The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1917-06-28
Laughing atTerror onSomme Front;
Novelist Tells Stories Of Heroism
This War Will Be Won by Tired
Men," He Asserts; eve Be-
come a Little Child In
Gods Hands"

in No Mans Land. You have to crouch
and move warily now.
"Zing! a bullet from German sni-
per. You laugh and whisper, "A near
one, that 80
my first trip to the trenches was
up to No Mans Land. I went in the
early dawn and came to Nine. Tus-
saud's show Of the dead, frozen into
immobility in the most extraordinary
attitudes. Some Of them were part
way out of the ground, one hand
pressed to the wound, the other point
ing, the head sunken and the hair
plastered over the forehead by repeat
ed rains. I kept on wondering what
my companions would look like had
they been three weeks dead. My i'm
agination became ingenious!y and Wv
idly morbid. When I had to step over
them to pass it seemed as though they
must clutch at my trench coat and ask
me to help.
"Pcor, lonely people, so brave and so
anonymous in their death! Somewhere
there is a woman who loved each one
of them and would give her life for
my opportunity to touch the poor clay
that had. been kind to her. It's like
walking through the day of resurrec-
ton to visit No Mans Land.
'"Then the Huns see you, and the
shrapnel begins to fall. You crouch
like dog and run for it,
Soon after that a terrifying adyen-
ture befell the novelist, Of which he
makes light in letter to his mother:
To-day had the funniest experience
OF my life-got caught in a Hun cur
tain of fire and had to lie on my tum-
| my for two hours in q trench with the
| shells bursting five yards from me
and never scratch. You know how I
| used to wonder what I'd do under such
| circumstances. Well, I laughed All
l could think Of was the sleek people
walking down Fifth, avenue and the
equally sleek crowds taking tea at the
Waldorf. 1t struck me as ludicrous
that I, who had been one Of them,
should be lying there lunchless"
Forgets to Be Afraid.
ooh, If 1 get back how differently 1
shall writer he exclaims in another
letter, and he adds:
| when you've faced the worst in so
many forms you lose your fear and
arrive at peace. There's a marvellous
grandeur about all this carnage and
establishments souls rise above the
distress-they have to in order to sur.
vive. When you see how cheap mems
bodies are you cannot help but know
that the body is the least part of per
sOnality. *
Il plan novels galore and wonder
whether I shall ever write them the
way see them now. My imagination
is to an extent crushed by the stupen
dousness Of reality. think am chang
ed in some stern spiritual way-strip
ped Of 1abbiness. I am perhaps hard
er-I can't say. That 1 should be {
novelist seems unreasonable 81
long since 1 had my own way in tn,
world and met any one on artist,
terms
Here is a fine passage in a letter tt
his sister:
1.-THE great uplifting thought is tina
we have proved ourselves men. II
our death we set q standard which il
ordinary life we could never have fol
, lowed. Inevitably we should hav
sunk below our highest SELF Here ",
know that the world will remember II
and that our loved ones, in spite O
tears, will be proud of us. What Go,
will say to us we cannot guess, but b
can't be too hard on men who did thei
!. duty"
He relates some terrible anecdotes O
the front, among which the worst i
, this:
II met a solitary private wanderin
across a shell torn field. I watche
him and thought something was vron
by the aimlessness Of his progress
When I spoke to him he looked at m
j., mistily and said: Dead men, Moon
, lit road He kept on repeating til
phrase, and it was all that one coul
: get out of him. Probably the dea
I men and the moonlit road We're th
!. last sights he had before he went il
n sane"
, II don't know whether I have bee
able to make anysef my emotions clea
l. to you in my letters says tConingsb
a Dawson, writing after months Of COZ
d slant fighting. ''Terror has terrib]
n fascination. Up to now have alway
+ been afraid-afraid Of small fears.
> last | meet fear itself, and it sting
s my pride into an unprecedented cou
). age" And in a letter to his father b
6 strikes forth this graphic bit:
1--WE owed you a letter for SON
a time, but I've been getting very litt
Il leisure. You can't send steel message
n to the kaiser and love notes to yor
4 family in the same breath"
): One Mans Behavior.