1 COPY. 25th July, 1916. My dearest, dearest Nina, This may be, probably it will be the last letter
I shall write you. I have put off writing, because the
things I wish to say to you are so hard to say for others to
read. I had hoped that a chance might yet come before I
died to tell you with my lips what now I can say only in this
way. It wrings my heart to leave you, beyond all else on
earth, and to leave you thus, without being able to show you
all I feel for you, and all the keen and bitter sorrow I feel
at having left you, neglected you, and gone from you without
a word. Oh! had I known I should never see you again how
differently I might have acted! For I always meant to tell
you that I was very very sorry I had not been gentler to you
and kinder to you in these last years. Now the memory of my
neglect of you, dearest, loving, faithful one as you always
have been to me, cuts my heart in two and sends me from this
Oh! that I could tell you all
I think of you, and how in my heart I have always cared
for you more than for anyone else. Every time I was rude to
you, or spoke roughly to you, I was sorry for it afterwards,
and often I came back to tell you so, but some little word
turned me inwards on myself, and I kept silent, and so that
time passed and the next - and the next, and you never knew
that all the time I was calling myself a brute and a coward.
Especially have I reproached myself - always and always - for
that day in Berkshire when I said such unkind things to you in
your cottage. Oh! dearest of my heart, forgive me forgive me
and believe that I have bitterly repented - not once - not
to-day only but a hundred times. Often and often in Germany
the memory of that day came upon me, and my heart nearly
suffocates me with pain. You said once I was all that you had
to love, and I left you without a word and now you are alone
and I can never see you again to tell you how much I loved you
even when I scolded you. It was my pride, my sinful cowardly
pride, that kept me from you or from confessing, each time my
conscience reproached me, and now the eternal separation has
come, and I must face the agony of death with this bitter agony
at my heart that I was unkind and forgetful and rough to you,
not once but many times. From the deep of my heart I yearn
to you now, dearest, faithfulest friend of my life, all the
years roll away from me and I stand beside you just as I did a
little boy when you comforted me and took me by the hand - and
so I would have you think of me now at the last, for you always
are the same. No words I can write can tell you what I feel 2 for you and what anguish fills me to think I shall never see
you again or be able to tell you, and to show you my sorrow.
For your sake now I would undo all I have done - unsay all
I have said - humiliate myself beyond belief and be a gibe
and a jeer to all men, anything if I could make you happy in
your old days and let you know that always, always deep in my
heart and soul, I sorrowed when I hurt you by look or word,
and that now there is no reproach I do not lay upon myself and
feel for having left you alone and been the cause of your
flight and exile. Oh forgive me dearest Nina, and believe
that I shall die thinking of you, praying for you, longing to
God and His infinite mercy to comfort you and sustain you, and
if he will it to bring us together where we shall indeed be
both little children once more. Now dearest do you know what
I feel for you? My eyes are blinded with tears and I can
scarcely write. All my selfishness has passed away, and I
see you plain and clear - your face - your eyes - your heart,
and I can only sob and say that you are more to me than all
else on earth, and to undo, and to aid you and to comfort you
there is nothing I would not do, but alas! alas! it is all too
late and I must go from you without a word. The bitterness
of death has been upon me now these many days, but nothing like
to-day and the bitterness is in this vain remorse at all my
neglect of you and leaving you alone in the world when you
had only me to help you and protect you. God may forgive me
my sins - I can never never forgive myself this sin of neglect
and coldness - and I love you all the time - there is the
mystery of transgression - we wound what we love and shun what
we long for and go on our cold and lonely path, thinking there
is plenty of time to go back to the loved ones - and Death
comes and cuts us down. Now that I have only these few days to live - that
a cruel fate has brought me to the grave so far from you I
bow my head in your lap, as I did when a little boy, and say
Kiss me and say Goodnight. Were life spared me, I should live
for you, but God wills my death. I prayed for death often and
often in Germany, I was so unhappy and months before I started
to return to Ireland, coming as I knew straight to death, I was
fixed on it and begging for death. For I had lost all hope,
something had broken in me, and I walked about as if in a dream
and every day the future whispered here's but death. I was
so lonely, and I could do nothing and go nowhere. Often I
tried to get away. All last year I was trying again and
again. Twice I tried in the spring and winter. In January
I set out for Norway at the end but had to turn back. In
March and April I planned another route, but could not carry
it through, (and this was the time I was said to be be at Limburg!)
