Most of our boys have had so much more experience that sometimes I feel like a child sitting at the feet of a spinner of yarns. Jack, in particular, has been everywhere. He is one who “lives himself dead.” He gets a great deal out of life by doing what he pleases at the moment. And he gets a rare knowledge of men: he can appeal to some one thing in every man that makes that man his friend for life – a subtle flattery. He doesn’t always take the trouble to do it, but he did in my case. He didn’t have to, for I always liked him anyhow; but I watched the process. He chose the tack of letting me feel he considered me a cut above the herd and in some things an authority. He does it very well; it is intuitive applied psychology.
Next post July 4.
Letters from Sidney Friend During The Great War 