You pass trains of troops, but the uniforms are quiet, the men jovial and unwarlike.

The wounded are not conspicuously moved by day.
Although you are not many miles away from the firing line, where an average of more than ten thousand are daily falling, the country is as peaceful and quiet as can be imagined.

The big black and white horses are winter ploughing.

The red and black cattle and the sheep and hogs are grazing in fields and pastures.

The reddening willows speak of an early spring, and the full blue streams tell the brown grasses, and the tall poplars that their colors will soon be gayer.
As the shadows fall, no guard comes as in England to pull your curtain down according to military orders; and, as you approach Paris, you see families dining by uncurtained windows in blazing light.