INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
To Edward Marsh (from Bury St. Edmunds).
"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 form- lessness 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
29
