Human nerves quickly get accustomed to the most unusual conditions and circumstances and I noticed that quite a number of men actually fell asleep from sheer exhaustion in the trenches, in spite of the roaring of the cannon about us and the whizzing of shrapnel over our heads.

Life that only a few hours before had glowed with enthusiasm and exultation, suddenly paled and sickened.

Genius is an overused word. The world has known only about a half dozen geniuses. I got only fairly near.

The moral effect of the thundering of one's own artillery is most extraordinary, and many of us thought that we had never heard any more welcome sound than the deep roaring and crashing that started in at our rear

My wife volunteered her services as Red Cross nurse, insisting upon being sent to the front, in order to be as near me as could be, but it developed later that no nurse was allowed to go farther than the large troop hospitals far in the rear of the actual operations

I saw a great many men die afterwards, some suffering horribly, but I do not recall any death that affected me quite so much as that of this first victim in my platoon.

The earlier days of the republic went into the acquisition of money and the provision for material things is now finding an outlet in the espousal of art. Now America has the leisure and the culture to foster beauty.