Modern Competitive Strategy 4th

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Teaching Chapter 5 – Strategy Execution

Learning Objectives
LO 05-01. Identify and describe the basic elements of strategy execution.
LO 05-02. Explain the relationships between resources and capabilities.
LO 05-03. Apply the Value Chain and Activity System frameworks.
LO 05-04. Summarize the organizational dimensions of capability development and explain how
they are guided by and determine a firm’s Value minus Cost position.
LO 05-05. Identify the advantages and disadvantages of different types of organizational
structures and how they affect capability development.
LO 05-06. Explain the roles of culture and learning in strategy execution.

Topics Covered in this document:

1. Overview
2. Case Recommendations
3. Teaching tips
4. Exercises and links to Video resources

1. Overview

This content is essential. It teaches how the firm develops and maintains the resources and
capabilities that determine its value and cost drivers. Students need to understand the

5-1 © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education.

importance of motivating tasks in terms of their contribution to competitive advantage. If the
firm is to improve its performance, which is what strategic management is about, then linking
activities to the firm’s market position is crucial.

We start with discussing what strategy execution is and what it is not. For instance, strategy
execution is not about strategy development, strategic planning or luck. Strategic planning (see
Ch. 6) articulates a firm’s strategy and the programs to implement it whereas strategy
execution is the day-to-day substance of strategy; it involves developing and maintaining a
firm’s resources and capabilities to support Value, Cost or both.

Since planning is clearly a critical strategic task in many firms and brings together the points
made throughout the book, the subsequent chapter (Ch. 6) presents standard planning tools
and shows how the principles of execution discussed in Ch. 5 are necessary content for an
effective plan. We often assign the planning chapter with the chapter on Execution when
teaching cases on turnaround (e.g., Siemens Medical Solutions).

We begin the execution session by revisiting the differences between resources and
capabilities, highlighting their definitions and characteristics, and arguing that they are
developed and protected differently. Makadok’s model is especially valuable here (see the
sidebar), since his analysis shows how complementary resources, forecasting capabilities and
the link between capabilities and resources have an effect on profitability. Students, who have
typically had a core course or more in finance when they take strategy, can appreciate how
Makadok sets up his arguments and reaches his outcomes.

Next, we use the value chain and activity system concepts to help students gain a stronger
understanding of the differences between resources and capabilities. In our courses, the value
chain concept is used in multiple ways: specifically to show how firms compete differently in
the same industry and how business units within a multi-business firm can share resources and
capabilities. So introducing the framework here is very useful. Activity systems are a more
recent construal of how firms are organized. Siggelkow’s picture of Vanguard’s system is useful
because: 1) it is focused on achieving low costs while providing a targeted kind of value to
customers, and 2) it has a high degree of integration which leads to a later discussion of
consistency and fit. At this point, it is again important to emphasize the link between tasks and
activities and achieving and defending the firm’s market position. Figure 5.3 helps to show how
this bridge is conceived. This figure also makes clear that both resource complementarity (as in
Makadok’s model) and improvement in capabilities through innovation in activities are integral
parts of the strategy execution framework. The resource portfolio of the firm can be modified
as opportunities arise, increasing complementarities and therefore the potential for higher
value or lower cost. Correspondingly, as the firm invests in new processes, capabilities are
enhanced.

At this point, the focus on resources becomes secondary to capabilities. The question arises,
how are capabilities built? How can we understand their development? The four organizational

5-2 © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education.

dimensions of capability address these questions. The dimensions cover the crucial topics of fit,
control systems, incentives and culture, all of which students can appreciate without difficulty.

We begin by distinguishing complementarity and consistency. Two or more resources are

complementary when they produce a more effective outcome together than they produce
independently whereas activities are consistent when their contributions to the firm’s strategy
do not conflict, even if they do not reinforce each other. We draw on the chapter callout on
Channel Complementarity to illustrate the concept of complementarity.

The discussion of consistency/fit can begin by returning to the Vanguard diagram. There are
almost no links between elements that do not support the firm’s market position. Importantly,
this process could not be effective without John Bogle’s target market position. So, consistent
activity systems contribute to performance only when they lead to higher value at lower cost.
Bogle’s vision emphasized cost reduction.

Moving to control and coordination systems leads to a discussion of the classic forms of
organizing - here restricted to a single business, so the product structure is missing. We employ
Galbraith’s original framework since it synthesizes earlier work and motivates subsequent work.
The chapter repeats and expands Galbraith’s arguments for the advantages and disadvantages
of each organizational form; the slide deck highlights the classic tension between knowledge
specialization and knowledge integration. It is useful to tie these arguments again to the
capabilities that underlie value and cost drivers. An easy example concerns the development of
capabilities in technology development, assuming that technology is an important value driver:
a firm with a functional structure containing centralized R & D would clearly have an advantage
here, given benefits to aggregation in this activity.

The next organizational dimension is incentives. The Hall framework is very useful here. His
approach differentiates three types of problem - controllability, alignment and
interdependence – and relates them to two dilemmas – noise and distortion. There is no
perfect system since noise and distortion are substitutes in the sense that any incentive system
makes a tradeoff between them. The piece rate system at Lincoln Electric has developed over
time to overcome this difficulty. However, the rigidity of the solution has caused problems for
the company – a point that we like to make, linking back to the concept of core rigidity in the
Chapter Four. For instructors interested in using very brief video clips in class, a two minute clip
from the “I love Lucy” show where Lucy and Ethel work on a candy factory line might be used to
introduce or illustrate the piece rate concept (see the Video resources section of this
document).

