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“He survived the singing. . .he survived the collection of money for the home guard, a flag drill and a speech. . .But he did not survive a recitation by a . . .child. When she reached the lines A man is dying in no-man's land, Before he goes, he asks for your hand. . . . Asa departed the rally. He was glad to escape, but he was no happier outside than he had been inside. He was not sure where the greater sickness lay, in himself, unable by love or war to feel himself united with his neighbors, or in his neighbors, united by the cause and in the manner they were. He looked up at the stars, winter's constellations setting in the west, summer's constellations marching up the eastern sky. They had the power to calm and ease, but to take that calm and ease on the first night of so many men's deaths seemed ignoble. Endure the pain, he told himself, star love is too easy. The stars ask nothing of you. He defended himself against his own abuse. "I ask a good deal of myself. What? In God's name, what? Tell me quickly," his suffering self demanded. "To know, to understand." It was a barren defense. He got no comfort out of it. He took what comfort he could get from the stars.” — Jessamyn West