THE BOY WHO DIED

Otago Witness, Issue 3277, 3 January 1917, Page 37

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 the German position. The letter was enclosed in the gallant boy's will, to be opened only in en 3 event of his death. "I send < it to you," the father wrote ,' because I think it contains some fin -i thoughts which may, ferhaps, bring comfort to other families.' t is for the same reason that it has been published. Eric Townsend was one of the leading boys of the City of London School, where he was captain of the shooting team. The letter reads as follows: —

"September 8, 1916. " Dearest Mother and Father, — " You are reading this letter because jl have gone under. " Of course, I know you will be terribly cut up, and that it will be a long time before you get over it, but get over it you must. You must be imbued with the spirit of the navy and army to ' carry on. You will still have dear little Donald, who is safe at any rate for some while. If he should ever have 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 have delivered mo from experiencing unhappiness. "It has alwaye 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 steps forward to carry on, and the machine clanks onward with scarce a check. The death of a leader of the nation ie less even than a seven days' wonder. To a very small number it is given to live 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 countless myriads before us. We 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 this. They, too. eat, drink, sleep, bring forth young, and die leaving tho world no different from what they found it. " But we shall live for ever in the results of our efforts. " We shall live as those who by their sacrifice won tho Great War. Our spirits and our memories shall endure in the proud position Britain shall hold in the future. The measure of life is not its span but the use made of it. I did not make much use of my life beforo the war, but I think I have done so now.

" One sometimes hears people say, when a young man is killed: ' Poor fellow, out off so early, without ever having had a chance of knowing and enjoying life.' But for myself, thanks to all that both of you have done, I have crowded into twenty years enough pleasures, sensations, and experiences 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 I could not appreciate. And, ns I have said, of most of these I had tasted. I don't suppose I ever met anybody who was not my superior in knowledge or achievement in one -particular subject; hut there his knowledge and his interest ended, whereas my interests comprised nearly the whole field of human affairs and activities. And that is why it is no hardship for mo to leave the world so young. "Well, I have talked a lot of rot which must have given you great pain to read, and which will not bring you much comfort. I 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 you may give a good account. " Kiss Donald for me. " Adieu, best of parents.—Your loving son, Eric."