The last organizational dimension is people and culture. The literature on culture is large but its
tie to strategy is weak. Therefore we like to use Kreps’s argument, building on Schelling, that
culture induces common focal points for decision-making. To make the link to strategy
execution, these focal points should be aligned with improving capabilities that in turn improve
the firm’s market position. Most adherents of the value of culture, for example as it has been
applied at Southwest Airlines, tend to make arguments like this. As for people, we emphasize

5-3 © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education.

single and double loop learning from Argyris and Schon. It is difficult to say much here without
turning to a discussion of strategic human resources, an important topic that is beyond the
scope of the course. For those teaching a capstone type strategy course, this presents an
excellent opportunity for reinforcing content students learned in their HR or OB core courses.

The chapter includes a callout on the role of social networks in strategy execution. This content
presents an opportunity for illustrating how social forces affect an organization’s culture and
coordination systems.

Last, we use Figure 5.5, Capability Planning and Learning to illustrate how the elements of
strategy execution focused on capabilities are brought together. We find this snapshot provides
a strong, synthetic visual tool for students who want to take away a clear picture of how
planning and execution lead to an improved market position.

We wrap up the session with questions for practice (final .ppt slide).

2. Case Recommendations (all materials available via HBS Online for Educators)
For additional cases, see the Case Chart that maps chapters and topics to cases and simulations.

Airborne Express, 798070

Apple Inc., in 2012, 712490
Crown, Cork & Seal in 1989, 793035
Keeping Google “Googley”, 409039
Google in 2014, 9-915-004
Lincoln Electric, 376028
Matching Dell, 9-799-158
Southwest Airlines (A), HR-1A
Trader Joes, 714419
Wal-mart Stores, Inc., 794024
Zara: Fast Fashion, 703497 (also available in multi-media format)

Simulations that connect well with this content:

Executing Strategy -- HBS: Change Management Simulation: Power & Influence V2, 4345-HTM

3. Teaching Tips

Rather than lecture, we use a case-based approach and draw out the lessons of the chapter as
we move through the case discussion. Again, the intent is to have the students put their
knowledge into action -- applying concepts from the chapter to the case. We devote a session
specifically to Strategy Execution however many of the concepts may be reinforced in other
sessions in a core strategy course or multi-session module on strategy. For instance, the
concepts associated with culture and learning may be revisited in the context of acquisition
integration or alliance management; concepts related to organizational structure and

5-4 © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education.

compensation systems might be reinforced in the context of organizational growth,
turnarounds, managing multibusiness firms, etc.

4. Exercises and links to Video resources

Exercises

A) Alaska Gold Mine,

Source: Carpenter Strategy Toolbox, http://carpenterstrategytoolbox.com/2012/10/27/350/
Description: See the above link for a description and materials (case, .ppt, teaching note &
video)

B) 7-10 minute application exercise: Ask the students to work in pairs on a brief assignment.
The intent is to get them thinking about how to apply a particular concept as a set up for class
discussion. For example, using the case assigned for the session, ask half of the two person
teams to create value chain diagrams and ask the remaining teams to create activity system
diagrams. Discuss the differences between the two frameworks.

C) Value Chains: a flighty topic…

Source: Carpenter Strategy Toolbox, http://carpenterstrategytoolbox.com/2013/12/01/flight-
of-the-value-chain/
Description: In this exercise developed by Norman Sheehan and Edward Gamble, teams use the
value chain concept to develop innovative strategies to fulfill customer requirements and
outperform rivals. Materials posted at the above link include: Journal of Management Educator
article describing the exercise, powerpoint slides, supplementary slides, handouts for the
exercise, a tracking spreadsheet, instructions for participants.

Videos

A) Piece Rate Concept:

A 2-minute clip from the “I love Lucy” show where Lucy and Ethel work on a candy factory line
might be used to introduce or illustrate the piece rate concept (multiple copies can be found at
youtube by searching using terms such as “Lucy’s famous chocolate scene” or “I Love Lucy
candy making.”)

B) Complementarity
“Strategic Complementarities at Steak”, a brief summary and copy of the video are available at
the Carpenter Strategy Toolbox website (category “Humor”), scroll to the bottom of the page:
http://carpenterstrategytoolbox.com/category/humor/

5-5 © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education.

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Jan. 21, 1918.
Two or three days ago I received from you an admirable letter,
dated December 12, and yesterday arrived our long errant Christmas
mail—many trucks of it—and in it several letters from you dated about
Thanksgiving. It is strange that my letters take so long to reach you,
but you must have some of them by now. I certainly was glad to get ten
cans of tobacco from you, I have wanted a pipe full of that excellent
tobacco for months. I got a thousand stogies from Fr. Daly, a box of
cigars from my father, another from John B. Kennedy and another from
one Romaine Pierson, one of my father’s friends, who sent me also a
large can of tobacco. Also I got a lot of jelly and candy from my mother
and a little book of “Maxims of Fr. Faber” from Eleanor Rogers Cox,
and enough scapulars to sink a ship.
It certainly gives me the keenest delight to read your poetry. The
poem about the Christmas Tree has —— backed off the map. Also
“High Heart” is very noble poetry. I envy you your power of writing
poetry—I haven’t been able to write a thing since I left the ship. Also I
envy you your power of being high hearted and, wholly legitimately,
aware of your own high heartedness. Not that I am low spirited—I am
merely busy and well-fed and contented. I am interested but not
excited, and excitement is supposed to be one of war’s few charms.
The contentedness is not absolute, of course, for I have, when away
from you, always a consciousness of incompleteness. But I have not
had the painful and dangerous times I expected to find as soon as we
reached this country.
I am keenly interested in the novel you and Margaret are writing.
But don’t plunge too deep into occult studies in getting dope for it.
Don’t attend any seance of any kind or use Planchette or try automatic
writing or make any experiments of a supernatural kind. If you do, I
swear that if I do get shot I won’t haunt you—and I’m conceited
enough to think I can’t make a worse threat.
By the way, Kenton’s suggestion that you send me a checkerboard
is excellent. I’d like it very much.
I love you.
 * * * * *

