Sullivan letter diary, 27 October 1915-9 October 1917 / Eugene Sullivan - Page 246
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[Page 246]
France
Saturday April 1917.
Dear Douglas/.
Your letter has come to hand and amply atones for all your former neglect - it is a real masterpiece of composition and achieves the ideal of every scribe to compose a long and interesting epistle without anything in the way of news to work on. As you predict I am becoming more ferocious and untamed every day I spend in the muddy wilderness of France, and the bloodthirsty "Game of War or Spillikens" appeals greatly to my imagination. You should immediately patent the invention and you will be a rich man "Apres le guerre" when it is sure to be all the vogue. At present I have arrived at such a state of savagery that I puff at a cigarette and snort and blow the smoke through my nostrils in the most terrifying manner. It strikes terror into the heart of everyone within range particularly when I am suffering from a cold in the head. Some have even been known to cover their heads with a towel and in childish gibberish request me to turn off the hose.*
I am determined however never to sink to the depths of barbarity attained by the "hairy man from Carcoar" and to guard against such a lapse have had my hair shaved off. Some of the inhabitants have taken me for an escapee from a nearby asylum, which has recently been demolished by shell fire, but