The sun., 1918-10-27
Tributes to Rupert
Brooke, Charles Sor-
ley, Alan Macintosh
and Julian Grenfell


Kitchener's mob He went TO the front
as an officer of the Royal Field Artillery,
and had only been there a month and a
half when a shell blew him out of an OBJ
servation post and left him in such shape
from shock that he has never been able
TO get back. He tried hard, because, he
says: Il believe any man with two legs
has no business anywhere except in the
front lines"
But in those days of the mud and filth
of the Flanders trenches he almost forgot
his fauns and Pan for the reality Of con-
tact with bitter life and death. Those
few days left him a man who had seen
sacrifice and devotion and desperate eour-
age and who had had his whole nature
changed by il.
Wrote in Strong Words of Wrath.
The boy grew up and became man, and
when he got into the hospital he wrote Of
what he had seen, wrote as he never would
have believed he could write before the
war, short, strong words of wrath and
pain and suffering and the unconquerable
resolution of his comrades.
After he left the hospital he worked for
time in the Ministry of Labor and even
went back to France as a correspondent,
since he could go no other way to get de-
tailed information for his Government. He
is writing now brief history of "The
Sappers," the result Of his visit 10 the
Ypres salient. And finally the Govern
ment has sent him to tell the United States
Of how the flower of English manhood was
cut off in the first days Of the war.
He has with him collection of war pic
lures done by artists who got their ma
teria while fighting or on special missions
to the front, which win be shown first in
the Coreoran Gallery in Washington. It
includes the work Of Sir William Orpen,
Augustus John, Muirhead Bone, Paul
Nash, John Nash, James McBey, Wynd-
ham Lewis and William Roberts.
There is one thing that brings from
Nichols strong expressions Of disgust, and
that is the popular impression that the
young poets who have become known for
their war poems gained their gift in the
trenches. Every one Of the men who are
now known as war poets of note, he IN
sists, was a poet before he ever thought
of war, particularly the men of whom he
has told. They were merely developed by
the war, their art given new turn.
Might Have Written Differently.
"They had begun before" he said, land
the war only made a larger audience.
People turned to it. These young poets
would have written anyway, but they
would have written differently"
And he has no fear that with their
passing the future of poetry will suffer
in England. The movement Of which
these men were part will go on; there
are more brilliant boys, the product Of
the new England, who viii carry on the
work these fallen young warriors laid
down.
'1'm going to be all right again too"
he said Il don't want to be blOomin'
martyr" But nevertheless the loss is
there, for he ADDED:
at seems to me that my generation
has lost everything there is to lose-e1-
cept its honor and the memories of the
personalities of those who died"
Nichols is full Of hope for the new Eng
land he sees arising from the wreck Of
this war. He believes that class distinc-
ton as it existed before the war has been
swept away by the comradeship of the
trenches. When those men come back they
are coming back full of definite purpose,
to make the world a better place than it
has ever been before, to readjust its So
eial structure, and they will be backed,
he believes, by their officers, he men of
the families who have formerly ruled
England. They have gained a great afr
fiction, these officers, for the men they
have suffered with, and they VIII see that
they win in peace the security and hap