Brittain, Vera, Diary, 2 January 1916

00000303-4.jpg
Description: 
Diary of Vera Brittain

Tabs

Case Study: 
From Youth to Experience: Vera Brittain’s Work for Peace in Two World Wars
Creator: 
Brittain, Vera
Source: 
diary
Date: 
2 January 1916
Collection/Fonds: 
Contributer: 
McMaster University Libraries
Rights: 
Vera Brittain estate; McMaster University has a non-exclusive licence to publish this document.

Identifier: 
00000303-4
Language: 
eng
Type: 
image
Format: 
jpg
Transcript: 

though unconsciously, with that marvellous vitality of his. None ever had more to live for; none could ever have wanted to live more.
"Someday we shall live our roseate poem through -- as we have dreamt it." I wonder if he thought of that. Perhaps he thought that the very pain he was suffering was a guarantee that those words were coming true very soon indeed. Will they ever, I wonder? Oh, if one only knew that, all would be well.
I am glad he died a confessed Roman Catholic. With what is narrow in that religion he had no dealings; He took for Himself out of it all that was idealistic and best. And I know that when [?] face to face with Death he would never have deceived himself or others, so that he must have looked in the face the idea of immortality, and not repudiated it entirely. For the Roman Catholic Church holds out a finer and surer hope of a life hereafter than any other faith in the world. If ever I felt inclined to enter any faith, it might well be that one -- at any rate I shall certainly examine and enter into it closely as I have never done before, and shall care more for that Interpretation of Religion than any other. After all -- I cannot sweepingly state that I have no faith - no hope of something more beyond this puzzling life. And even if I cannot utterly believe in it, I would like to act as if in the hopes of one -- to live and act on the chance that there may be one, rather than as if I were certain there is not. It seems to be this that He did -- & I can wish to do nothing better than to act as He has acted, right up to the end. And perhaps, after all, "Someday we shall live our roseate poem through" -- even though it be not quite as we have dreamt it.
They buried Him on Sunday afternoon, Dec. 26th, in the little military cemetery at Louvencourt, the small village behind the lines where the Clearing Station was to which they