Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 532
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[Page 532]
Is it not so?
Keep an eye on the sheckels, there is in every case never a friend like a shilling or two. Money in sufficient quantity can purchase most anything in this world. It is a common statement in these days, that the side which will win ultimately in this great war is the one who can find the most money. What vast sums are being expended each day for no better purpose than destruction of man and his works. It is deplorable. And would you believe it, 'tis he who calls himself civilised, the most advanced in civilisation that the world has ever known. Bah!!!.
I shall write to Mr Walsh at the library asking him to continue sending the illustrated papers. I am angry that they should have ceased to send them.
I told Jerom that his daughter brought to you a bunch of flowers, I shall give him your letters to read. He reads out loud very well, and I often get him to read the telegrams when I am at my meal, or other interesting matter. He looks much better than he did at Mena.
I must send a post card to miss Thomas of the Glebe. I cannot think if her address is Mansfield House or Street.
How varied the tastes of people in this world are? I see little use in the contemplative orders of the Church. There is so much work for Gods creatures to do the there is little time left for contemplation, the doing of it looks like so much wilful waste. Yet as you wisely write there is always room for a variety of opinion on every subject. Good. The recognising of such fact is helpful in the journey through life. Stowed away in inaccessible areas in the midst of the great desserts of this part of the world are many associations of men who spen lives far removed from the busy haunts of their fellows, supposed to be devoting their lives to contemplation. It is such as they who in ages past have constructed out of the stars the constelations. There is much other work of a like kind which is to their credit. The human intelect when crimped cabined and confined must find outlet for its activities in some field of thought, it can not be kept from acting by all the rules that have been made for the guidance of cloister or convent. Ones thoughts are his personal property, and of them none can rob him. Of their nature or purpot none can know unless the thinker vouchasafes to pronounce words which tells them to some listener.
Bertie got out of his depth and his element in the military work, while his cocksuredness led him to believe that he was perfectly able for it. The game is much different from the running of a place like the P. A. Hospital [Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney]. However he will get over it. I have seen but little of the evidence yet.
The two copies of the S. M. H. [The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper] reached me safely, in one of them was the dramatic utterance of the fewtive Ber-