And about Steve. I understand all. The draft explains his not writing. And this war--it's like a maelstrom rising higher and higher. Next summer for certain, possibly this Christmas, it means I go. But rather than go as a private I'm going to enlist voluntarily in the aviation corps. Flying only would have as much thrill as doing the climax of a story. That's like the sea. And I'm not panicky or worried about it. I feel in some unconscious way that the balance of the cosmos demands it. God, nobody should drag now! It's just like a marshfire that grows and grows to let the new green shoots come under in spring. It's like a big song. I would not go to fight Germany, or France or England or America. I'd go because it's a cleanser. One must play with the song of many feet and express with the original song. One must flash pictures to the many eyes of their own being. Oh--it's a song, the whole thing! And I'm looking forward to it. Only the ones such as John and Tom shall escape. Don't you see the joy, the peace, the grandeur in owning a scar, in being bled white? The first year of the war, England was black with mourning. Now, she is white.... The work is on me with talons. I am looking only at the impossible heights--of a portrayal of life--the rugged life in endless volumes. I have made an oath silently with myself that in three years I shall do a book.... The work comes now just as if I were to sit down before a fire-place with shadows and light around stones, and were to grow interested, with stars low on the horizon like live sparks. And friends? A foolish question! I mean that I must be alone in the formative thrall of work. I _did_ want your letter. But forget pity. That is a thing that stifles soul. I do not ask, by all the stars, I do not ask for anything. The highest of all things to you all. And Steve? He has too much of the Song to be trodden or be lost or be ground in mud. You are all friends--but I must be alone now. The work is rising.... * * * * * TO JOHN: