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Authors: Juliet Nicolson
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rising to his emotional theme he concluded: ‘We sank all our sectional interests, all partisan claims, all class and creed differences, in the pursuit of one common purpose.’ Such patriotism, he hoped, would continue to unify the British throughout the challenges of the coming years.
On the same evening, a young mother was spending a few daysat her family cottage in Cornwall. She was alone there with Denis, her eight-year-old son, who thought of his mother as a magical figure. Edna Clarke Hall had been a student at the Slade but her unhappy marriage as well as her grief at the death eighteen months earlier of a beloved friend, the writer Edward Thomas, had propelled her into a state of emotional paralysis. Painting had become impossible for her. Instead she had become accustomed to writing poems, sometimes as many as a dozen a day, in which to record her feelings. Her poem, ‘Peace Night’, reflected a rare optimism that night, a survival of sorts, inspired by the child beside her.
So I am ‘like a gypsy’ on the dark hill side
In the weird reflection of a nation’s pride.
And
you
are like a pixie o my pretty child!
And this hill our dixie, strange and dark and wild.
When we are long forgotten in our mortal dress
(I, with my red blanket, you, with your sweetness!)
By the lonely ocean still will we abide
Elfin boy and gypsy on the dark hill side!
But another poet, Thomas Hardy, now nearly eighty years of age, raged at the futility of it all, attacking the motives of a world that in its ‘brute-like blindness’ could have allowed this ‘four years’ dance of death’. In a poem written on Armistice Day, a day in which there was peace on earth and silence in the sky, he foresaw the legacy of the preceding years.
Some could, some could not, shake off misery;
The sinister spirit sneered ‘It had to be!’
And again the spirit of pity whispered ‘Why?’
Virginia Woolf spent Armistice Day at the dentist, returning home to write her diary that night in a state of despair:
Every wounded soldier was kissed by women; nobody had any notion where to go or what to do; it poured steadily; crowds drifted up and down the pavements waving flags and jumping into omnibuses but in such a disorganised, half-hearted, sordid state that I felt more and more melancholy and hopeless of the human race. They make one doubt whether any decent life will ever be possible, or whether it matters if we are at war or at peace.
Private John Robinson was one of the lucky ones. He had received his demobilisation papers a week before the Armistice and on his arrival home had gathered his family, including his seven-year-old boy, in the front room. As they watched, the former soldier began to remove every article of the uniform he wore until he stood naked before them. Gathering up the muddy, bloody, ragged, sweat-soaked pile of clothes that lay on the floor Mrs Robinson threw the whole lot into the fire as the whole family, including their young son, watched the flames. They promised each other that War would never be mentioned in the Robinson family again.
Mrs Bullock, who had waved her son goodbye with such pain in her heart, had also been pleased that John had been sent home early despite the reason being prompted by the injuries he had received in the war. She consoled herself that at least he was alive and once again enjoying the park, as she watched from the window marvelling at his remarkable agility as he propelled himself forward with his crutches on his remaining leg.
Back in London, lurking in the shadows and far from the brightly lit entrances to hotels from where the party revellers were beginning to make their unsteady way home, were the men who could no longer attract the warmth of a woman’s embrace, their faces unable to register relief, joy or any emotion at all. These were the war veterans, facially damaged beyond all recognition. Sometimes a mask was the only solution to any
On the same evening, a young mother was spending a few daysat her family cottage in Cornwall. She was alone there with Denis, her eight-year-old son, who thought of his mother as a magical figure. Edna Clarke Hall had been a student at the Slade but her unhappy marriage as well as her grief at the death eighteen months earlier of a beloved friend, the writer Edward Thomas, had propelled her into a state of emotional paralysis. Painting had become impossible for her. Instead she had become accustomed to writing poems, sometimes as many as a dozen a day, in which to record her feelings. Her poem, ‘Peace Night’, reflected a rare optimism that night, a survival of sorts, inspired by the child beside her.
So I am ‘like a gypsy’ on the dark hill side
In the weird reflection of a nation’s pride.
And
you
are like a pixie o my pretty child!
And this hill our dixie, strange and dark and wild.
When we are long forgotten in our mortal dress
(I, with my red blanket, you, with your sweetness!)
By the lonely ocean still will we abide
Elfin boy and gypsy on the dark hill side!
But another poet, Thomas Hardy, now nearly eighty years of age, raged at the futility of it all, attacking the motives of a world that in its ‘brute-like blindness’ could have allowed this ‘four years’ dance of death’. In a poem written on Armistice Day, a day in which there was peace on earth and silence in the sky, he foresaw the legacy of the preceding years.
Some could, some could not, shake off misery;
The sinister spirit sneered ‘It had to be!’
And again the spirit of pity whispered ‘Why?’
Virginia Woolf spent Armistice Day at the dentist, returning home to write her diary that night in a state of despair:
Every wounded soldier was kissed by women; nobody had any notion where to go or what to do; it poured steadily; crowds drifted up and down the pavements waving flags and jumping into omnibuses but in such a disorganised, half-hearted, sordid state that I felt more and more melancholy and hopeless of the human race. They make one doubt whether any decent life will ever be possible, or whether it matters if we are at war or at peace.
Private John Robinson was one of the lucky ones. He had received his demobilisation papers a week before the Armistice and on his arrival home had gathered his family, including his seven-year-old boy, in the front room. As they watched, the former soldier began to remove every article of the uniform he wore until he stood naked before them. Gathering up the muddy, bloody, ragged, sweat-soaked pile of clothes that lay on the floor Mrs Robinson threw the whole lot into the fire as the whole family, including their young son, watched the flames. They promised each other that War would never be mentioned in the Robinson family again.
Mrs Bullock, who had waved her son goodbye with such pain in her heart, had also been pleased that John had been sent home early despite the reason being prompted by the injuries he had received in the war. She consoled herself that at least he was alive and once again enjoying the park, as she watched from the window marvelling at his remarkable agility as he propelled himself forward with his crutches on his remaining leg.
Back in London, lurking in the shadows and far from the brightly lit entrances to hotels from where the party revellers were beginning to make their unsteady way home, were the men who could no longer attract the warmth of a woman’s embrace, their faces unable to register relief, joy or any emotion at all. These were the war veterans, facially damaged beyond all recognition. Sometimes a mask was the only solution to any
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