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Somewhere in Paris! Dec 2 1917.
Perhaps by this time you have received my cablegram of Nov. 29 - the day after Thanksgiving telling of my change of service second and my acceptance of your proposition first . The telegram may seem to have been a trifle tardy. There was a reason, which I don't think necessary to give, but being a sort of confession I prefer to give it. I wanted to wire you as soon as I had been accepted in aviation, and considering the expense, I didn't think a matter of a few days would make the sending of two grams advisable. Especially when I had a sort of feeling that perhaps some of my letters en route from the Orient had reached you before the 'gram would anyhow. Things. mail [ ?] are in such a mess now, Dear, that I scarce know what to repeat or what may have got thru.
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and my letters for the last month have been such a hodgepodge that if all of them have got to you you will have a literary crazy quilt as a souvenir de la guerre. Always now when I sit down to write to you, immediately the whole sequence of things that I have wanted to tell you about and have hinted at, but of which I am afraid even the hints haven't got to you, have arisen before me in such volume that I have been fairly appalled. And yesterday I learned that I could still use the French Post - which is much more lenient than the U.S. - and so I am taking a chance even on sending you some of the snaps taken in Albania and en route from there. I wrote a little note to Florence a few days ago, and mailed it to your address, since I
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didn't know hers. The note that she sent me was merely a pleasant little effusion of self introduction, which if you didn't read, you might have blushed a bit at the therein contained compliment to yourself, and thus indirectly to me. ---
About the second part of the [cali?] first:
I tried to take all angles of the question into consideration. I [can?], and, you may be sure, that them [over?] with you at my side. And I was fully and definitely decided upon getting the latest letter that I have received from you, in which you remember you wrote, "To imagine you killing someone, just because he was on the other side -- I should abhor it. yet -- of course for a big view of the case, that's mere sentimentalism which has been indulged in too
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much here. Only I'm so glad for you!" Don't think for a moment, Edna, that I'm placing the responsibility for my decision on you. Only when I received your letter I was sure that you were of the same opinion as I and purely personal feelings couldn't come between me and what I considered to be right and necessary. And so, when I passed the examinations for the service which I really think will be the most important in war work by next summer, and when I saw that many fellows were admitted into ambulance work who were not past by the aviation board, I felt that my way had been pointed out to me. You understand, Dear? About the first part of my cable: I accepted as I always have accepted. I have loved you so
