XI

LETTER TO AN ARMY CHAPLAIN[2]


_April 17, 1916._

Thank you very much for your letter of a week ago, which I should
have tried to answer before if I had had time. I am afraid that your
confidence in me as an oracle will be severely shaken when I confess
that I was once on the eve of being ordained, and that in the end
I funked it because it seemed such an awfully difficult job, and I
couldn't see my way to going through with it.

[Footnote 2: This chapter is the actual text of a letter from "A
Student in Arms," and like the most of the other chapters appeared
originally in the _Spectator_.]

However, I must try to answer your letter as best I can, and I hope
that you will not mind my speaking plainly what I think, and will
remember that I do so in no spirit of superiority, but very humbly, as
one who has funked the great work that you have had the pluck to take
up, and who has even failed in the little bit of work that he himself
did try and do. This last means that I have no business to be an
officer. It was the biggest mistake in my life, for my position in the
ranks did give me a hold on the fellows, the strength of which I have
only realized since I left.