But they (the infantry) had no use for boys of twelve and thirteen, and before I had a chance in another war, the desire to kill people to whom I had not been introduced had passed away.
Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly ofthe storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head.
The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.
A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually waste away, and eventually die.
Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my lifelong keeping. You cannot see its waves as they flow toward you, darling, but in these lines you will hear...the distant beating of its surf.
You see, he knew his own laws just as other people so often know the laws: by words, not by effects. They take a meaning, and get to be very vivid, when you come to apply them to yourself.
Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.