Dear Marguerite,
I write to inform you that we are leaving for the trenches tomorrow and will probably stay there until Christmas. (…) I leave without much enthusiasm, but also without fear. As the war loses its novelty and ceases to be an "entertainment", entering combat positions seems more and more austere. On the other hand, one becomes more aware that he follows the Lord and that he is in His hands. I have decided to spend those hours there as much as possible lost in God's will, hour by hour.
(Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ /1881–1955/, letter from the front, to his cousin, December 11, 1916;
quoted in the book Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Birth of Thought. Letters 1914–1919, Malvern 2021)
