The large museum was in a great old monastery, built of hand-made bricks by the monks of St. Augustine in the ninth century. It is still beautifully complete, with cloistered court and brick-vaulted chapel. Past peoples live in monuments they leave. Monuments express the life and art and religion of a people. To build such monuments is the work of an architect. This is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. It shows me the purpose and benefit of education; for the rest of my life what I read will be absorbed with so much more interest and insight and profit. Maybe the course of technology is narrow and technical, but I find that never did I want to study and learn by reading as at present. It has waked me to the fact that I have tastes and the right to follow them as I please. And I can follow them in my many spare hours without detracting from my service in the Cause. Your letter containing clippings and cartoons was very entertaining. I believe cartoons serve the purpose of keeping alive the trend of public thought without being filled up with unreliable censored facts and rumors. Love to you all. Your son, DINSMORE. _November 29, 1917._ DEAR FAMILY: Today was Thanksgiving, and we all had the very pleasant surprise of a day of _repos_ given us by the captain that we might be present at a banquet given us by the American colony at Pau. It was held at one of the good hotels and had all the proper characteristics of a regular Thanksgiving dinner. There were forty-two of us there. After the meal we had some songs from local talent, which were of no mean variety, and then we went to a moving picture show which was rather a failure except as a place to digest an excellent and more than hearty meal. My, but the machines we have now are a joy to run. They climb, they turn, they dive, and recover as you think. You have but to wish in the third dimension and you are there. It is beyond description. You sit comfortably behind a little windshield without glasses and watch the country far below. You forget the motor and space, and speed until suddenly something of interest causes you to lean out and you are struck in the face by a gust of wind which bends your head back and pumps your breath back into your lungs. Then you know what speed means. Soon your motor begins to miss, and you become worried and look for a place to land. You find the fields not more than one hundred feet square. You glance at the altimeter and find that you have unconsciously climbed to an altitude where the air is light, and your motor pants, so you make a readjustment, glance back at the school fifteen miles behind, which you left eight minutes ago, and go on your way.