February 4th, 1917.
My Dearest Mother:
Somewhere in the distance I can hear a piano going and men's voices
singing A Perfect Day. It's queer how music creates a world for you in
which you are not, and makes you dreamy. I've been sitting by a fire and
thinking of all the happy times when the total of desire seemed almost
within one's grasp. It never is--one always, always misses it and has to
rub the dust from the eyes, recover one's breath and set out on the
search afresh. I suppose when you grow very old you learn the lesson of
sitting quiet, and the heart stops beating and the total of desire comes
to you. And yet I can remember so many happy days, when I was a child in
the summer and later at Kootenay. One almost thought he had caught the
secret of carrying heaven in his heart.
By the time this reaches you I'll be in the line again, but for the
present I'm undergoing a special course of training. You can't hear the
most distant sound of guns, and if it wasn't for the pressure of study,
similar to that at _Kingston_, one would be very rested.
Sunday of all days is the one when I remember you most. You're just
sitting down to mid-day dinner,--I've made the calculation for
difference of time. You're probably saying how less than a month ago we
were in London. That doesn't sound true even when I write it. I wonder
how your old familiar surroundings strike you. It's terrible to come
down from the mountain heights of a great elation like our ten days in
London. I often think of that with regard to myself when the war is
ended. There'll be a sense of dissatisfaction when the old lost comforts
are regained. There'll be a sense of lowered manhood. The stupendous
terrors of Armageddon demand less courage than the uneventful terror of
the daily commonplace. There's something splendid and exhilarating in
going forward among bursting shells--we, who have done all that, know
that when the guns have ceased to roar our blood will grow more
sluggish and we'll never be such men again. Instead of getting up in the
morning and hearing your O.C. say, "You'll run a line into trench
so-and-so to-day and shoot up such-and-such Hun wire," you'll hear
necessity saying, "You'll work from breakfast to dinner and earn your
daily bread. And you'll do it to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
world without end. Amen." They never put that forever and forever part
into their commands out here, because the Amen for any one of us may be
only a few hours away. But the big immediate thing is so much easier to
do than the prosaic carrying on without anxiety--which is your game. I
begin to understand what you have had to suffer now that R. and E. are
really at war too. I get awfully anxious about them. I never knew before
that either of them owned so much of my heart. I get furious when I
remember that they might get hurt. I've heard of a Canadian who joined
when he learnt that his best friend had been murdered by Hun bayonets.
He came to get his own back and was the most reckless man in his
battalion. I can understand his temper now. We're all of us in danger of
slipping back into the worship of Thor.
I'll write as often as I can while here, but I don't get much time--so
you'll understand. It's the long nights when one sits up to take the
firing in action that give one the chance to be a decent correspondent.
My birthday comes round soon, doesn't it? Good heavens, how ancient I'm
getting and without any "grow old along with me" consolation. Well, to
grow old is all in the job of living.
Good-bye, and God bless you all.
Yours ever,
Con.