Always yours sincerely, JOYCE. * * * * * _To Robert Cortes Holliday_ Headquarters Co., 165th Inf., A. E. F., France. May 7, 1918. Dear Bob: I have not the time now to write you the letter I’d like to write--chiefly about your characteristic and delightful Tarkington book, which I greatly enjoyed and expect to enjoy during many re-readings. What I write now is merely a note in answer to your letter of April 12. This you will please communicate to Mr. Doran and regard as final. The only way I can give you any material for a book is as I am doing now--sending you every six months or so some verses or an introspective essay which you can syndicate and eventually turn into a book. I sent you a prose sketch “Holy Ireland” (which represents the best prose writing I can do nowadays), another prose sketch, and (by way of Aline) a poem, “Rouge Bouquet,” which you ought to be able to do a good deal with. It is probably the best verse I have written. I never planned doing war-correspondence work--if I had I’d have come over as a correspondent instead of as a soldier. Many circumstances, including the censorship, the rules governing a soldier’s conduct and other things, prevent me from trying to make a consecutive narrative now, even if I so desired. I am a poet at present trying to be a soldier. The experience may naturally be expected to result in a book--of some kind, at some time. I am not going to try to “cover” the war or my Regiment’s share in it. But the title “Here and There With the Fighting Sixty-ninth” may probably be taken as well as any other to cover what, if I survive, I shall probably, in the course of time, write. My days of hack writing are over, for a time at least. To tell the truth, I am not at all interested in writing nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression of something beautiful. And I see daily and nightly the expression of beauty in action instead of words, and I find it more satisfactory. I am a Sergeant in the Regimental Intelligence Section--the most fascinating work possible--more thrills in it than in any other branch except possibly aviation. And it’s more varied than aviation. Wonderful life! But I don’t know what I’ll be able to do in civilian life--unless I become a fireman! Please give my love to Stella and believe me always your affectionate and grateful friend JOYCE. * * * * * _To Reverend Edward F. Garesché, S.J._