THE BOY WHO DIED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16890, 30 December 1916, Page 8

THE BOY WHO DIED

HIS LAST LETTER. " BUT WE SHALL LIVE FOR EVER."' Tho Daily Mail publishes the last letter that was written to his parents by Second Lieutenant E. L. Townsend, London Regiment, who was killed in Franco on September 15, leading tho first wave against tho German position. The letter was enclosed in the gallant boy's will, to be opened only in ths event of his death. "I send it to you," the father wrote ," because I think it contains some fins thoughts which _ may, perhaps, bring comfort to other families." It is for tho same reason that it has been published. Erio Townsend was one of tho leading boys of the City of London School, where he was captain of the shooting team. Tho letter reads as follows: —

" September 8, 1916. "Dearest' Mother and Father,— " You are reading this letter because I have gone under. " Of course, I know yon will be terribly cut up, and that it will be a long time before you get over it, but fret over it you must. You must be imbued with the spirit of the navy and army to 'cany on.' You will still have dear little Donald, who is safe at any rate for some while. If he should ever liave to go on active service I somehow feel that his invariable good luck will bring him through. " You must console yourselves with the thought that I am happy, whereas if I had lived—who knows? "Remember 'the feaying attributed to Solon: ' Call no man happy till he is dead.' Thanks to your self-sacrificing love and devotion I have had a happy time all my life. Death will liavo delivered me from experiencing unhappiness. " It has always seemed to me a very pitiful thing what little difference the disappearance of a man makes to any institution, even though he may have played a very important role. A moment's regret, a moment's pause for readjustment, and another man stens forward to carry on, and the machine clanks onward with scarce a check. The death of a leader of the nation, is loss even than a seven_ days' wonder. To a very small number it is given to livo in history; their number is scarcely one in 10 millions. To the rest it is only granted to live in their united achievements. But for this war I and all the others would have passed into oblivion like the counties myriads before us. Wo should have gone about our trifling business, eating, drinking, sleeping, hoping, marrying, giving in marriage, and finally dying with no more achieved than when we were born, with the world no different for our lives. Even the cattle in the field fare no worse than (hi?. Tliev, too, eat, drink, sleep, bring forth young, and die leaving the world no different from what they found_ it. " But we shall live for ever m the results of our oflFortP. . " We shall live as those who by their sacrifice won the Great War. Our spirits and our memories shall endur© tho proud position Britain shall hold in the future. The measure of life is not its span but tho use made of it. I did not make much use of my life before tho war, but I think I havo done so now. " One sometimes hears people say, when a vounn man is killed: ' Poor fellow, cut oEf so early, without ever having had a chance of knowing and enjoying life.' But for myself, thanks' to all that both of you havo done. I have crowded into twenty years enough pleasures, sensations, and experiencefT of "an ordinary lifetime._ Never brilliant; sometimes almost a failure in anything I undertook; my sympathies and my interests somehow or other—why, I cannot tell—were so wide that there was scarcely an amusement, an occupation, a feeling which T could not appreciate. And, as I have said, of most of these I had tasted. I don't suppose I ever met anybody who was not my superior in _ or achievement in one nartioular subject; but there his knowledge and' his interest ended, whereas my interests comprised nearK- the whole fielcl of human affaire and activities. And that is why it is no hardship for me to leave the world so young. "Well, I have talked a lot of rot which must li'ivc given you great pain to read, and which will not bring yon much comfort. T had intended to try and say words of comfort. but that scarcely being possible, it has drifted into a sort of confession of faith. "To me has been given the easier task; to you is given the more difficult—that of living in sorrow. Be of good courage that at the end yon may give ft good account. " Kiss Donald for me. " Adieu, best of parents.—Your loving son, Eric."