Wednesday 22 March 1939: 'Reading Eddie Marsh.'
�Well, here I am, and a soldier � to go to Northampton on Monday for the First Reserve � Tonight I have been reading the Georgian Poetry Book, and it is this that made me write to you � I found myself remembering old things, old times together as I read �Biography� and it brought you very near.�
�I have been in topsy turveydom since I last saw you and have not been able to write. Even now it is in the extremest difficulties that I�m writing this. I wanted to talk about the Georgian Book which I had sent over to me but have not had time to more than glance through. I liked J. C. Squire�s poem about the �House� enormously and all his other poems. [W. J.] Turner�s are very beautiful and Sassoon has power. Masefield seemed rather commonplace, but please don�t take my jud[ge]ment at anything because I have hardly looked at them. I am back in the trenches which are terrible now. We spend most of our time pulling each other out of the mud. I am not fit at all now and am more in the way than any use. You see I appear in excellent health and a doctor will make no distinction between health and strength. I am not strong.�
