past." The other two letters were prepared to be sent in case of his death. To his mother he begins: "This isn't to be mailed until I've gone where all the good aviators go, honey. You are so wise and brave and cheerful that I know you can be as proud as you are sad at my death." But I can quote no more of this. It will be found in the fifth volume. The letter for his father I will quote in full, with no other comment than this: It has suggested to me more poignantly than any other page in these five volumes, packed with poignant suggestions, the incalculable costs of war:
Dearest Dad: When you get this I shall have gotten into a spin too close to the ground or something else equally foolish. I can faintly conceive of your grief, as I, too, have dreamed of sons that might one day have been mine. But if a man has lived well he dies well, as I believe; then know that I shall have held my head high before the Judgment Seat. I have committed my sins, but I am deeply ashamed of them, and I know that God will forgive them. I regret that I might not have lived to lighten your old age, father dear, and that I might not have given you a grandson; but it was not to be.
We have not written each other much, dad, but it has been somewhat unnecessary. We understand each other sufficiently well that we may leave things unsaid.
You have been a good father to me, dad. You'll never know how much I have loved and respected you. Even as I write I think of a hundred little ways in which you guided my faltering steps and molded my character. "I before E, except after C." I doubt whether I could ever have become as good a man as you. Evil desires followed me much. That was one reason I wanted to live.
They are just passing the window with the dead