Chisledon Camp

February 11/17 (Sunday 8:15 P.M.)

Dear Father,

I lost all my money to day and it has knocked me a bit askew. Lately I had been feeling pretty confident that whatever might happen in the future, I could back up against it and weather the storm, but a thing like this kind of takes the wind out of one’s sails. It isn’t so much the loss of the money itself as the realization of my own inefficiency. Are circumstances really too strong for me or can I overcome these bad habits which make my life miserable under these conditions? Most of the fellows think I am more or less crazy, but Dorland has helped me to get at the sort of the trouble. I have never practiced the habit of thinking about the ordinary duties of life as I perform them. It came as a kind of shock to me to learn that normal people usually think about what they are doing when they are washing dishes or polishing buttons. Such things always seemed to me not worth while thinking about. Well, I have at least found out that that’s all wrong. To learn something useful is the first stem and must try at every moment now to actually benefit by the enlightenment. When I look back over the last two years of my life I can see now that the lack of rigid concentrations was seriously interfering with my paper work – in a purely intellectual sphere. Now when a certain habit of mind to which I have never been accustomed is required from morning to night I am hopelessly at sea. I try to look at the whole matter in this light, that a special opportunity has been offered me to develop the practical side of my nature. I wish I had more self confidence. The army, at least in the ranks, is the worst place in the world to develop this quality. It has been a benumbing, paralyzing influence that gives one a sense of absolute dependence upon the arbitrary, often unreasonable and senseless whim of authority. At times I feel utterly powerless, completely without resource, unable to make the slightest effort against the drift of inevitable circumstances. It is this slavery that makes army life almost unendurable at times. It is comparatively easy to put up with hardship, cold, ugly surroundings and poor food and, when one is in good health, you can even get a certain amount of fun out of it, in the spirit of adventure; but I really believe that three or four years in the ranks would utterly unfit any man for professional life or leadership in any sphere.

The amount which I lost was about 112.5 [pounds] I am trying to economize to make up for it but shall be glad to get some assigned pay as soon as possible. When I went on church parade this morning I left my belt in the bunk house and on my return found that it had been rifled. It is the first time I have ever left it lying around. I thought I had it on all the time. Dorland was hut orderly and was only out of the room for a very few minutes and there is a mystery about the whole affair. The only conjecture I can make is that some fellow out of one of the new platoons – four arrived from Toronto a few nights ago- stole it when he was[?] in our wash room where a great many of them come as their own aren’t fixed up yet. However It’s really a comparatively small matter in itself and won’t bother me.

I was very much interested to hear of the amalgamation of the ‘Presbyterian’  and the ‘Westminister’ and am looking forward to the arrival of the first copy. It is rather too bad, I think, that you can’t afford to pay for your contributions this year. I think it should get a good start off with lots of special features, but perhaps you have arranged to get some real good stuff for the first few members. It seems to me that you can make a splendid magazine once you get on your feet again financially. Won’t you lose a lot of subscribers who are no Presbyterians though? In the December member of the ‘Westminister’ I read with interest the article on the ‘Scottish Homes & Haunts of Stevenson.’ When I came away from Edinburgh I thought that the finest view I had ever seen in my life – surpassing even that of Oxford from the Radcliffe Camers- was the view of the city from Calton Hill. It was a misty afternoon about four o’clock when I stood beside the Nelson monument with young Fraser Macdonald and as Stevenson says ‘The city rose house above house, spire above spire, until it was received into a sky of softly glowing clouds and seemed to pass on and upwards by [?] grades and rises, city beyond city, a new Jerusalem bodily sealing heaven.’ The city was silhouetted, a smoky gray mass against a background of heavy clouds above which gleamed an orange sky barred with low streaks of smoke. This lightened up and made distinct the top of the castle and all the spires and house tops on the sky line a sharp clean outline against the sunset sky, while coming further round directly to the left lay gray, old Holyrood Palace with the Salishing Crags and the Arthis sent behind no doubt you often saw the city from the same viewpoint that winter you spent in Edinburgh.

