December 20th, 1916.
Dear Mr. A.D.:
I've just come in from an argument with Fritz when your chocolate formed
my meal. You were very kind to think of me and to send it, and you were
extraordinarily understanding in the letter that you sent me. One's life
out here is like a pollarded tree--all the lower branches are gone--one
gazes on great nobilities, on the fascinating horror of Eternity
sometimes--I said horror, but it's often fine in its spaciousness--one
gazes on many inverted splendours of Titans, but it's giddy work being
so high and rarefied, and all the gentle past seems gone. That's why it
is pleasant in this grimy anonymity of death and courage to get
reminders, such as your letter, that one was once localised and had a
familiar history. If I come back, I shall be like Rip Van Winkle, or a
Robinson Crusoe--like any and all of the creatures of legend and history
to whom abnormality has grown to seem normal. If you can imagine
yourself living in a world in which every day is a demonstration of a
Puritan's conception of what happens when the last trump sounds, then
you have some idea of my queer situation. One has come to a point when
death seems very inconsiderable and only failure to do one's duty is an
utter loss. Love and the future, and all the sweet and tender dreams of
by-gone days are like a house in which the blinds are lowered and from
which the sight has gone. Landscapes have lost their beauty, everything
God-made and man-made is destroyed except man's power to endure with a
smile the things he once most dreaded, because he believes that only so
may he be righteous in his own eyes. How one has longed for that sure
confidence in the petty failings of little living--the confidence to
believe that he can stand up and suffer for principle! God has given all
men who are out here that opportunity--the supremest that can be hoped
for--so, in spite of exile, Christmas for most of us will be a happy
day. Does one see more truly life's worth on a battlefield? I often ask
myself that question. Is the contempt that is hourly shown for life the
real standard of life's worth? I shrug my shoulders at my own
unanswerable questions--all I know is that I move daily with men who
have everything to live for who, nevertheless, are urged by an
unconscious magnanimity to die. I don't think any of our dead pity
themselves--but they would have done so if they had faltered in their
choice. One lives only from sunrise to sunrise, but there's a more real
happiness in this brief living than I ever knew before, because it is so
exactingly worth while.
Thank you again for your kindness.
Very sincerely yours,
C.D.
The suggestion that we might all meet in London in January, 1917, was a
hope rather than an expectation. We received a cable from France on
Sunday, December 17th, 1916, and left New York on December 30th. We were
met in London by the two sailor-sons, who were expecting appointments at
any moment, and Coningsby arrived late in the evening of January 13th.
He was unwell when he arrived, having had a near touch of pneumonia. The
day before he left the front he had been in action, with a temperature
of 104. There were difficulties about getting his leave at the exact
time appointed, but these he overcame by exchanging leave with a
brother-officer. He travelled from the Front all night in a windowless
train, and at Calais was delayed by a draft of infantry which he had to
take over to England. The consequence of this delay was that the meeting
at the railway station, of which he had so long dreamed, did not come
off. We spent a long day, going from station to station, misled by
imperfect information as to the arrival of troop trains. At Victoria
Station we saw two thousand troops arrive on leave, men caked with
trench-mud, but he was not among them. We reluctantly returned to our
hotel in the late afternoon and gave up expecting him. There was all the
time a telegram at the hotel from him, giving the exact place and time
of his arrival, but it was not delivered until it was too late to meet
him. He arrived at ten o'clock, and at the same time his two brothers,
who had been summoned in the morning to Southampton, entered the hotel,
having been granted special leave to return to London. A night's rest
did wonders for Coningsby, and the next day his spirits were as high as
in the old days of joyous holiday. During the next eight days we lived
at a tense pitch of excitement. We went to theatres, dined in
restaurants, met friends, and heard from his lips a hundred details of
his life which could not be communicated in letters. We were all
thrilled by the darkened heroic London through which we moved, the
London which bore its sorrows so proudly, and went about its daily life
with such silent courage. We visited old friends to whom the war had
brought irreparable bereavements, but never once heard the voice of
self-pity, of murmur or complaint. To me it was an incredible England;
an England purged of all weakness, stripped of flabbiness, regenerated
by sacrifice. I had dreamed of no such transformation by anything I had
read in American newspapers and magazines. I think no one can imagine
the completeness of this rebirth of the soul of England who has not
dwelt, if only for a few days, among its people.
Coningsby's brief leave expired all too soon. We saw him off from
Folkestone, and while we were saying good-bye to him, his two brothers
were on their way to their distant appointments with the Royal Naval
Motor Patrol in the North of Scotland. We left Liverpool for New York on
January 27th, and while at sea heard of the diplomatic break between
America and Germany. The news was received on board the _S.S. St. Paul_
with rejoicing. It was Sunday, and the religious service on board
concluded with the Star-Spangled Banner.