What is a coward? Is there any such thing as absolute bravery or absolute cowardice? When we characterize a particular person as a coward for failing to do, or refraining from doing, some specific thing are we quite sure that in the circumstances we would have acted differently? These are questions that suggest themselves when one reads what purport to be excerpts from the diary and letters of a confessed—or rather self-stigmatized coward, one Jan R——, a Hollander. He had lived in France some years, and soon after the outbreak of war became a naturalized citizen in order that he might join the French Army as a volunteer—not because he wanted to, but because he was ashamed to stay out. The _Atlantic Monthly_ published all that was suitable of the available material in a long and intensely interesting article which is a curious record of psychological study and introspection. It is highly probable that the experience was by no means unique. A candid statement by the most daring of our heroes possibly would contain the admission that there were moments when the reflections of the Hollander were similar to his own. Jan R—— tells of morning awakenings from troubled sleep with “the oppression that something horrible was about to enter into his existence.” He felt a pang in his breast that he “should have to take part in the fighting. There was no escape.” He suffered a fear, a shifting fear that he “could sometimes suppress but never drive out.” The life in the training camp somewhat eased his emotions as he mingled with so many others, and at times he even got “flickerings of a desire to fight,” but it was not the real thing, he assumed; it was “more in the nature of artistic imagination.” In the distance was the rumbling and thudding of heavy gun fire, and as he heard it he felt “a strange respect and admiration, mingled with fear for the men in the first line of trenches.” [Illustration: © _Kadel & Herbert._ American and French Aviation Officers at an American Hangar American aviators were among the first from the United States to do their part in the great war. There were a great many things that the French could tell our boys, and the men of the two countries coöperated in this as well as many other branches of the service.] “Before long our turn for the trenches will come. Most of the fellows are wishing for the time to come. At least that is what they say. I am dreading it. I am in earnest when I say that my life is of little value, even to myself. Yet I fear the trenches. Yesterday evening transports of wounded soldiers came past us repeatedly. Hearing the wailing and the groaning, seeing all the bloodiness made me sick.... The fear of the front suddenly overtook me. I violently reproached myself for having been so stupid as to enlist. There I was in the midst of this insane murder! And by my own free will!” HE GOES TO THE FRONT Finally his turn came for the front. One of his comrades was a youth named Gaston.