A SUBALTERN'S IDEAL between — and Of course a battle
doesn't mean I'm going is be hit—far from it—but there's always the possibility, and in the uncertainty of this war it's never wrong to -take what precau- tions one can. Well, if I do go out I won't have done very much in the way of godfatherly duties towards you, and in these days of discipline and war I dislike having a duty undone weighing on my mind. All the same I have the fullest intention of living, and coming back to worry your mother by telling her she doesn't know how to bring you up. Left to myself I should bring you up in the most Spartan manner. You would rise early, unlike your god- father, who, in the lax way of the age, goes to bed between 4 and 5 a.m. and gets up at 10 or 10.30. You would bathe in cold water, like me this time, for I haven't met warm water for an absolute age. Your meals would be simple and good fare, and your clothes cool and unpretentious. You would have to work pretty hard. You must be able to sing and play the piano. If possible cultivate a taste for drawing; it will lighten the tedium of many hours. French you absolutely must know; you must speak and write it as easily as you do English. No one can exist now without being able to speak it, and in post-war days it will be a greater necessity than ever. Try and get your mother to send you to a family in France; it's very well worth it. Learn some other language too. German, although you probably won't want to learn it, is worth learning. Read history. It will fascinate you once you're started it, and you'll prefer it to any novel ever written. I don't mean that you're to learn strings of dates and lists of kings. Just read the books, and read with your mind set on it, and you'll find it most extraordinarily interesting. You're going to be pretty, and you're sure to know it. A pretty face tho' is far from being everything. The face and appearance attract a man's attention, but it's the character that lies behind with which he really falls in love. Flirt a bit by all means, but don't flirt too much, it is such hell for the man who loves you. If you can't love him, tell him so, straight, and don't keep him hanging on in uncertainty for a year or two; he'll probably end by hating you, and it's very bad for you. Don't make the man give in to you in everything; he will if you want him to, as every woman is an adept at making man obey her. Don't monopolize every man you meet, or other women will hate you, and men, at any rate men who are men, are going to be very few and far between after this war. Finally, stick to the man you choose, thro' thick and thin. If his luck is out, cheer him up, and don't grouse about it. Don't keep too sharp or too gentle a tongue in your head. Too much butter is worse even than perpetual and biting sarcasm. Don't quote too much in conversation, it looks as though you were showing off and sounds very parvenu. Read a lot in the winter. Live out of doors in the summer. Ride, bathe, and take heaps of exercise. Never mind your complexion, you'll look prettier healthily sunburned than if you resemble a painted doll. Here's one golden rule out of Shakespeare: ' This above all—To thine own self be true '—which means what every child is told, 'Don't do or say anything you wouldn't like your mother to know.' Your mother's very broad minded, and there's no need to be frightened of her, you could not have a better, and if you do what she thinks best you'll never go very far wvng. From my own deeds and misdeeds, I know now what is right and what is wrong, and I'm sort of responsible for you, Phyllisanne. . . . Don't be skin-deep; nobody'll care twopence for you if you are: it's the worst form of humbug. Set yourself an ideal, and try to live up to it. You can have no higher ideal than to try and copy the lives of some of the men out here. They are separated from all they love best. They are in danger every miuute of their lives; their outlook on the near future is danger and more danger. They've got the worry of thinking what will happen to their wives and children at home if they are knocked out. Their comforts are few and very poor, their discomforts intense; their surroundings squalid, everywhere an indescribable state of ruin and filth—and yet they're always cheerful; there is hardly a grumble from morning to night, and each man does his duty however unpleasant, not to save his own skin, but to benefit his own people, his King, and his country. Take one of these for example, and live up to him. Don't think from this I want you to be a prig. Far from it, it's just the reverse I want. My idea for you is that you should become the kindest and most lovable of women, and you'll have to be very kind and very lovable before I grant you the highest rank."
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