It would be a great blessing if people worked more on the soil

TCD MS 11274/67 folio 2 recto

TCD MS 11274/67 folio 2 recto

[March 1917]

and people are working night and day on their steam-ploughs. It would be a great blessing if people worked more on the soil and got more from it and thought less of the life of towns. Indeed the English have a good deal to learn from our own people even in that way. Why was the Hodges & Figgis man so horrified at you buying a German dictionary. German speakers are very valuable now and most useful to the “Higher Command” I think you should send me also a little German “Berlitz method” book. The same as the one you had used to study in Spanish. Besides it is a great language and much great literature to be read in it. 2nd only amongst