August 3, 1914.
Well--war is declared.
I passed a rather restless night. I fancy every one in France did. All
night I heard a murmur of voices, such an unusual thing here. It simply
meant that the town was awake and, the night being warm, every one was
out of doors.
All day to-day aeroplanes have been flying between Paris and the
frontier. Everything that flies seems to go right over my roof. Early
this morning I saw two machines meet, right over my garden, circle about
each other as if signaling, and fly off together. I could not help
feeling as if one chapter of Wells's "War in the Air" had come to pass.
It did make me realize how rapidly the aeroplane had developed into a
real weapon of war. I remember so well, no longer ago than Exposition
year,--that was 1900,--that I was standing, one day, in the old Galerie
des Machines, with a young engineer from Boston. Over our heads was a
huge model of a flying machine. It had never flown, but it was the
nearest thing to success that had been accomplished--and it expected to
fly some time. So did Darius Green, and people were still skeptical.
As he looked up at it, the engineer said: "Hang it all, that dashed old
thing will fly one day, but I shall probably not live to see it."
He was only thirty at that time, and it was such a few years after that
it did fly, and no time at all, once it rose in the air to stay there,
before it crossed the Channel. It is wonderful to think that after
centuries of effort the thing flew in my time--and that I am sitting in
my garden to-day, watching it sail overhead, like a bird, looking so
steady and so sure. I can see them for miles as they approach and for
miles after they pass. Often they disappear from view, not because they
have passed a horizon line, but simply because they have passed out of
the range of my vision-? becoming smaller and smaller, until they seem
no bigger than a tiny bird, so small that if I take my eyes off the
speck in the sky I cannot find it again. It is awe-compelling to
remember how these cars in the air change all military tactics. It will
be almost impossible to make any big movement that may not be discovered
by the opponent.
Just after breakfast my friend from Voulangis drove over in a great
state of excitement, with the proposition that I should pack up and
return with her. She seemed alarmed at the idea of my being alone, and
seemed to think a group of us was safer. It was a point of view that
had not occurred to me, and I was not able to catch it. Still, I was
touched at her thoughtfulness, even though I had to say that I proposed
to stay right here. When she asked me what I proposed to do if the army
came retreating across my garden, I instinctively laughed. It seems so
impossible this time that the Germans can pass the frontier, and get by
Verdun and Toul. All the same, that other people were thinking it
possible rather brought me up standing. I just looked at the little
house I had arranged such a little time ago--I have only been here two
months.
She had come over feeling pretty glum--my dear neighbor from Voulangis.
She went away laughing. At the gate she said, "It looks less gloomy to
me than it did when I came. I felt such a brave thing driving over here
through a country preparing for war. I expected you to put a statue up
in your garden 'To a Brave Lady.'"
I stood in the road watching her drive away, and as I turned back to the
house it suddenly took on a very human sort of look. There passed
through my mind a sudden realization, that, according to my habit, I had
once again stuck my feet in the ground of a new home--and taken root.
It is a fact. I have often looked at people who seem to keep foot-free.
I never can. If I get pulled up violently by the roots, if I have my
earthly possessions pruned away, I always hurry as fast as I can, take
root in a new place, and proceed to sprout a new crop of possessions
which fix me there. I used, when I was younger, to envy people who
could just pack a bag and move on. I am afraid that I never envied them
enough to do as they did. If I had I should have done it. I find that
life is pretty logical. It is like chemical action--given certain
elements to begin with, contact with the fluids of Life give a certain
result. After all I fancy every one does about the best he can with the
gifts he has to do with. So I imagine we do what is natural to us; if
we have the gift of knowing what we want and wanting it hard enough we
get it. If we don't, we compromise.
I am closing this up rather hurriedly as one of the boys who joins his
regiment at Fontainebleau will mail it in Paris as he passes through. I
suppose you are glad that you got away before this came to pass.