Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... LETTER XXI A SOUL IN PURGATORY DARE I talk to you of the purgatory to which the rage of battle conducts so many souls that only a little while before walked the earth as men, and went their daily round from house to office, loving their wives and children and exchanging worldly commonplaces in the intervals of work, all unmindful that they were hourly drifting toward the Great Event? Yes, I dare. We will follow one soul that I myself followed. His story I can reconstruct from memory, for every act of it is stamped upon my mind. No, I do not need brain-cells to remember with. Neither will you--when you have escaped the prison of your brain-cells. The man was an officer in an English regiment and he was a bachelor. Outwardly he was much like other men, but his consciousness was different. He lived in a world of his own, for he was a reader and a thinker. He was not a very good man. Not all Englishmen are good even now when England is at war, you who bristle at any criticism of your beloved maternal island--you who write for me! This man was not very good because there was so little love in his heart. He was not incapable of love, yet he was unable to awaken love in others, and so was soul-starved. But sometimes he was conscious of a great yearning, and when the yearning came he was impatient, and took a drink, or cursed his servant, or both. Sometimes when he was most impatient with the world and with himself, he went on a "spree." The war began. His natural impatience found something congenial in the hurry and noise of the expedition. He was glad to go. He had known a German in London and had disliked him thoroughly. The German talked too much, and his loud tones jarred on the sensitive ears of the refined officer. As he led his men into...