" Salonika, December 12th, 1916.
Good morning, my loves. The weather has been so beautiful and bracing to-day. that I feel almost as though I were at home. I am very well now and happy, in spite of some extremely trying times which we have been through. Father will be pleased at the way I am getting on with the books he sent out. I have read all the Prometheus Bound, and I started on the Agamemnon, but the first chorus completely baffled me, so I turned to the A charnians, and read five hundred lines in one day. I never did that at school. I have. Iess time at my disposal than previously; Nevertheless, send me .out a cheap copy of the Antigone, the favourite play of the Athenians. I could read it with enthusiasm. I have been getting on with Horace. In glancing through his Satires I came upon a tribute which he pays to his father, but which you, my dear parents, must share equally, since it is applicable to my mother just as much as to my father, and in that respect I am more fortunate than Horace (Satires, I., G, 85-68, condensed) :-
' And yet if scanty faults and slight My disposition mark (the rest is right),
My father wrought it, who from his poor farm Brought me to famous school in town. From harm He guarded me himself in schoolboy's days. To him be praise, and.love still more than praise.'
Is it not charming? I am writing my Christmas letters now, and I send you a first instalment of my very best wishes for that season, and a hope that it will be the last that we shall be forced to spend apart. So next Christmas with you. Best love.—Your loving son."
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