Another picture also--a composite photograph--I shall never forget. It is the same man--sometimes blonde, sometimes dark, but always the same smallish man--as, on picket duty, he stops you to examine your papers. He does not understand the papers in the least. The British passport begins with the words, "We, Sir Edward Grey, a Baronet of the United Kingdom...." Sternly he wrinkles his brow over the formidable document, earnestly trying to do his duty. At last, "Votre nom, Edouard Gra-ee?" he asks. You explain that you wish that it was and call attention to the place where your own insignificant name is mentioned lower down. To his immense relief he has mastered the central fact, namely, that you are English. And his face lights up with the smile which one has come to know so well; a smile of real pleasure and good-will. Sometimes he speaks a word of English, and with what pride he uses it! "All ri'!" "Good night!" "How do?" And you go on into the night feeling that you are leaving a friend behind whom you would like to stop and talk to. And he, you know, has been cheered in his lonely duty by the mere contact with an ally. THE HEROIC LANGUAGE By ALICE MEYNELL. [From King Albert's Book.] When our now living languages are "dead," Which in the classes shall be treasured? Which will the masters teach? Kepler's, and Shakespeare's, and thy word, thy phrase, Thy grammar, thou heroic, for all days, O little Flemish speech! Cheerful Spirits in Trench Inferno [Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.] Northern France, Dec. 20, (Dispatch to The London Daily News.)--This week--a week of many significant things--has ended in the wildest whirl of weather imaginable. The rains have been terrific, blinding, tropical in their almost ceaseless roar and fury. Surely only madmen or fiends would fight in such an elemental maelstrom. We may be both, and perhaps we are, now that the whole world is topsy-turvy; for we are going savagely on at this dread business, half blind and wholly desperate. If the furious sky were to rain red-hot pitchforks the contending armies would still be undismayed and would crawl, if not fly, at one another's throats. But there is no romance in trench fighting; it is sickening, demoralizing. Ask any soldier who has been at it for a time. He will pour a few plain truths into your shocked ear. Down at the railroad terminal today I met some of them--a queer mixture. There was a batch of German prisoners; there was a squad of wounded Belgians, and there were four lost, stolen, or strayed British soldiers from the Seventh Division--a Sergeant and three men. They were all so plastered over with dirt that it was difficult to sort out their nationality.