Brittain, Vera, Diary, 7 October 1915

00000299-2.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: 
7 October 1915
Collection/Fonds: 
Contributer: 
McMaster University Libraries
Rights: 
Vera Brittain estate; McMaster University has a non-exclusive licence to publish this document.

Identifier: 
00000299-2
Language: 
eng
Type: 
image
Format: 
jpg
Transcript: 

It seems to surprise her that I don't always want to be kissing him when I am with him. In fact I don't believe she thinks that what I feel for him is really love at all, & is quite sure that I don't in the least know what I am about. But in the darkness I thought of the one being on earth whose life means all the world to me, and felt like laughing & crying at the same time. Laughter for the world's ignorance of the meaning of a love like mine -- tears because I am parted, perhaps for ever, from what means so much. But no one knows what the thought of him makes me feel -- he perhaps least of all. Mrs. Leighton in her comprehension perhaps comes nearest. There is less difference in a mother's love for her son & that of the girl who loves him, that there is between the son's feeling towards his mother & that towards She whom he loves.
The news in the papers is scarcely encouraging. The trouble in the Balkans is growing enormously. Our absurd censorship allows us to know so little that probably quite the majority, & I among them, scarcely understand the situation at all, & it will no doubt break upon us in all its dreadfulness when it is just about as bad as it can be. Undoubtedly matters are going to be still more serious for us. One scarcely believes it possible that they can be until they are.
Mr Venizelos, the brilliant Greek premier who favoured the Entente, has been obliged to resign because his sovereign, King Constantine, whose wife is the Kaiser's favourite sister, refuses to approve of his policy. This means that Greece will break her word to join with Serbia against any aggressor of Serbia, & will either remain neutral or enter the war with Bulgaria on the side of Germany. The