, and I
didn't mean any one to know about it; but it got round, and I suddenly
found that it had caught the imaginations of some of the fellows, and
I realized that if one was to have any power over them one must do
symbolic things to show them that one meant what one said about love
being really better than money, and all that sort of thing. So in
rather a half-hearted way I did try to do things which would show
them that I was in earnest. I took a couple of rooms in a little
cottage in a funny little bug-ridden court, instead of living at the
mission-house. I went out to Australia steerage to see why emigration
of London boys was not a success, and when war broke out I enlisted,
although I had previously held a commission. And all these little
things, though on reasonable grounds often rather indefensible,
undoubtedly had the effect of making my South London boys take me
more seriously than they did at first. Well, I am quite sure that with
Tommies, if ever you get a chance of doing something in the way of
sharing their privations and dangers when you aren't obliged to, or of
showing in practical ways humility and unselfishness, that will endear
you to them, and give you weight with them more than anything else. In
my time in the ranks I had that proved over and over again. If once
I was able to do even a small kindness for a fellow which involved a
bit of unnecessary trouble, he would never forget it, and would repay
me a thousand times over. I was a sergeant for about nine months in
England, and had one or two chances. Then I reverted to the ranks,
and for that the men could not do enough to show me kindness. (It was
my not valuing rank and comparative comfort for its own sake that
appealed to them.) Continually I have reaped a most gigantic reward of
goodwill for actions which cost very little, and which were not always
done from the motives imputed.

I am not swanking--at least, I don't mean to--but that is just my
experience, that with Tommy it is actions, and specially actions that
imply and symbolize humility, courage, unselfishness, etc., that
count ten thousand times more than the best sermons in the world. I am
afraid that all this is not much good because you are an officer, and
your course of action is very clearly marked out for you by authority.
But I do say that if ever you have a chance of showing that you are
willing to share the often hard and sometimes humiliating lot of the
men it is that which ab