Where will you be, I wonder, when this letter reaches you? Perhaps in the Brooklyn sanctuary (this term is here used in a purely literary sense) reading reviews of your newest book of verse--pleasant reading indeed, judging by those I have seen. Perhaps you will be in your Sabine farm at Lake Hopatkong--if that is the way that strange word is spelled. Perhaps the postman will give it to you just as you parade away from your home, and you will take it with you to the palatial new Columbia University Club, and glance at it over your turtle soup and sherry and steak and mushrooms and corn and sweet potatoes and chaveis--but I’m breaking my heart describing this meal of yours. Soon the mess call will sound and I’ll take my aluminum meat dish and canteen cup, and wade through the mud to the mess-line. And I’ll get a plate of stew and some milkless tea or coffee, and I’ll stand in the mud or sit down in the mud and consume it. Nevertheless, it’s a nice war and I’m enjoying most of it. Our time at the front--of which the newspapers have by this time informed you--was a wonderful experience. I had the privilege of spending a week as observer in the Regimental Intelligence Section--lively and interesting work. I’d love to see you at an observation post, Tom, you’d get as thin as I now am. Send me your book, will you, Tom? I enjoy poetry more now than ever before--I suppose it is because I get it so seldom. When I’m writing verse and reviewing verse and talking about verse and to verse-makers all the time, I have not the enthusiasm for it I have over here, where most of the poetry is unwritten and undiscussed. Nevertheless, it’s a nice country. I’d like to buy you a litre of red wine--for a franc and a half--with a dash of syrup in it. Also I could introduce you to the results of the labours of a few accomplished cooks, some of them soldiers, some of them French women. Fr. O’Donnell quotes you to the effect that Louis is now in this land, or on his way hither. I hope to see him. He ought to be sent to an Officer’s Training School soon--I think that will happen. He is the sort of fellow who ought to have a commission. I might possibly be allowed to go to an Officer’s Training School, but I wouldn’t do so, because if I did so I’d be sent--whether or not I got a commission--to some Regiment other than this. And I take no pleasure in the thought of soldiering in a regiment of strangers. I like the crowd in this outfit very much and would rather be a sergeant--as I am--here than be a lieutenant in any other Regiment. If you are ever minded to send me papers, please let them be _Times_ Book Reviews or other sheets of a decidedly literary flavour. Occasional copies of _The Bookman_ would be welcome. I like a bit of concentrated literature now and then. Remember me, please, to your sisters and brothers and to any of my other friends whom you may meet. And believe me