Feb 5, 1918.
I am enclosing a letter from Helen Parry Eden which should be put
in the autograph-letter file. A good way to keep author’s letters is to
paste special envelopes for them on the inside of the covers of
author’s books. Do not use the original envelopes for this purpose. But
probably this plan is unsafe in a library frequented by wild babies. But
at any rate try to get the stuff stowed away safely and neatly. Bob
Holliday could advise you intelligently as to the proper preservation of
autographed letters.
It is about a week now since I heard from you, and I am eagerly
awaiting to-day’s arrival of mail. I work in the place to which the mail is
brought for assortment, so I get my letters without much delay—that is,
delay after they reach the Regiment. The first delayed batches of mail
are still arriving—I get a November letter one day, a January letter the
next, a December the next.
Send me by all means all the verse you write—I find I enjoy poetry
more these days than I did when I made my living largely by making it
and writing and talking about it. But I wish I could make it as I used to
—I have not been able to write any verse at all except “Militis
Meditatio” which I sent you. I wrote a brief prose sketch which is still in
process of censuring—the censorship regulations may or may not be
so interpreted as to exclude it. I think I’ll be allowed to print it, however,
as it is really not a writing on military subjects, but an introspective
essay written by a sort of soldier. If it gets by, it will go immediately to
George H. Doran to be censored.
The second package of tobacco has arrived. The package
containing it was broken, but in the bottom of the mail bag I found all
ten cans of tobacco. I certainly am glad to get it—after ten years this
kind still seems to me to be the best tobacco in the world.
I am not especially delighted with the circumstances of my work
just at present. I am perfectly comfortable, have good meals and
quarters and my work is not at all hard. But I want to get into more
interesting and important work—perhaps it will be all fixed up by the
time I write to you again. I love you.
Joyce Kilmer.

* * * * *

February 22d, 1918.

My dear Aline:
It is a long time since I have heard from you—about three weeks.
But I suppose that I will receive a number of letters at once. I do not
yet know whether or not you have received the two batches of
American Express Company checks, amounting in all to $100.00,
which I sent you some time ago. But I am not worrying about it, if the
checks are lost it still is possible to recover the money. I sent you two
lots of prose and verse recently, and in the envelope containing this
letter is a quaint supplement to one of my little sketches—that called
“Breakfasts.” It is a letter to Kenton from the little girl who lives in the
house by the Fountain, where Farrell and Driscoll and I used to eat
every morning in our last station. I showed Solange (an excellent,
demure and pious infant) Kenton’s photograph, and told her that he
studied French in school. He is supposed to answer in French, tell him
—of course his French teacher must help him. I saved the censor
trouble by clipping from Solange’s letter the name of the town
honoured by her presence, but I guarantee (with St. Anthony’s aid) the
safe delivery to her of any epistle he may entrust to me.
The town we are in now has no Solange—or has revealed none to
me as yet—but in a certain Cafe which I much frequent is Antoine,
aged two, who can salute in the French manner, comme ca (illustrated)
or in the American manner, comme ca, (illustrated). No, not with the
left hand! good Heavens, child! Sacre bleu! nom d’um nom! Quelle
dommage! Well, if you are going to cry about it, you needn’t salute at
all. Here, shut up and drink the dregs of my vin rouge et sirop. Fini,
bebe!
Also there is an admirable child named Jean who has six months.
He wears a lavender cloak with a hood attached. His home is a barber
shop, the most beautiful and extraordinary barber shop in the world.
His father the barber has gone to the Wars—remain madame,
grandpere, and M. Biebe. It is a very modern barber shop, with mirror-
walls, and powdered soap in silver salt cellars. Grandpere sits by the
stove all day long and says that there are many American soldiers in
the town. Madame exhibits le petit Jean and asks if it is ever as cold as
this in America. I shave with six razors if I desire, and wash in
beaucoup de l’eau chaud. And Madame deftly swinging le petit Jean
over her left shoulder opens a secret drawer under a mirror and
proffers me a tiny tube of fixative for my moustache.
I have a delightful delusion now and then—I see you walk into the
Adjutant’s office, past the Sergeant Major’s desk, and to me. The
building in which we work was once a palace—but its inlaid floor never
supported a duchess (gold powdered though her hair were, and light
her laughter as champagne bubbles) so precious as this fleeting vision
of you.
Joyce Kilmer.

Note.—Three small, spirited pen drawings are incorporated

into this letter at the points indicated in the printed text.

* * * * *

A. E. F.
Dear Aline:
Sorry to use this absurd paper—but none other is accessible. I’m
in a hospital at present—been here for three days with a strained
muscle. It has been delightful to sleep between sheets again—I have
rested up beautifully, I go back to the regiment to-morrow.
I sent you two batches of copy recently—or three, rather. Hope you
get them—but if you don’t, I’ll write some more—like Caterina, you
know when she was defending her husband’s castle against the
enemy. The enemy took her six children as hostages. “Surrender the
castle, or I’ll kill the children!” said he. “Go ahead, kill ’em!” said
Caterina. “I can make more!”
As to your plan of renting a house at Shirley—wherever that is—for
the Summer, go ahead, if you must—I don’t think there is any chance
of my getting home this Summer. If I do come home, I’ll cable you in
time for you to get back to Larchmont before my arrival. Larchmont is
just about far enough from New York. Not for many a year will I
consent to spend a day in any place more rural. I have had enough of
wildness and rawness and primitiveness—the rest of my life, I hope,
will be spent in the effetest civilization. I don’t want to be more than an
hour’s distance from the Biltmore grill and the Knickerbocker bar. And
God preserve me from farms!
I love you.
Joyce.

* * * * *

March 12, 1918.

Dear Aline:
I receive your letters frequently and regularly, and they are
delightful, stimulating, typical. To-day I returned from a week’s sojourn
in a charming hospital (a strained muscle, now healed, sent me there)
and I found two letters from you awaiting me, the latest dated February
12. Let me congratulate you on your aviation poem—most beautiful
and true, the most intellectual poem you have made. By all means put
it in your book.
I received Francis Carlin’s wholly heavenly book just before I went
to the hospital, and have read it many times with delight. When you
see him, give him my homage. He should be walking goldener floors
than those of a mortal shop—he should rather be over here with us,
whatever his convictions may be. For it is wrong for a poet—especially
a Gael—to be listening to elevated trains when there are screaming
shells to hear, and to be sleeping soft in a bed when there’s a cot in a
dug-out awaiting him, and the bright face of danger to dream about,
and see.
 I treasure your picture, and Christopher’s shadowy profile—send
me more photographs. Love me constantly, never let a day pass
without going to church for me.
Joyce.

* * * * *

March 14, 1918.

Dear Aline:
I enclose some verses that you may like very much. That is, I think
I enclose them—I have yet to consult with our Regimental censor as to
whether or not I may send them. If the place name is cut out, put in its
stead any French proper name that rhymes and do with the poem as
you will. Perhaps the best thing to do with it will be to hand it to Bob for
publishing.
As to my book—why don’t worry about it—we all will live just as
long and just as happily and probably be just as wealthy—or poor—if it
is never written. I am cheerfully neglecting it, for many reasons. One is,
of course, the censorship, which prevents the sending out of articles
sufficiently topical and specific to be interesting. Another is a military
regulation which forbids an officer or enlisted man from acting as a
correspondent or writing for publication on a military subject. This will
not, I suppose, prevent the publication of such of my verses and
essays as are inspired by my experiences. But it will prevent my
making for serial publication any consecutive record of events. What I
will do will be to assemble, after the war is over, or after I have
returned from it, such random essays or rhymes as I have made and
bind them together with a thread of reminiscence—partly introspective,
partly—what is the word? extraspective? external, at any rate. I shall
write nothing that has any news value. I believe in my vanity that it will
be a most charming book, not without its high lights of something more
than charm. It really is the sort of book I’d like greatly to read, and I
think that it will reach a public tired of the many war-narratives. And
don’t think people won’t read it after the war is over! They will! The only
sort of book I care to write about the war is the sort people will read
after the war is over—a century after it is over! And that is the sort of
book I am going to make. A journal intime, but as close to literature, as
carefully thought and wrought as I can do. It will be episodic—chaotic,
perhaps—no glib tale, no newspaper man’s work—but with God’s help,
a work of art. So clamour not for copy! My enclosures of some weeks
ago may have pleased you, but you’ll like this better.
Which for no reason brings me to the subject of growing middle-
aged, an experience which you are enjoying, I trust; I know I enjoy it.
What an advantage we have over our children! While they, to their
embarrassment, grow up—voices changing, legs and arms becoming
too obvious, self-consciousness and shallow romanticism seizing them
—we gracefully, comfortably, grow down. Perhaps it is as a protective
measure that I, a private soldier, grow vain—as snails develop shells—
but I confess it is with consummate pleasure that I contemplate my
senility and, may I say, mediævality. I picture myself at forty, rotund but
eminently presentable, moustache and hair delicately grayed, tailored
admirably, with the leisurely power no young man may have. I picture
myself at sixty, with a long white moustache, a pale gray tweed suit, a
very large Panama hat. I can see my gnarled but beautifully groomed
hands as they tremblingly pour out the glass of dry sherry which
belongs to every old man’s breakfast. I cannot think of myself at
seventy or eighty—I grow hysterical with applause—I am lost in a
delirium of massive ebony canes, golden snuff-boxes, and daily silk
hats.
And as for you! My God! what a vision! That dear autumnal hair
silvering—the mouth of my delight exquisitely etched with honourable
lines—each one the record of a year’s love—those eyes richer in their
mystery—but I cannot write of this—for the thought might give me
power to sweep away the years and make me find you, when I come
back from the Wars, becapped and tremulous and leaning on two
sticks! NO! I don’t want you to be old now—I want you to be the
innocent sophisticated young woman you are in the little picture I carry
(traditionally!) over my heart. But I want to watch you grow old—if I can
watch you and at the same time hold you in my arms.
Joyce.
 * * * * *