And then in July I actually again set out and got a passport
to go but had to return to stand by those poor chaps and help 3 them altho' it was not I recruited them or 'tempted' them at
all. I never saw one of them (or only one of them) in my
life until I found them enrolled by others, and I could not
help it or do anything but take all responsibility on my own
shoulders. In September an appeal was made to a certain
quarter (a high one) to help me get away - but it failed
and so on twice more to December last. I sought to go if
possible, and then gave up the hope, until in February of this
year it was revived, when I was ill in Munich, and perhaps
you know about that, because a friend, a woman, went over then
with a message to you. I hope you saw her - Mary was her
name, a good friend and true. And then when I was waiting for the result of that
attempt to go to you, came the call to Ireland and I went,
intending to go alone. The friend who came with me, came
by his own insistence, because he would not let me come alone,
and I could not stop him, and he brought Bailey at the latter's
wish too. When I landed in Ireland that morning (about 3 a.m.)
swamped and swimming ashore on an unknown strand I was happy
for the first time for over a year. Although I knew that this
fate waited on me, I was for one brief spell happy and smiling
once more. I cannot tell you what I felt. The sandhills
were full of skylarks, rising in the dawn, the first I had
heard for years - the first sound I heard through the surf was
their song as I waded in through the breakers, and they kept
rising all the time up to the old rath at Currahone where I
stayed and sent the others on, and all round were primroses
and wild violets and the singing of the skylarks in the air,
and I was back in Ireland again; as the day grew brighter I
was quite happy for all I felt all the time it was God's will that
I was there. The only person alive - if he be alive, who
knows the whole story of my coming, and why I came, with what
aims and hope, is Monteith. I hope he is alive and that you
may see him and he will tell you everything, and then you will
know that the very thing I am blamed for, and am dying for,
was quite what you would have wished me to do. It is a cruel
thing to die with all men misunderstanding - mispprehending -
and to be silent for ever. I left a letter with a friend
that will tell you a great deal of the truth - not all - but part
of it some day and perhaps some of it you know already. There
was a young German came to see me off - a friend whom I am
grateful to - and I hope his name too has reached you. He was
the only one. If I could only tell you the whole story, but,
that too, is part of my punishment - of the strange inscrutable
fate that has come to me - that I am not only being put to death
in the body but that I am dead before I die - and have to be
silent and silent just as if I were already dead - when a few
words might save my life - and would certainly change men's 4 view of my actions. Long ago, years ago, I wrote these lines
of another - but they are my own - my epitaph on my own fate
perhaps more than on that of the man I penned them of:-
'In the mystery of transgression is a cloud that
shadows Day, For the night to turn to Fire - showing
Death's redeeming way'. Will Death bring for me the reedeeming way? I sought
it thus - and now I stand on the shore, wondering, with
clasped hands and blinded eyes, and no path opens in the waters
any my heart is cold with sorrow and pain and numb with long-
ing for a peace that will not come. If only I could have
kissed you again and asked your pardon and told you with my
lips and tongue how dear you always were to me. But I tell
you now and I pray that God Almighty may soften the hearts of
all around you and give you friends and friendship and loving
care and you may be sure that dying I shall be near, very near
to you and thinking of you stedfastly, as my truest and loving
companion of years ago. Had I years of life I would give them
all for you now dearest. Tell all my friends around you -
you know the principal ones - that I grieve much that I was such
a nuisance to them. They were far too good to me. For the
old friend, my affection and gratitude for all he tried to do
for me - and for all he did; and for the one with the two
children and the doggie - my sincerest greeting. Old Father
Gerald too - all of them and Father John and so many more.
They were true and staunch friends - I would I were worthy of
their friendship. Ask the friend with the two children and
the doggie to never forget me and let the children go on and
pray for me just as they did of old. You know we were all
baptised on 5th August 1868, in the Catholic Church at Rhyl -
your name first mine last. I had the record looked up. Some unknown friend sent me from the Court House at
Bow Street a little book 'The Imitation of Christ'. You know
it - with the beautiful inscription from the unknown friend. I
will leave it to go to you with the priest here, and will ask
for it to be allowed - also my Crucifix that Brigid sent me.
And now, I must tear myself away - it is God's will, dearest
Nina - I am going to lie down, it is late and my last thought
to-night will be of you. Charlie I hope is coming home, and
I have left a letter for him and begged him to see you if
possible before he returns. Goodbye, Goodbye and may the friendship of Christ be
yours, may His blessing be yours and His pardon and peace be
mine and bring us together in the land where He dwells and where
pardon comes to the sorrowful. 5 Your loving brother - loving you, I hope, far
more deeply hereafter, when the grace of God has cleansed
his heart, than he ever did on earth, but loving you now
with his best heart beats and so to the end. Roddie - or as you
always called me Scodgie. 6 26th morning. Elizabeth and Ger have been with me always - they
have been my helpers in everything - without them I should
have despaired - they gave me life and strength when I was
utterly downcast. You and they must be together as much as
possible. I hope you will return after the war is over and
live at home in Ireland. Scodgie And Mrs. Green, my loving friend, you can never thank her
enough for all she has been to me and to them.