How fortunate we were who still had hope, I did not then realise; I could not know how soon the time would come when we should have no more hope, and… - Vera Brittain

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How fortunate we were who still had hope, I did not then realise; I could not know how soon the time would come when we should have no more hope, and yet be unable to die. Roland’s letters—the sensitive letters of the newly baptised young soldier, so soon to be hardened by the protective iron of remorseless indifference to horror and pain — made the struggle to concentrate no easier, for they drove me to a feverish searching into fundamental questions to which no immediate answers were forthcoming.