+---------------------------+ | THE GENERAL ELLIOTT. | | MORRELL’S ALES AND STOUT. | +---------------------------+ and have never even had a drink there; but once I asked a man working in the garden who this General Elliott was, and he answered that really he didn’t know; he reckoned he was a fine soldier and killed somewhere long ago in a big battle. As a matter of fact, I find now that Elliott was the great defender of Gibraltar from 1779 to 1783, who survived to become Lord Heathfield; but that doesn’t affect the poem. Some months after this conversation I passed the sign board again and suddenly a whole lot of floating material crystallized in my mind and the following verse came into my head--more or less as I quote it:-- “Was it Schellenberg, General Elliott, Or Minden or Waterloo Where the bullet struck your shoulderknot, And the sabre shore your arm, And the bayonet ran you through?” On which lines a poem resulted which seemed unsatisfactory, even after five drafts. I rewrote in a different style a few days later and after several more drafts the poem stood as it now stands. There appear to be more than one set of conflicting emotions reconciled in this poem. In the false start referred to, the 1. A. idea was not properly balanced by 1. B. and 1. C., which necessitated reconstruction of the whole scheme; tinkering wouldn’t answer. I analyze the final version as follows:-- 1. A. Admiration for a real old-fashioned General beloved by his whole division, killed in France (1915) while trying to make a broken regiment return to the attack. He was directing operations from the front line, an unusual place for a divisional commander in modern warfare. B. Disgust for the incompetence and folly of several other generals under whom I served; their ambition and jealousy, their recklessness of the lives of others. C. Affection, poised between scorn and admiration, for an extraordinary thick-headed, kind-hearted militia Colonel, who was fond enough of the bottle, and in private life a big farmer. He was very ignorant of military matters but somehow got through his job surprisingly well. 2.