There is little bitterness in his letters; they have to the last
always the crystal clarity of the vision of the unbroken.
His intellectual evolution went on to the end. No wonder that he found
Rupert Brooke's sonnets overpraised:--
'He is far too obsessed with his own sacrifice.... It was not that
"they" gave up anything of that list he gives in one sonnet: but
that the essence of these things had been endangered by
circumstances over which he had no control, and he must fight to
recapture them. He has clothed his attitude in fine words: but he
has taken the sentimental attitude.'
Remember that a boy of nineteen is writing, and think how keen is this
criticism of Brooke's war sonnets; the seeker condemns without pity one
who has given up the search. 'There is no such thing as a just war,'
writes this boy. 'What we are doing is casting out Satan by Satan.' From
this position Sorley never flinched. Never for a moment was he renegade
to his generation by taking 'the sentimental attitude.
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