(Poem)
HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
IN HOSPITAL. (Poem)
THE ROAD TO BLIGHTY
THE LADS AWAY. (Poem)
THE GROWING OF THE VISION
THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES. (Poem)
GOD AS WE SEE HIM
HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
In my book, _The Father of a Soldier_, I have already stated the
conditions under which this book of my son's was produced.
He was wounded in the end of June, 1917, in the fierce struggle before
Lens. He was at once removed to a base-hospital, and later on to a
military hospital in London. There was grave danger of amputation of
the right arm, but this was happily avoided. As soon as he could use
his hand he was commandeered by the Lord High Commissioner of Canada
to write an important paper, detailing the history of the Canadian
forces in France and Flanders. This task kept him busy until the end
of August, when he obtained a leave of two months to come home. He
arrived in New York in September, and returned again to London in the
end of October.
The plan of the book grew out of his conversations with us and the
three public addresses which he made. The idea had already been
suggested to him by his London publisher, Mr. John Lane. He had
written a few hundred words, but had no very keen sense of the value
of the experiences he had been invited to relate. He had not even read
his own published letters in _Carry On_. He said he had begun to read
them when the book reached him in the trenches, but they made him
homesick, and he was also afraid that his own estimate of their value
might not coincide with ours, or with the verdict which the public has
since passed upon them.
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