How to lay our lives at Love's feet.

ERIC P. DAWSON,
_Sub. Lieut_. R.N.V.R.



INTRODUCTION


The letters in this volume were not written for publication. They are
intimate and personal in a high degree. They would not now be published
by those to whom they are addressed, had they not come to feel that the
spirit and temper of the writer might do something to strengthen and
invigorate those who, like himself, are called on to make great
sacrifices for high causes and solemn duties.

They do not profess to give any new information about the military
operations of the Allies; this is the task of the publicist, and at all
times is forbidden to the soldier in the field. Here and there some
striking or significant fact has been allowed to pass the censor; but
the value of the letters does not lie in these things. It is found
rather in the record of how the dreadful yet heroic realities of war
affect an unusually sensitive mind, long trained in moral and romantic
idealism; the process by which this mind adapts itself to unanticipated
and incredible conditions, to acts and duties which lie close to horror,
and are only saved from being horrible by the efficacy of the spiritual
effort which they evoke. Hating the brutalities of War, clearly
perceiving the wide range of its cruelties, yet the heart of the writer
is never hardened by its daily commerce with death; it is purified by