this book. It was our happy lot to meet Coningsby in London in the
January of the present year, when he was granted ten days' leave. In the
course of conversation one night he laid emphasis on the fact that he,
and those who served with him, were, after all, not professional
soldiers, but civilians at war. They did not love war, and when the war
was ended not five per cent of them would remain in the army. They were
men who had left professions and vocations which still engaged the best
parts of their minds, and would return to them when the hour came. War
was for them an occupation, not a vocation. Yet they had proved
themselves, one and all, splendid soldiers, bearing the greatest
hardships without complaint, and facing wounds and death with a gay
courage which had made the Canadian forces famous even among a host of
men, equally brave and heroic. The secret of their fortitude lay in the
one brief phrase, "Carry On." Their fortitude was of the spirit rather
than the nerves. They were aware of the solemn ideals of justice,
liberty, and righteousness for which they fought, and would never give
up till they were won. In the completeness of their surrender to a great
cause they had been lifted out of themselves to a new plane of living
by the transformation of their spirit. It was the dogged indomitable
drive of spiritual forces controlling bodily forces. Living or dying
those forces would prevail. They would carry on to the end, however long
the war, and would count no sacrifice too great to assure its triumph.

This is the spirit which breathes through these letters. The splendour
of war, as my son puts it, is in nothing external; it is all in the
souls of the men. "There's a marvellous grandeur about all this carnage
and desolation--men's souls rise above the distress--they have to, in
order to survive." "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." They
have shredded off their weaknesses, and attained that "corporate