Dr. Owen thinks my trouble is shell shock, but he is mistaken. I have taken care of too many shell shock cases not to recognize the symptoms. Can I ever forget that darling soldier boy from Maryland who mistook me for his mother? "They're coming! They're coming!" he screamed one night; you could hear him all over the hospital. Then he jumped out of bed like a wild man--it took two orderlies and an engineer to get him back under the covers. I can see his poor wasted face when the little doctor came to give him a hypodermic. There he lay panting, groaning: "Oh those guns! Oh those guns! They break my ears!" Then he sprang up again, his eyes starting out of his head: "Look out, there! On the ammunition cart! Look out, Bill! Oh my God, they've got Bill--my pal! Blown him to hell! Oh, oh, oh!" and he put his head down and sobbed like a woman. That is shell shock. I have nothing like that. I know what I am doing. * * * * * There was a storm today with great crashing waves, then everything grew calm under a golden sunset. I take this as a good omen. I feel happier already. The infinite peace of Nature is quieting my soul. I love the sea. I can almost say my prayers to the sea. * * * * * _Saturday._ The swimming master pays me extravagant compliments every morning when I splash about in the pool. I know my body is beautiful. Thank God, I have never imprisoned it in corsets. I love the exercises I do in my room every morning. They bring back the play spirit of my childhood. When I get out of bed I slip into a loose garment, then I lie on the floor and stretch my spine along the carpet--it's wonderful how this exhilarates one. After that I take deep breaths at the open window, raising and lowering my arms--up as I draw my breath in, down as I throw it out. Then I lie down again and lift my legs straight up, the right, the left, then both together. I do this twenty times, resting between changes and taking deep breaths. I sit cross-legged on the floor with my feet on a red and gold cushion and rotate my waist like an oriental dancer. I stand on my head and hands and curve my body to right and left in graceful flexings. I do this no matter how cold it is. I do not feel the cold, for I am all aglow with health and strength. Then, before my bath, I do dumb-bell exercises in front of the mirror. I remember dining with my husband one night in a pink lace peignoir--we had been married about three years--and during the dessert, I excused myself and went into my bedroom and, posing before a cheval glass, I let the peignoir slip off my shoulders, and stood there like a piece of polished marble, rejoicing in my youth and loveliness!