Littleton Waller - Early Years

Early Years

Tony Waller was bright, but indifferent to education. He was an outdoorsman, fond of hunting, fishing and riding, and uncomfortable in the classroom. Historian David McCulloch noted that, in the nineteenth century, every literate person in the English-speaking world was familiar with three books — the King James Bible, the works of Shakespeare, and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Waller’s writing shows the influence of all three. His report from Peking compares the condition of the Marines to Falstaff's army, in reference to Shakespeare's Henry IV. He uses the Biblical phrase "the peace of God which passeth all understanding" in his letter to the Marines in France in 1918. In reporting the death in action of one of his officers in China, Waller expressed confidence the "all the trumpets will sound for him upon the other side", a phrase taken from Bunyan's description of the death of Faithful. In their ghostwritten memoirs Smedley Butler and Frederick C. Wise remember him as an eloquent speaker and fascinating storyteller. Yet he apparently never considered the study of law or a career in politics.