We were beginning to realize slowly what a hell of torture and disease and suffering this war means to France. Half a million tuberculars in her homes, spreading poison there; two million homeless refugees quartered beyond the war zone; millions of soldiers living in the homes fifty miles back from the line, every month bringing new men to these homes left by their comrades returning to the battle front; air raids by night slaying women and babies; commerce choked with the offering to the war god; soldiers filling the highways; food, clothing and munitions taking all the space upon the railroads; fuel almost prohibitively high; food scarce; and always talk of the war--of nothing, absolutely nothing but the war and its horrors. That France has held so long under this curse proves the miracle of her divine courage! As we sat under the shrouded torches in the inn courtyard and considered what life really means to the men and women of St. Dizier, once more we wondered how we at home would react under the terrific punishment which these people are taking; what would Wichita do with her houses bombed, her homes crowded with refugees; her parks and schools and public buildings turned into barracks, her stores filled with gaping empty shelves, her railroad yards clogged with munitions, and ever the mourners going about the street and man to his long home. How would Emporia act with the pestilence that stalketh in darkness for ever near her; with her women and children slaughtered, merely to break the morale of the people and cause them to plead for peace; with cripples from the war hidden away in a hundred sad homes, with fatherless children and children born out of wedlock among the things that one had to face daily? Perhaps our young Jewish friend thought we were wearying of her. For she rose and said, "Well, good-night, gents--pleasant dreams!" Pleasant dreams--indeed! But in the morning we arose refreshed and hurried along a misty plain, forty miles or so from the American troops. Always in the background were great bushy trees, and lush green grass, and the thing was composed. How the French manage to compose their landscape is too much for me. But at any of a thousand points the scene might have been photographed for a Corot, by getting a few good-looking girls in nighties to dance on the grass of the middle distance! American landscape has to be picked apart to have its picture taken; a tree selected here, a hill there, a brook yonder, and if ladies in nighties are needed, they are brought from afar! They are not indigenous to the soil. But one feels that in France they might come sidling out from behind any willow clump with their toes rouged ready for the dance!