April 1, 1918.
Dear Aline:
This letter is written to you from a real town—written, in fact, above
ground. You may be surprised to know that recent letters to you were
not written in these conditions. They were written in a dug-out, but I
was not permitted to tell you so at the time. In a dug-out, also, were
written the verses I sent you some two weeks ago—you may
remember their damp-clayey flavour. I slept and worked (the latter
sometimes for twenty hours at a time) in this dug-out for a month,
except for one week when I was out on special work with the
Regimental Intelligence Section. You don’t begrudge me that week, do
you? I cannot now describe it, but it was a week of wonder—of sights
and sounds essential, I think, to my experience. For there are
obligations of experience—or experiences of obligation—to be
distinguished from what I might call experiences of supererogation or
experiences of perfection—but what rubbish this is! Let us rather
consider my present great luxury, and the marvels of which it is
composed. In the first place, one room (not a cot in a crowded barrack,
not a coffin-like berth in a subterranean chamber) but a real room, with
windows and a large bed and a table and chairs and a practical wash
stand. The bed I share with one L—— D——, an amiable gamin, about
to be made a Corporal. I am a Sergeant—with stripes some five days
old. (It is the height of my ambition, for to be commissioned I’d be sent
to school for three months and then, whether or not I succeeded, be
assigned to another Regiment. And I’d rather be a Sergeant in the 69th
than lieutenant in any other outfit.)
To continue—I also eat from a table excellent meals, with a napkin
on my knees. I have soldiered pretty hard for some months now, taking
everything as it came, and I think I’ve honestly earned my stripes. Now
I’m going to have an easier life—not working less hard, but not seeking
hardships. So I am paying seven francs a day for meals, and six francs
a week for my share in a bed-room. And it’s delightfully refreshing.
Also, I yesterday had a hot shower-bath—very much a novelty!
 This morning I received two letters from you, to my great joy. The
pictures of the children are excellent. I am glad to see Deborah’s hair
so long and lovely. Do, by all means, send me pictures of yourself and
Deborah in a leather case, as you promise. I can imagine no possible
gift I’d rather receive. Mail is coming here every day now, so I look
forward to frequent messages from you.
What a cheerless place the States must be these days! Don’t send
me American papers (except the Times Book Review) for they depress
me, showing me what a dismal land you live in. This meatless,
wheatless day business is very wearying. It can do no earthly good—it
is merely giving comfort to the enemy, who undoubtedly know all about
it. I wish—aside from the obvious greatest reasons—that you were
here in France—you’d like everything, but especially the gentle, kind,
jovial, deeply pious people. Time enough—to resume—for wheatless
days when the enemy takes your wheat. Until then, carpe diem!—that
is, eat buckwheat cakes with plenty of syrup.
I am disgusted with all I read in the American Magazines about the
Americans in France. It is all so hysterical and all so untrue. It isn’t
jealousy that makes me say this—I have no desire to compete with
newspaper-correspondents—but it annoys me to see the army to
which I belong and the country on and for whose soil we are fighting so
stupidly misrepresented.
I hope you received “Rouge Bouquet”—if you did receive it I know
you liked it. General —— (I forgot, I mustn’t name generals lower in
rank than Major-Generals) had twelve copies of it made. I sent it to you
two weeks ago—you should be receiving it now. The newspapers by
now have re-revealed its meaning to you, if any explanation was
needed. It was read at an evening entertainment at one of our camps
at the front. Father Duffy read it, and taps was played on the cornet
before and after. I couldn’t get down to hear it—I was further front, at
work in the dug-out that night.
I think most of my war book will be in verse. I prefer to write verse,
and I can say in verse things not permitted to me in prose. You
remember—no, probably you don’t—Coventry Patmore and his
confessor. The confessor objected to the passionate explicitness of
some of Coventry’s devotional poems—they dealt with things esoteric,
he said, and should be set forth in Latin, not in the profane tongue.
And Coventry replied that for most people poetry was an
incomprehensible language, more hidden than Latin—or more hiding.
And speaking of Coventry Patmore, the best way to fry potatoes is
to have deep oil or butter violently boiling in a great pot, to slip the
slices of potatoes into it and stir them persistently, never letting them
touch the pot’s bottom, to lift them out (when they are golden brown)
by means of a small sieve, and to place them on paper so that the
grease may be absorbed.
The best news I’ve had since I reached France is about Kenton’s
medal. I’m going to write to-day and tell him so.
I love you,
Joyce.

* * * * *

April 19, 1918.

