. They put their wise heads together and did for the first time what the people said they should do. And—again the good American slang—"there was no back talk." They did it. And how is it now? Where are the huge military establishments—where the drill, drill, drill, of uniformed and gun-carrying men, where the war bureaus and the generals, where that "power of the sword" that the Teuton blindly worshipped, where the Gospel of Power? Blotted out, and in its place the sanctification of Peace. The vision I had on that battlefield, when Gabrielle and I walked in the midst of the unshriven dead has been realized. The flags of the nations wave still, but with them waves the flag of their common Brotherhood.
Well, I am no great writer. I must not attempt eloquence. Let the historians and the essayists do that. What I think I saw, I must have seen, for what I see about me, everyone else sees, and this latter thing is the child of the former thing.
Reader are you content? The wonderfulness of the repatriation of the soldiers, as they swept from the battlefields and got back to the natural tasks of life has been written about, in hundreds of letters and books. I have given you the entire history of the strange event, that brought all that about. Again I ask: "Are you content?"
In years I am yet young, but I am old in spirit. The sharp experiences I have passed through; the transcendent Miracle I have been a part of, have delivered me from the trivial considerations of life. But too I have my part in life, and the darling prettiness of St. Choiseul, the noble friendship of Père Grandin, and the holy consolations of Père Antoine, the honest service of Julie, are not unconsidered. And—there is Dora.
Sincèrement. Je vous dit—le monde m'apparaît tres bon.