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Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2369, 27 January 1915, Page 6

The Triumph of Experience. "An officer who bad himself seen much service told me before the beginning of the present war. that the 'soldier who said he was indifferent to fire wos merely a braggart. That is generally true, though I personally know of a few exceptions. But, eqnaJly true is it that a man develops a certain callousness, or rather indifference. He learns "first to oontrol, then to measure, his fear. He learns to discount possibilities just as the ordinary railway traveler does. Awl the work in hand gradually engages and holds more and more of his attention. There comes a time when, in the words, of an Army doctor who was wounded near Ypres: "You want to go back not because it is pleasant there, but because staying away is just impossible." While therefore the man who has not been under fire cannot safely count upon experiencing this or that particular feeling when his hour comes—this depending so. much; upon temperament end circumstance —he can, I believe, count upon achieving i the second courage which is the priceless possession of the veteran. He oan oonnt upon "making good" in a moral and spiritual sense ; ,upon Teaching courage even through the deepest valleys of mistrust, and fear. Under fire he may lose every preconceived notion he ever cherished or shunned, but it is at least in the highest degree probable that he will find himself. And it is also probable that that self will be 1 worth the finding.

My excuse for writing this article is the impression I have formed that many brave men suffer a great deal .needlessly through anticipation.'' Anticipation, I am convinced, is almost invariably a false prophet in this rospect, and should'be dismissed as such. No man can hope to., guess a± what his feelings are likely, to be in circumstances foreign to all his experience. It is wiser policy to accept the mystery as a mystery, in the full oonfidenoe that "the red badge of oourage" comes inevitably to those who work and wait for it.