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INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR<br />
To Edward Marsh {from Bury St. Edmunds).<br />
" I suppose my troubles are really laughable,<br />
but they do irritate at the moment. Doing coal<br />
fatigues and cookhouse work with a torn hand, and<br />
marching ten miles with a clean hole about an inch<br />
round in your heel, and bullies swearing at you, is<br />
not very natural. I think when my hands and feet<br />
get better Til enjoy it. Nobody thinks of helping<br />
you— I mean those who could. Not till I had<br />
been made a thorough cripple an officer said it was<br />
absurd to think of wearing those boots, and told<br />
me to soak them thoroughly in oil to soften them.<br />
Thank you for your note ; we get little enough, you<br />
know, and I allow half of that to my mother (I<br />
rather fancy she is going to be swindled in this<br />
rat-trap affair), so it will do to get to London<br />
with. You must now be the busiest man in<br />
England, and I am sure would hardly have time to<br />
read my things ; besides, you won't like the formlessness<br />
of the play. If you like you can send<br />
them to Abercrombie, and read them when you<br />
have more time. I don't think I told you what<br />
he said : A good many of your poems strike me<br />
'<br />
as experimental and not quite certain of themselves.<br />
But, on the other hand, I always find a<br />
vivid and original impulse ; and what I like most<br />
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