Item 04: G. O. Hawkins letters to his family, 2 January 1915-November 1917 - Page 221
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 221]
Somewhere in France
5th July 1917
Dear Beatrice,
Volumes could be written of soldiers life in a new way. That is hearing on the points of individuality rather than by generalizing. There is nothing general in vivid full life. Nothing general in the intense characters of life who live deaths and die lives in days of endurance and under the burdens of duty. I am speaking of men, - and rare men too, - who ever give such and receive so little. Men who really do live, no matter whether it be life as they planned it in their dreams or as shaped by opposing fates. Men to whom the very tasks to which misfortune puts them to; and the calamities with which disaster threatens to overwhelm them; are as battles to be won; are as reverses to be countered; but never as defeats.
Men who can admire the beauties of existence and see visions in the purples