Dear Aline:
My chief occupation at the present time is awaiting a letter from
you.
It is several hours since I wrote the first paragraph of this letter. I
have been to supper (I am hitting the mess-line these days, for my
money gave out and I didn’t want to borrow any more) and ridden in a
motor-cycle-side car all over the countryside—through a dozen little
villages, every one full of French and American soldiers, with a
sprinkling of coolie labourers, in quest of a certain village which holds
two companies of a certain outfit with which I had to have a
conference. The village was hard to find (their names all sound alike,
and old French ladies, when interrogated as to direction, always point
in a direction in which there is no road and say something that sounds
like “Honk! honk! Ba! ba!”) and also the night was cold. I have enjoyed
many rides more. Returning to the office (I sleep in the same building)
half frozen and weary, I found that not two truck-loads, but two sacks
of letters had been delivered, and that I had received three letters. I
leaped at the letters—one was an invitation to a Ladies’ Day at the
Columbia University Club, another was from my mother, another from
Fr. Garesché. None from You! You accused me in one of your letters of
writing to you when I was depressed—well, I’m depressed now, all
right! I’ll wait until to-morrow morning to finish this letter, I guess, or
else I’ll give you real cause for complaint. Not that I blame you, or think
you haven’t written often—it’s the mail system’s fault. Good night!
I hope Kenton has learned to serve Mass by this time. I wrote to
him a long time ago and told him to see Fr. Morris about it, but I fear
that he would be too shy to do this unless some pressure were brought
to bear. If you would ask Fr. Morris to teach him how to serve Mass,
and persuade him to ask Kenton to come to see him about it, so that
the initiative would seem to come from Fr. Morris, I think things would
work out well. I pray for Kenton to have the grace of a vocation to the
priesthood—I hope he may have a Jesuit vocation—and I think it is
good to do all we can toward the fulfillment of this desire—this is, I
think, a supplementary way to “sway the designs of God.” I think of the
children often and can visualise them well in spite of my long absence
from them, that is, all except young Christopher. I am aware of
Kenton’s gravity and of his thoughtful and radiant smile, of Deborah’s
vivacity and exquisite colouring (she is like one of her mother’s gay
thoughts), of Michael’s magnetic rotundity, of his blue eyes, of his
charming habit of toppling over like a toy tumbler of lead and celluloid.
And of Rose I am nearly always conscious, delightfully, when I am
awake and often when I am asleep, and especially when I am in the
church—which is twice every day, to receive Holy Communion
immediately after Reveille and to pray for a few minutes in the evening.
We have a magnificent old church in this town, as near to where I am
now as the church is to our house in Larchmont. And right by the
tower-door is a big statue of St. Nicholas of Bari, in his episcopal
robes, and hopping around his feet are two little bits of babies he
saved and brought back to life after they’d been cut up and pickled.
Very nice! You’d like it! Pray to St. Nicholas for me, and to St. Stephen,
St. Brigid, St. Michael, St. Christopher, St. Joseph, St. Anthony of
Padua, St. Teresa, and all our other good friends in Heaven, and love
me.
Joyce.
 * * * * *

April 21, 1918.

Dear Aline:
I am glad of the auspicious beginning of Eleanor’s romance. I
would so regard it, for I cannot understand the interpretation which
makes marriage the termination instead of the beginning of a splendid
adventure. If there should ever be the perfect novel of love, it would
begin rather than end “And they were married.” Would the phrase
continue: “And lived happily ever after”? I doubt it—but that depends
upon the definition of happiness. I know that you dislike the symbolism
which is the basis of Coventry Patmore’s greatest poems, but I think
you will admit that there is this truth in his idea—the relationship of
man and wife is like that of God and the soul in that it must be purified
and strengthened by suffering. Also—to put it on a lower plane—
Eleanor is enough of a poet to take some enjoyment out of being the
wife of a soldier gone to the wars—or Irish enough, which is the same
thing.
As to the matter of my own blood (you mentioned this in a previous
letter) I did indeed tell a good friend of mine who edits the book-review
page of a Chicago paper that I was “half Irish.” But I have never been a
mathematician. The point I wished to make was that a large
percentage—which I have a perfect right to call half—of my ancestry
was Irish. For proof of this, you have only to refer to the volumes
containing the histories of my mother’s and my father’s families. Of
course I am American, but one cannot be pure American in blood
unless one is an Indian. And I have the good fortune to be able to
claim, largely because of the wise matrimonial selections of my
progenitors on both sides, Irish blood. And don’t let anyone publish a
statement contradictory to this.
Speaking of publishers, please be very careful that there is nothing
in the book you and Margaret wrote to offend, in the slightest degree. I
would go so far as to say that if the spirit of the book is not obviously
and definitely Catholic—readily so recognised by Catholic readers—it
would grieve me to see it published with your name attached—grieve
me deeply. I don’t want anyone to say of you, “There is nothing about
that novel to show she is a Catholic.” I don’t think Catholic writers
should spend their time writing tracts and Sunday-school books, but I
think that the Faith should illuminate everything they write, grave or
gay. The Faith is radiantly apparent in your last poems. It is in Tom
Daly’s clowning as it is in his loftier moods. Of course anyone would
rather write like Francis Thompson than like Swinburne. But I can
honestly say that I’d rather write like John Ayscough than like William
Makepiece Thackeray—infinitely greater artist though Thackeray be.
You see, the Catholic Faith is such a thing that I’d rather write
moderately well about it than magnificently well about anything else. It
is more important, more beautiful, more necessary than anything else
in life. You and I have seen miracles—let us never cease to celebrate
them. You know that this is not the first fever of a convert’s enthusiasm
—it is the permanent conviction of a man who prayed daily for months
for the Faith before that grace was given him. The Faith has done
wonderful things for you, but I think since I have been in France it has
done more for me. It has carried me through experiences I could not
otherwise have endured. I do not mean that it has kept me from fear—
for I have no fear of death or wounding whatever. I mean that it has
helped me to endure great and continued hardships. These hardships
are now past—they belong to last December—but I cannot forget what
made me live through them and bear myself like a man. Therefore—for
this and a multitude of other reasons, among which let me put that it is
my most earnest request—be zealous in using your exquisite talent in
His service of Whom, I am glad to have said, Apollo was a shadow. If
what you write does not clearly praise the Lord and his Saints and
Angels, let it praise such types of Heaven as we know in our life—God
knows they are numerous enough.
Does this sound like the writing of the least desirable of your
aunts? Forgive me if it does, and heed my request even if it seem
unreasonable—the request, I mean, not to sign your name to the book
if it is not Catholic in spirit. I can honestly offer “Trees” and “Main
Street” to Our Lady, and ask her to present them, as the faithful work
of her poor unskilled craftsman, to her Son. I hope to be able to do it
with everything I write hereafter—and to be able to do this is to be a
good poet.
 Speaking of Poetry, I have read with exquisite relish, several times,
the copy of the Bulletin you sent me. And always I stop reading—
prevented from continuing by irresistible mirth. God help us! Let all the
world, especially all of it that deals in thought, beat its breast and
repeat after me “God help us.” Here are young men battling in a
strange land to win back for the people of that land their decent
homes. Here are French peasants (old men, children and women)
kneeling at mass in a church with a yawning shell hole through the
tower. Among them are American soldiers. And other American
soldiers (God rest their brave young souls) rest in new graves by a fair
road I know. We hear the crash of shells, the tattoo of machine guns,
we see unearthly lights staining the black sky. And—Oh, God help us!
Send me more bulletins! I want to read more about Mr. —— whose
“mystic” (of course!) poems, seem to ... “to challenge comparison with
the works of Tagore.” I want to read more about ... chaunting to crowds
of old ladies who stink of perfume and cold cream and gasoline, while
a young female shakes her shanks and “gives a visual embodiment of
the poet’s idea.” I want to read about A ... “What a privilege to be at
once a poet and a fairy godmother!” And I want to read about W ...
going West and—just being himself! God forgive me for being a
Pharisee, and keep me from judging others! But I do love to read about
these things and then go across the street and drink a large drink with
Joe Brady, meanwhile singing a coarse ballad entitled “The Old Gray
Mare.”
We’re going to be paid to-morrow, I’m glad to say, so I’ll be able to
have a few meals indoors. This roadside picnic stuff is all right in fair
weather, but French weather is not always what it should be. I hope
your allotment is arriving, but I doubt it. I think we’ll collect it in our old
age. I read recently that a Civil War Veteran had just succeeded in
collecting some pay due him in 1862—perhaps we’ll be as lucky. We’ll
buy a carton of cigarettes for Christopher’s youngest son with the first
payment.
Your poem “Experience” has lodgment in my brain and heart and
soul. “She walks the way primroses go.” Simple—isn’t it? that line—to
make it nothing much was required—genius merely. Thank God there’s
you in a world of ——s and ——s. Do you mind being considered the
“one just man”? Figuratively I kiss your hand—it was absurd of me to
preach to you who are my mistress in the art of devotion as in the art
of poetry.
Joyce.
 * * * * *

