, the
more personal and intimate, the better. We want narratives by obscure
persons: we want to know and appreciate everybody's outlook upon public
events, whether that outlook be orthodox or unorthodox, conventional or
unconventional. Only thus can we see the recent war in all its aspects.

The motives which have prompted me to publish this book have been well
expressed by Dr. A. C. Benson in his essay on Authorship in _From a
College Window._ In that volume there occurs the following striking
passage:

"The wonderful thing to me is not that there is so much desire in the
world to express our little portion of the joy, the grief, the mystery
of it all, but that there is so little. I wish with all my heart that
there was more instinct for personal expression; Edward Fitzgerald said
that he wished that we had more lives of obscure persons; one wants to
know what other people are thinking and feeling about it all; what joys
they anticipate, what fears they sustain, how they regard the end and
cessation of life and perception which waits for us all. The worst of it
is that people are often so modest, they think that their own experience
is so dull, so unromantic, so uninteresting. It is an entire mistake. If
the dullest person in the world would only put down sincerely what he or
she thought about his or her life, about work and love, religion and
emotion, it would be a fascinating document. My only sorrow is that
amateurs of whom I have spoken above will not do this; they rather turn
to external and impersonal impressions, relate definite things, what
they see on their travels, for instance, describing just the things
which anyone can see. They tend to indulge in the melancholy labour of
translation, or employ customary, familiar forms, such as the novel or
the play. If only they would write diaries and publish them; compose
imaginary letters; let one inside the house of self, instead of keeping
one wandering in the park!"

These memoirs, then, consist mainly of extracts from my private diary
and my letters home during those memorable days, spent in the Salient
and its vicinity, between the Battle of Messines and the Third Battle of
Ypres. The letters cover a definite period in the history of a great
battalion and in the course of the war. As will speedily be noticed, the
whole period was one of looking forward, practising and awaiting a great
day which we all knew was not far off, but the actual date of which none
of