“I used to think if I had a book published it wouldn’t matter how soon I died but now that I have one before the public I want to live to do better.”

Publication increased rather than satisfied his desire to keep writing · Letter, 14 February 1916

• Life
• Mortality
• Writing

“I had no more to learn in National School at fourteen, so I strapped up my books and laid them away with the cobwebs and the dust.”

Recalls the abrupt end of his formal schooling · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Books
• Education
• Youth

“I tell you this in order that you may know what it is to me to be called a British soldier while my own country has no place among the nations but the place of Cinderella.”

Captures the painful tension between military service and Irish national feeling · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

• Dignity
• Identity
• Politics