April 27th, 1918.

Dear Aline:
Some mail came to-day and in it was a package containing ten
boxes of tobacco, Merci bien! (when I get back I’ll talk just like —— or
——.) I received a box of admirable cigars yesterday (they were
originally awarded to Father Daly in payment for a contribution to
America, and he kindly directed that they be sent to me).
We are in a new town now (new to us, that is) a little bit of a place.
We have been recently in a rather large town, where I lived very
comfortably. I am comfortable here (especially since yesterday
afternoon, when I had a hot shower bath and had my clothes sterilized)
but not luxurious. But I’m looking forward to a much easier and vastly
more interesting time for the rest of my stay in France. I have asked to
be relieved from my office job, and my request has been granted. I
hope on Monday (this is Saturday night) to become a member of the
Regimental Intelligence Section, and the Adjutant tells me I am to be
transferred as a Sergeant, although I was willing to give up my stripes
for the sake of getting into this work. So henceforth I’ll be peering at
the Germans through field glasses from some observatory instead of
toiling in a dug-out or crowded office. You wouldn’t want me to come
back round-shouldered and near-sighted, would you? Well, that would
be the result of keeping on this statistical job much longer. The
intelligence work is absolutely fascinating—you’ll be glad I took it up.
You would have liked the gutter-babies in our last town. About a
dozen of them used to come out at meal times and besiege our mess-
line. They brought their dad’s canteens to be filled with coffee, and
they accepted, politely, bread and karo. They were very nice, and fat,
as all French babies are. I don’t know whether the French are so
devoted to my dear patron St. Nicholas of Bari, because they love
children, as he does, or are devoted to children because they love him.
Anyway they have the nicest children there are outside of Larchmont
Manor and Heaven (these words mean nearly the same thing) and
they treat them most enthusiastically. Large crowds of men and
women stand for half an hour in a busy city street watching a young
baby learn to walk, the baby being decorated, for the occasion, with his
big sister’s broad-brimmed hat. And also nearly every church has a
statue or window representation of St. Nicholas of Bari with the three
babies he restored to life. It helps me to feel at home. I hope you and
Kenton pray to him often, he is a very generous saint and has treated
me beautifully.
I had a quaint experience to-night. There is no priest now in this
town, but there is a fine old church, with God in it. Since there is no
priest, I can’t get my daily communion, but I go in occasionally to say
my prayers. Well, to-night there was a very old lady in the church. She
was so crippled with age and rheumatism that she could not kneel, so
she was huddled up on a bench near the rail. And she had a white cap
on, and she carried a tall staff with a crutch top such as witches use.
She was very pious, and prayed audibly, making pious ejaculations,
like an old Irish lady. For some time she didn’t know anyone else was
in the church. But when she found I was there, she waited until I had
said my beads and then she came over to me (rising with great
difficulty and putting on the heavy wooden shoes that lay beside her).
Then she extended to me her beads. The link between two of them
was undone, and she asked me to mend it. I tried to do so, but my
clumsy fingers had little success. So I gave her my rosary in exchange
for hers—which I can easily mend with a pair of pincers—and she was
very grateful. But I feel that I got the best of the bargain, for there may
be a special sort of a blessing attached to beads worn by the gnarled
fingers of one so near God. I could make a rhyme out of this
experience, but it would seem a profanation. You see some of the
possible interpretations of it, don’t you?
The news about D—— is interesting—well, he is trying to serve his
conscience, and I am trying to serve mine, and that’s all a gentleman
can do. And since we’re both suffering, I believe we’ve both followed
the right course. There are many ways to Heaven, but only one Lamp
—as I once said in some verses.
But as to suffering—don’t be pitying me! It’s you that are doing the
suffering, you with no exhilaration of star-shells and tattoo of machine-
guns, you without the adventure. I feel very selfish, often.
 I love you and you are never away from me.
Joyce.