Now I am on Edinburgh I might as well tell you something bore about that wonderful little trip. I was going to tell you how much a disapproved of that editorial in the Presbyterian advocating conscription , but we’re all sick of the war though it gets madder and more absorbingly interesting and frightfully complicated every day. So I’ll try and give a hurried account of our four days. I went to the National Gallery while Stalker and Macdonald went sleeping or walking or something. In the evening we all went to a musical comedy called ‘Oh Caesar!” at the Lyceum theatre and it was the best show of its kind I ever saw anywhere. I went to see it again myself, the next night and went with Stalker again for a couple of hours Saturday night just before we caught our train back to London. It was being produced for the first time, prior to its production in London. It has since been in Glasgow and Manchester but hasn’t arrived at the metropolis yet, though I expect it will very soon. We’re not getting any passes now, though, as I think I mentioned before I must admit that perhaps I mightn’t have been so crazy about the show if it hadn’t been for the company. However to get on. The next say, Thursday, I did a bit of exploring by myself as Hum had been over the ground I wished to take before and young Fraser, who was anxious to get back to ‘town’ slept in. –By the way I forgot to mention that the previous morning after viciting the castle we naturally went into it. Giles was interesting for its historical associations that for its architecture. First I strolled leisurely down the Canon gate fairly reeking with historical and romantic associations. I passed John Knox’s house and the old Tolbooth and kept right on till I reached Holyrood Palace. Here I spent quite a while as I had recently read the “the Queen’s [?]” by Maurice Hewlett, a story of Mary and consequently found the rooms and relics and the ancient ruined chapel adjacent to the palace extremely fascinating. When I had finished here I went up Holyrood Road and through the Cowgate. The squalor and sordidness of this famous throughfare presenting a stinking contrast to the magnificent Princess St. which with all its gardens and the view of the old town and castle all along must surely be the the handsomest throughfare in the world. By the time I got back to the Waverly Bridge again it was nearly one o’clock and I was glad to meet the others and to have lunch with them in a restaurant on Princess St. That afternoon I got a haircut and then went up on the Calton Hill. We had a bang up dinner in the evening and then I went to ‘Oh Caesar!’ while the others fooled around the streets for awhile.

Next morning Jim and I got the train to Glasgow from the Waverly Station and landed in the big burgh about ten o’clock. Glasgow struck me as being the only big city outside of London I have been in since leaving Canada. There was to my mind a certain slowness and lack of [?] and up to date methods about Edinburgh and Bristol that made them seem about the size of Hamilton. But Glasgow is certainly a real city: like an American city too with its streets laid out at right angles and its excellent street car system double decked cars with a closed supper story. Well now I had a great time making up my mind whether I should go over to the Isle of Bute – there was a boat a day mooring – or go down to Ayr with Jim. I decided on the latter on account of the time of year, the indecent weather and because we were taking the trip together. Besides I hadn’t written to Cousin Kate and for all I knew she might be away. It was a miserable foggy morning anyway and the sail down the Clyde wouldn’t have been pleasant. So we landed at Ayr about one. It is a very quaint and evidently thriving town of about 35,000. When we got into the High St. the first thing we noticed was the Tim O’Shanter Inn of which I enclosed a card. Mrs Scott was a most kindly and obliging old Scotch lady and we left our haversacks there for the afternoon We went upstairs saw the room where burns and his cronies used to sit and carouse. Then we had a good, plain dinner at a nearby cafe and after that took the electric car out to Alloway. (I’ve got to hurry this as it’s only ten minutes till ‘lights out’ shall have to make my bed in the dark.) We spent the afternoon here. It was cold and bleak but we could easily imagine how beautiful the Door must be in summer. Of course we say the Banks and Bras and the ‘Auld Brig’. Most interesting of all was the [?].

[?] Kirk and graveyard inseparably associated with Tom O’Shanter. We got back to Glasgow just in time to take a car to Sauchichall St and the King’s theatre where we saw ‘High Jinks’. I had seen it in Toronto a couple of winters ago and as the company was rather second lass didn’t care much for the show itself, but we had lots of fun because we were in one of the lower boxes next to the stage -  it was all we could get- and were the only people in the house who had a box; so you see we were real ‘swank’. After the show we tried to find something to eat but people go to bed early over here and we were unsuccessful. So we got a policeman to direct us to a hotel and passed a very comfortable night in the “Kentworth” an old house but with fine rooms and meals.

I’ll have to try and write another letter about Scotland for this has got to stop. Lots to tell yet – for the next morning the catastrophe happened and we had a funny day in London with about a shilling between us. Then when I get through with Scotland I must tell you about the two weeks course we had in trench warfare with bomb throwing, trench storming and anti-gas measures. Interesting but strenuous work with night ops. three times a week. We are taking a course in bayonet fighting now under English serjeants so are really going to be the most wonderfully trained troops who ever crossed the channel. Suppose you have heard about the Arctic weather we have had for the last three weeks. Coldest in the memory of the oldest inhabitants. (Writing by candle now)

Very, very much love to all my dear family,

George