Item 01: G. O. Hawkins articles and notes ca. 1916-1919 - Page 1
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Dec 1916
It was afternoon when I entered Ypres. One of those musical days when the wind and the sun-light seem to be on a mission of glory through the world, and the sky is the loftiest of poetry.
You know the kind of day sky with great billowing clouds of snow and silver shaped like bearded gods and sleeping lions, passing slowly through the blue.
Well that was the kind of day it was, but there was the sadness of beauty and the strange chill whisper of natures plaintive secrets through it all, establishing a subtle melancholy which suited the dreary scene of desolation
And what a scene it was.
Imagine a city in which there is not a single building scarless of bombardment.
The first sight that met my view on entering was the railway station absolutely wrecked, and house after house, close by, smashed to heaps of rubble. Then it was a common sight to see the whole front or the whole end of a three or four story house blown clear away disclosing the interiors of rooms still furnished with pictures on the walls, and many of the apartments