I was expressing but one of the host of thoughts that crowded on me as I said: “You’ve got the tremendous advantage of being an American. You can say what you like. If I were—” She stood off and surveyed me. “You don’t need to say anything. You speak for yourself. One has only to look at you.” I smiled ruefully. “I know I’m pretty well battered up.” “Oh, it isn’t that.” “What is it, then?” “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just—it’s just everything. You’re a type. I’m not speaking of you personally, but of a lot—hundreds—thousands—I’ve seen—young fellows who make me think of some other words in the Bible.” “What are they?” “They’re in Isaiah, I think. Everybody knows them.” She recited in a smooth, rich voice that gave new beauty to the familiar passage: “‘Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: ... He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.’” Her voice rose—and fell again. “‘He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.’” She resumed in a colloquial tone: “I’ve seen so much of that, haven’t you? The lamb led dumb to the slaughter, and the quiet, wounded man hardly opening his mouth for a moan. It’s heartbreaking.” “And yet you’d bring your own people into it.” “Because it’s sublime. Because I’ve seen for myself that the people who take part in it are raised to levels they never knew it was possible to reach. Haven’t you found the same thing for yourself?” “Oh, I? I’m only—” “You’re a man—and a young man. You’re a young man who’s been—I can’t express it. It’s all in that fact. The people at home will only have to look at you to see what language could never put before them. Language isn’t equal to it. Imagination isn’t equal to it when the thing is over. Don’t you find that? Doesn’t it often seem to you, now that you’re out of it, as if it was a dream that had half escaped you? You try to tell it—and you can’t. That’s why the people who’ve been there and come back so often have nothing to say. That’s why so many of the books—except those that contain diaries jotted down on the minute—that are written afterward are so often disappointing. It’s like a great secret in every man’s soul that he knows and thinks about, and can never get out of him. So I shall make no attempt to do more than to tell the little things, the small human details—” You will see that I was following my own train of thought as I broke in, “But New York life will get hold of you again.”