Just now I spoke of conflict; I did not mean war in its universal or journalistic sense but in its innpingement upon the individual. These notations of moods attempt to express that conflict between the delight of the flesh, which we call love or passion, and that agony of the flesh which is known only to the infantrymen of the line.
Even you may feel that these notes on war are overstrained, morbidly self-conscious, petulant perhaps. That may be, but (taking into account all enthusiasms and devotions) I affirm that they represent to some degree the often inarticulate feelings of the ordinary civilized man thrust suddenly into these extraordinary and hellish circumstances—feelings of bewilderment, bitterness, dumb revolt and rather piteous weakness. Poor human flesh is so easily rent by the shattering of explosive and the jagged shear of metal. Those of us who have seen it will never be quite happy again.
You may feel also an almost exaggerated passion or sensualism in the second part of the book. That may be, but it expresses the soldier's mood; a reckless and disregard of rules for conduct, a yearning of the flesh, a wild grasping at life.
I think I have told you that when I came back from France last year I was quite overwhelmed by the beauty there seemed to be in women's faces. Well, can you understand that after those endless days of mud and destruction and racked nerves the body is wrought up to such an intensity that the passion of love becomes almost unendurable in its piercing beauty?
