eclectic, the result of selection elimination. It would be as unlike
the common average as Rupert Brooke, with his poet's face and poet's
heart, was unlike the ordinary naval officers with whom he sailed to
the AEgean.

The ordinary soldier is an intensely human creature, with an
"endearing blend of faults and virtues." The romantic method of
portraying him not only misrepresented him, but its result is far less
impressive than a portrait painted in the firm lines of reality. There
is an austere grandeur in the reality of what he is and does which
needs no fine gilding from the sentimentalist. To depict him as a Sir
Galahad in holy armour is as serious an offence as to exhibit him as a
Caliban of marred clay; each method fails of truth, and all that the
soldier needs to be known about him, that men should honour him, is
the truth.

What my son aimed at in writing this book was to tell the truth about
the men who were his comrades, in so far as it was given him to see
it. He was in haste to write while the impression was fresh in his
mind, for he knew how soon the fine edge of these impressions grew
dull as they receded from the immediate area of vision. "If I wait
till the war is over, I shan't be able to write of it at all," he
said. "You've noticed that old soldiers are very often silent men.
They've had their crowded hours of glorious life, but they rarely tell
you much about them. I remember you used to tell me that you once knew
a man who sailed with Napoleon to St Helena, but all he could tell you
was that Napoleon had a fine leg and wore white silk stockings. If
he'd written down his impressions of Napoleon day by day as he watched
him walking the deck of the _Bellerophon_, he'd have told you a great
deal more about him than that he wore white silk stockings. If I wait