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[Page 99]
3.
smooth and restful sward a wonderous sight to behold being, as it is, without the slashing wound of a trench, the wrinkle of a parapet, the crater of a shell. It is here that a Peasants cottage snuggles in the friendly [indecipherable] of a sheltering copse, against the dark green of which a tranquil thread of smoke, almost as blue as the sky and as airy as gossamer, rises from a chimney that squats in the homely thatch of its roof like a weary friend content and at rest: not a brick has been shattered from the chimney nor a whisp of straw torn from the roof. It is here that the rich mans chateau stands stately and serene in its splendid grounds, with sunlight lending glory to its casements, quickening to fire the crimson of its climbing roses and re-furbishing with beams of gold the false gilt of vanity that makes tawdry the ostentatiously- open ironwork of the gate that airily screens its pretentious affluence from the poor: not a single pane is broken in the casements, not a scroll of the wrought artistry is smashed or distorted of its [syminetry?]
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[Page 100]
4.
It is here, in the village and as far as the soldier may wander in the panorama of beauty in which it is circumscribed, that everything built by man is intact and everything that Nature, with the mystery of her seed, has has invoked from the soil is unharmed and complete. It is here that there seems to be an unseen caressing presence of solicitude and protection, and indeed there is – the presence of Peace
It is in such a region that the Soldier with battered and sundered faculties slowly mending and re-uniting to the calm and reason of a faith that had well-nigh been wrestled from him, is gradually re-discovering a lost world and once more becoming conscious of the existence of a benign and merciful God.
A lazy canal forces its way through the lower portion of the village: Here do sleepy barges glide with just enough disturbance of the smooth water to break up the inverted pictures of the trees and sky that are painted there in counterfeit of Natures