Sassoon Journals : Journal, 15 Feb. 1917-2 June 1917

Sassoon Journals

<p style='text-align: justify;'>The volume is a ruled notebook entitled 'Journal and Notes' and mostly comprises diary entries and reflective passages written in France. Contents include:</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Diary entries:</p><p style='text-align: justify;'><div><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(5);return false;'>2r-3v</a>. Sassoon's return to France<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'>4r-6v</a>. 'No.25 Stationary Hospital Rouen' [where Sassoon was recuperating from German measles]<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(62);return false;'>30v-32r</a>. at Amiens<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(55);return false;'>27r</a>. on joining the RWF Second Battalion at Corbie<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(66);return false;'>32v</a>. 'Dream Pictures' (on ideas for a book of 'Consolations for Homesick soldiers in the Field')<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(79);return false;'>39r-42r</a>. preparations for the attack at Arras<br /></div><br /></p><br /><p style='text-align: justify;'>Drafts of poetry:</p><p style='text-align: justify;'><div><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(20);return false;'>9v</a>. 'The Lesson of War', later called 'The Smell'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(21);return false;'>10r</a>. 'Life Belts (Southampton to Havre)'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(24);return false;'>11v</a>. 'Victims'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(30);return false;'>14v-15r</a>. 'The Lift'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(33);return false;'>16r</a>. untitled, begins 'Brown as the pine stems high'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(44);return false;'>21v-22r</a>. 'To an A.A.G. (Reinforcements)'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(48);return false;'>23v-24r</a>. untitled, begins 'If I were stout and bald and short of breath' (early draft of 'Base Details')<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(50);return false;'>24v-25r</a>. 'In the Church of St. Ouen'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(56);return false;'>27v-28r</a>. 'Return'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(75);return false;'>37r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(111);return false;'>50v</a>. 'Foot Inspection'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(85);return false;'>42r</a>. 'Song (To an Old June). The Hawthorn Tree'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(121);return false;'>45r</a> 'Supreme Sacrifice'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(120);return false;'>45v</a>. untitled, begins 'O Lads I've Loved'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(119);return false;'>45v-46r</a>. untitled, begins 'The battle and the sunlight'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(119);return false;'>46r</a>. 'In an Underground Dressing-Station'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(118);return false;'>46v</a>. 'A Quiet Walk'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(116);return false;'>47r-47v</a>. 'The Toast of the Town', later called 'A War Widow'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(114);return false;'>48v</a>. 'Death in the Garden'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(110);return false;'>50r</a>. untitled, begins 'Lost in a Laurel Thicket', together with a sketch of a youth holding an arrow<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(106);return false;'>52v</a>. untitled, begins 'Give me the passion to re-build'<br /></div><br /></p><br /><p style='text-align: justify;'>Sketches and doodles:</p><p style='text-align: justify;'><div><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(18);return false;'>8v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(22);return false;'>10v-11r</a>. preparatory sketches for watercolours of gothic windows and stained glass in the abbey church of St Ouen<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(19);return false;'>9r</a>. a pine forest<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(110);return false;'>50r</a>. a youth holding an arrow, together with a verse beginning 'Lost in a Laurel Thicket'<br /></div><br /></p><br /><p style='text-align: justify;'>Prose passages:</p><p style='text-align: justify;'><div><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(25);return false;'>12r-14r</a>. 'Reinforcements at Rouen'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(34);return false;'>16v-19r</a>. 'In the Cathedral (Purple Passage)'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(40);return false;'>19v-21r</a>. 'Lunch on Sunday in Rouen'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(100);return false;'>53r-55v</a>. 'Points of View'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(99);return false;'>56r</a>. 'Thoughts in a Cathedral'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(91);return false;'>56v-60r</a>. 'Character sketches of Officers in Hospital at Rouen'<br /></div><br /></p><br /><p style='text-align: justify;'>Quotations:</p><p style='text-align: justify;'><div><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(70);return false;'>34v</a>. R.J.C. Greaves 'How he Came'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(88);return false;'>61v</a>. Thomas Hardy, 'Let me enjoy the earth no less'<br /></div><br /></p><br /><p style='text-align: justify;'>Other:</p><p style='text-align: justify;'><div><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(4);return false;'>1v</a>. locations and dates of time spent at or near the Western Front<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(32);return false;'>15v</a>. notes entitled '3 reasons for teaching bayonet fighting'<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(122);return false;'>43r-44v</a>. preparatory notes and a draft of Sassoon's statement against the conduct of the war<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(70);return false;'>34v</a>. list of drinks and cocktails<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(82);return false;'>40v</a>. list of physical exercises<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(86);return false;'>42v</a>; <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(109);return false;'>51r</a>. lists of members of his battalion and section and their fates<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(107);return false;'>51v-52r</a>. copy of a letter from Ottoline M[orrell]<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(4);return false;'>1v</a>; <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(87);return false;'>62r</a>; <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(89);return false;'>60v-61r</a>. acquaintances' contact details<br /><a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(87);return false;'>62r</a>. list of books taken to France<br /></div><br /></p><br /><p style='text-align: justify;'> N.B. Sassoon wrote from both ends of this notebook; from folio <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(125);return false;'>43r</a> entries resume from the opposite end. Enclosure is to be found in a separate envelope. The foliation is the archivist's.</p>