arrived safely, and he has worn it ever since.




XI

September 15th, 1916.

DEAR FATHER:

Your last letter to me was written on a quiet morning in August--in the
summer house at Kootenay. It came up yesterday evening on a water-cart
from the wagon-lines to a scene a little in contrast.

It's a fortnight to-day since I left England, and already I've seen
action. Things move quickly in this game, and it is a game--one which
brings out both the best and the worst qualities in a man. If
unconscious heroism is the virtue most to be desired, and heroism spiced
with a strong sense of humour at that, then pretty well every man I have
met out here has the amazing guts to wear his crown of thorns as though
it were a cap-and-bells. To do that for the sake of corporate
stout-heartedness is, I think, the acme of what Aristotle meant by
virtue. A strong man, or a good man or a brainless man, can walk to meet
pain with a smile on his mouth because he knows that he is strong enough
to bear it, or worthy enough to defy it, or because he is such a fool
that he has no imagination. But these chaps are neither particularly
strong, good, nor brainless; they're more like children, utterly casual
with regard to trouble, and quite aware that it is useless to struggle
against their elders. So they have the merriest of times while they can,