The Last Letter of Second Lieutenant Eric Lever Townsend, Civil Service Rifles, died of wounds, 16 September 1916
Dearest Mother and Father,
You are reading this letter because I have gone under.
Of course I know that you will be terribly cut up, and that it will be a long time before you get over it, but get over it you must. You must be imbued with the spirit of the Navy and the Army to “carry on”.
You must console yourself with the thought that I am happy, whereas if I had lived – who knows?
Remember the saying attributed to Solon, “Call no man happy till he is dead”. Thanks to your self sacrificing love and devotion I have had a happy time all my life. Death will have delivered me from experiencing unhappiness.
It has always seemed to me a very pitiful thing what little difference the disappearance of a man makes to any institution, even though he may have played an important role. A moment’s regret, a moment’s pause for readjustment, and another man steps forward to carry on, and the machine clanks on with scarce a check. The death of a leader of a nation is less even than seven days’ wonder. To a very small number is it given to live in history; their number is scarcely one in ten million. To the rest it is only granted to live in their united achievements.
But for this war I and all the others would have passed on into oblivion like the countless myriads before us. We should have gone about our trifling business, eating, drinking, sleeping, hoping, marrying, giving in marriage, and finally dying with no more achieved than when we were born, with the world no different for our lives. Even the cattle in the field fare no worse than this. They, too, eat, drink, bring forth young, and die leaving the world no different from what they have found it.
But we shall live for ever in the results of our efforts.
We shall live as those who by their sacrifice won the Great War. Our spirits and memories shall endure in the proud position Britain shall hold in the future. The measure of life is not its span but the use made of it. I did not make much use of my life before the war, but I think I have done now.
To me has been given the easier task; to you is given the more difficult – that of living in sorrow. Be of good courage, that at the end you may give a good account.
Adieu, best of parents
You ever loving son
Eric