I found he had been twice
out at the front, and was now home on sick leave. He had been at the battle
of Mons, through the retreat to the Marne, the advance to the Aisne, the
first battle of Ypres, and the fighting at Festubert. In a word, he had
seen some of the greatest events in the world's history, face to face, and
yet he confessed that when he came to writing a letter, even to his wife,
he could find nothing to say. He was in the position of the lady mentioned
by Horace Walpole, whose letter to her husband began and ended thus: "I
write to you because I have nothing to do: I finish because I have nothing
to say."
I suppose there has never been so much letter-writing in the world as is
going on to-day, and much of it is good writing, as the papers show. But
the case of my companion in the train is the case of thousands and tens of
thousands of young fellows who for the first time in their lives want to
write and discover that they have no gift of self-expression. It is not
that they are stupid.
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