“I suppose my troubles are really laughable, but they do irritate at the moment. Doing coal fatigues and cookhouse work with a torn hand, and marching ten miles with a clean hole about an inch round in your heel, and bullies swearing at you, is not very natural. I think when my hands and feet get better I’ll enjoy it. Nobody thinks of helping you—I mean those who could. Not till I had been made a thorough cripple an officer said it was absurd to think of wearing those boots, and told me to soak them thoroughly in oil to soften them. Thank you for your note; we get little enough, you know, and I allow half of that to my mother (I rather fancy she is going to be swindled in this rat-trap affair), so it will do to get to London with. You must now be the busiest man in England, and I am sure would hardly have time to read my things; besides, you won’t like the formlessness of the play. If you like you can send them to Abercrombie, and read them when you have more time. I don’t think I told you what he said: ‘A good many of your poems strike me as experimental and not quite certain of themselves. But, on the other hand, I always find a vivid and original impulse; and what I like most in your songs is your ability to make the concealed poetic power in words come flashing out. Some of your phrases are remarkable; no one who tries to write poetry would help envying some of them.’ I have asked him to sit for me—a poet to paint a poet. All this must seem to you like a blur on the window, or hearing sounds without listening while you are thinking.” _To Miss Seaton (from Blackdown Camp, Farnborough)._ “Thanks very much for the bread and biscuits, which I enjoyed very much. I am in another regiment now, as the old one was smashed up on account of most of the men being unfit. We that were left have been transferred here. The food is much better, but conditions are most unsettling. Every other person is a thief, and in the end you become one yourself, when you see all your most essential belongings go, which you must replace somehow. I also got into trouble here the first day. It’s not worth while detailing what happened and exposing how ridiculous, idiotic, and meaningless the Army is, and its dreadful bullyisms, and what puny minds control it. I am trying to get our Passover off, which falls Easter. If I do I’ll let you know. The bother is that we will be on our ball-firing then, and also this before-mentioned affair may mess it up. This ball-firing implies we will be ready for the front. I have been working on ‘Moses’—in my mind, I mean—and it was through my absent-mindedness while full of that that I forgot certain orders, and am now undergoing a rotten and unjust punishment. I’m working a curious plot into it, and of course, as I can’t work here, I jot little scraps down and will piece it together the first chance I get.” The remaining letters are all from France. _To Miss Seaton_ (1916).