I

On the 14th of July 1919 I stood on the high balcony of a friend's house in the Champs Elysees, and saw the Allied Armies ride under the Arch of Triumph, and down the storied avenue to the misty distance of the Place de la Concorde and its obelisk of flame.

As I stood there, high over the surging crowds and the great procession, the midsummer sun blinding my eyes, and the significance of that incredible spectacle dazzling my heart, I remembered what Bergson had once said of my inability to memorize great poetry: "You're dazzled by it."

Yes, I thought; I shan't remember all this except as a golden blur of emotion. Even now I can't catch the details, I can't separate the massed flags, or distinguish the famous generals as they ride by, or the names of the regiments as they pass. I remember thankfully that a grand mutile for whom I have secured a wheeled chair must have received it just in time to join his group in the Place de la Concorde…The rest is all a glory of shooting sun–rays reflected from shining arms and helmets, from the flanks of glossy chargers, the dark glitter of the 'seventy–fives, of machine–guns and tanks. But all those I had seen at the front, dusty, dirty, mud–encrusted, blood–stained, spent and struggling on; when I try to remember, the two visions merge into one, and my heart is broken with them.