THE LETTERS OF LUCIA TO A LONELY SOLDIER.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 907, 6 January 1917, Page 6

THE LETTERS OF LUCIA TO A LONELY SOLDIER.

| | Written for THE SUN for the ; benefit of any soldier feeling lonely »| while on actiTe service.] By the Avon, January 5. J Dear Lonely Soldier, — Here we are. 'Jwell launched on another year, and finding 'that it's getting easier to write "1917" .than it was a few days ago. It's very 1 , hard to suddenly switch off a familiar ' I numeral, isn't it! There's nothing very -j exciting to record for the new year—not even a coal strike yet, although some , .people live in daily anticipation. The ,;beneficent being masquerading as a coal [merchant is an object of great respect, I while many and earnest, are the heart--to-heart talks in which nervous house■i holders engage him. As the days go on j and nothing happens, a soothing sense I of security spreads around, and just I when even the most jumpy are ceasing from troubling, lo and behold, a fresh rumour appears on the scene, and once ! more the coal cellar becomes an object of paramount importance! But there was ; at least one lady in Christchurch for 'whom strike visions had no terrors. ''l | shall be able to manage all right," she told me with great, satisfaction, "because 1 cook with gas, you know." "Hut gas is made from coal," 1 said, cruelly pricking the happy little bubble that was giving her such joy. "Oh —so it is, I suppose," she answered, exceedingly unhappy. She considered for a few minutes, and then announced with a crow of triumph: "I know what I'll do! I'll cook with electricity!'' J Jiadti't the heart to say any 7iiore. j As for me —1 have already made up j my mind what to do. 1 shall "go back Ito Nature,'' and take to a vegetarian diet, i j which is supposed to be as good for your ; immortal soul as it is fortifying for your body. I know a girl who tried it, and . at the end of the second day she described her sensations as akin to those one ex- j periences when coming down in the lift — a feeling of having permanently out-; stripped one's digestive apparatus, and encountered instead a great, comfortless yearning void. At the end of the third day she began to look with a sad, sweet, far-away look on the follies and vanities I of this wicked world, and she took in the waists of her skirts quite two inches. But. she. determined to persevere, for she had learned that flesh-eating was a coarse and gross thing, and every pound she ate wa,s a fresh clog on her poor, struggling, stunted spirit that longed to growlarge and lovely on a meatless diet. So for yet another day she communed with nut cutlets and other horrid things that j clad themselves in a mocking semblance of real food. Him- body continued to wane, but by all the teaching she had imbibed her soul should have been waxing bigger and stronger and braver all the time. lint there was hanky-panky somc- ; where, for she felt correspondingly low in spirit—"feeble, futile, and sad beyond all telling" was the way in which ! she described it. She took to meditating on her bitter end. which, I maintain, was a certain sign of the dawn of a. higher and nobler life. She says it was only I the aj.preaching pangs of dissolution from I the, effects of starvation, and recounts how Providence, bent on averting the untimely end of a fair young life, directed j her to the kitchen one day when they j were grilling steak. The sequel is painful | —she fell from grace with a mighty fall, jand later on announced happily that, while vegetarianism might be good for some souls, hers throve best on a. diet in | which flesh played its accustomed part. I Appeal Courts in connection with military service are in full suing in various

! places. The Courts have brought to light la number of quaint and little-known religious sects, nil opposed to bearing arms, j or to taking life under any circumstances I whatever. The Court generally offers j these conscientious objectors s job which allows them to preserve their principles, but a - they usually decline to have anything to <lo with the business of war in • any way. the appeals are dismissed. We ; shall see what happens later when the round-up takes place. By the way, the defaulters who failed to respond, though ! drawn iu the ballot, are to be dealt with shortly—so the official word goes forth. Queensland, the Commonwealth State across the way, is a place that never ! does things by halves. When it rains—■ I well, it does rain, and when it doesn "t there's something like a drought going on. The northern area, which is particularly addicted to out-sizes, has been visitled by a (lood of truly appalling dimensions, ami the meagre reports which have come through show that a big area has i been simply swept clear of stock and : most everything else, the loss of many human lives being the biggest sacrifice. !]f ever there was a land where life is a string of glorious uncertainties, that place ■is Queensland. Wealthy to-day, penniless to-morrow: magnificent promises, bitter disappointments, years of plenty, years [of famine—Nature extreme in all things. But for 25 years she has not indulged in a Hood like unto this. j The "unsettled'' state of affairs in jt-i reeve is again exercising the ingenuity jof the Man Who Stays at Home. One of him takes King Constantine very seriously, indeed. I usually see him just as he has finished his morning browse on the I paper, and his feelings at this time are very deep and dark against the Kaiser's brother-in-law. "Well," 1 remark cheerfully, "and what has Constantine been doing now?'' j But he will not be beguiled into frivol- j ity. He shakes his head and sighs por- I tenuously, and proceeds to tell me of his iniquities, invariably winding up with. "But I never trusted that Constantine. No, never did I trust him," and I think: that he extracts some kind of sombre satisfaction out of each fresh evidence of his untrustworthiness —the kind of satisfaction people get when they say, "I told you so." He is very familiar with Constantine, as we both call him. I always feel, so well does he seem to know him. that the secrets of the Grecian monarch's inmost soul are plain print to him. He knows all about his moves and counter-moves, and the other day he solemnly assured me that he would come to a bad end. I besought him for details, but he took refuge iu silence and mystery. Yet I feel that Constantine's doom is sealed, and when he is down and out. this particular Man Who Stays at Home will say, "1 never did trust that Constantine, no, never . . . didn't I sav j he'd come to a bail end?" Here is an interesting "natural history" item, gathered by a Wellington journalist in an interview with Miss Connie Kdiss, of the "So Long, Lefty'' Company: Miss Kdiss. believes in comfort. Dropping into her room at the theatre, the visitor was asked to have a cup of ten. Tea prepared in a theatre dressing-room! "Oh, yes, we've got a tea basket and a luncheon basket, and we carry them around with us. When we get to Christchuich, we're going to hire one of those canoe things, built for four, and paddle on the river every day with our baskets. Of course, I know something will happen to us; something always does happen to me: the boat will upset, or we'll lose the basket." To illustrate her attraction for adventures. Miss Kdiss describes how she arrived in •Johannesburg during a plague of locusts, j They filled the air and lined the roads. ami one drove in a motor car. leaving a trail of dead locusts behind. Fancy a locust owning a motor car Lonely Soldier! 1-STTA.