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One of the most beautiful, and saddest, books of essays I have seen has appeared on Google Books.
(I have been reading it at intervals for more than a decade, but it is so rare that I never bother to mention it. My thanks to Google Books for making most of it available.)
Go to: http://books.google.co.uk/books and search for 'Wayfarers in Arcady'.
For me, this encapsulates the effect that the 1914-18 war had upon an upper class, literary, intelligent, sensitive, somewhat neo-pagan soul.
It is extraordinarily well-written - and utterly desolate.
England has never recovered.
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Then listen to Banks of Green Willow composed in 1913 by George Butterworth (1885-1916) - a gifted young English composer of the same general class as Charles Vince; but killed in WWI while serving in the Durham Light Infantry, as an effective and brave Lieutenant.
Written at the end of the Edwardian idyll, B of GW seems strangely prescient of the overwhelming sadness to come:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Q9dz1kse8
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