* * * * *

April 29, 1918.

Dear Aline:
For Heaven’s sake, don’t tell me about how bad tea rooms are! I
admit that I used to scorn them. Now I could live in one,
enthusiastically. I wouldn’t mind at all the closeness, the bad service,
the soiled table linen. Why, Max’s Busy Bee sounds better to me now
than Sherry’s used to sound.
“She walks the way Primroses go” reechoes in my soul. What a
delightful poet you are! Send me some more poems, at once, please.
It’s time I heard from you again. Some mail came to-day, but I got
nothing from you. You should write me long letters often. By all means
take up Fr. Hayes’ lecture offer. You can make your lectures chiefly
readings. Get Dr. Pallen to help you make a circular, and put on it
testimonials from whomever he suggests. Get Bob Holliday’s advice as
to form of circular. You will find valuable suggestions as to
engagements in my correspondence files, wherever they are.
(Here I paused to eat ten cakes purchased at the Y. M. C. A. for a
franc.)
Young —— is in a nearby town—an amiable child indeed he is. I
saw him twice, and he presented me with a bag of cakes and a box of
cigars. He reminds me very much of Kenton, but is in many respects
his inferior. I’d like to see Kenton and Fr. Daly and Deborah and
Michael and Christopher and Sister Emerentia and some Bass’ Ale
and some dry sherry and a roast of lamb with mint sauce and
Blackwood’s Magazine and the bar in the Auditorium Hotel in Chicago
and a straw hat and the circus. And I really wouldn’t mind seeing you.
Joyce.
 * * * * *

May 15, 1918.

Dear Aline:
Your friends are a bit impertinent, I think. I don’t claim to be a
learned French scholar (although I have talked French every day for
six months). But I do claim to know the name of the place where I lived
in constant danger of death for six weeks, where many of my friends
gave their lives for their country. It is Rouge Bouquet, not Rouge
Bosquet. I’ll be deeply grieved if it appears in print incorrectly. Also, I
wish the grace in “Holy Ireland” to stand as I wrote it. It is just as Frank
Driscoll said it on that unforgettable night—it is the grace used in Jesuit
houses. Please see to this, and don’t let all the world revise my mss. I
rather expected you’d like the poem better, but perhaps the reason the
fellows in the Regiment liked it so much is because we all felt keenly
the event it memorizes.
I’ll write to you more to-morrow. I love you.
Joyce.

* * * * *

The above is rather stern and brusque, isn’t it? Well I wrote it in
rather stirring times—now only memories. I am resting now, in a
beautiful place—on a high hilltop covered with pine and fir trees. I
never saw any mountain-place in America I thought better to look at or
from. I sleep on a couch made soft with deftly laid young spruce
boughs and eat at a table set under good, kind trees. A great
improvement on living in a dug-out and even (to my mind) an
improvement on a room with a bed in a village. I am not on a furlough,
I am working, but my work is of a light and interesting kind and fills only
six out of twenty-four hours. So I have plenty of time for writing, and
have started a prose-sketch (based on an exciting and colourful
experience of the last month) which I will send you soon. Everything I
write, I think, in prose or verse, should be submitted to Doran first.
I wish I could tell you more about my work, but at present I cannot.
But there are advertised in the American magazines many books
about the Intelligence Service—get one of them and you’ll find why I
like my job. The work Douglas is doing is not allied to mine. Only I
suppose he’ll have a commission. I won’t work for one, because I don’t
want to leave this outfit. I love you more than ever, and long for the
pictures you promise me. You will be amused by the postcards I
enclose.
Joyce.
Say, the stuff about your not appreciating “Rouge Bouquet” was
written before I got your delightful letter of April 18, admirable critic!

* * * * *

Dear Aline:
I have just received your letters of April 1st and April 5th.
“Moonlight” is noble, like its author. As to being worried about you
because it expresses pain, why, I’d be worried only if you did not
sometimes feel and express pain. Spiritual pain (sometimes physical
pain) is beautiful and wholesome and in our soul we love it, whatever
our lips say. Do you not, in turn, worry because of my foolish letter to
you from the hospital. At that time I was just an office hack—now I am
a soldier, in the most fascinating branch of the service there is—you’d
love it! It is sheer romance, night and day—especially night! And I am
now therefore saner than when I wrote to you from the hospital. I’ve
had only a week of this work—but I’m already a much nicer person.

“For Sergeant Joyce is three, and Oh,

He knows so much he did not know!”

As to the picture I sent you, why, surely I have a moustache, and

not a “morning pout.” Mechante. A long moustache I have (illustration