The Love of an Unknown Soldier: Found in a Dug Out

I think of you, as I shall think of you to the end, if the end comes. I do not want you less. I want you more perhaps, only not so selfishly. I realize that death does not finish all things. Love lives on. There are other worlds—there must be so many other worlds—in which I shall surely meet you if I miss you in this one. That I, so poor and human and puny, should be capable of this largeness of spirit, gives me confidence that God’s scheme for us must be greater than we have guessed. He cannot be smaller than the souls He has created. You may not need me in this existence. We may have met too late to be much to each other. But I cannot think love is wasted.


The Love of an Unknown Soldier collects the intimate letters written by an anonymous World War I officer in Paris to his American love. Found by a young British soldier at the end of the war, the documents had been wedged in the wall of an abandoned gun dug-out, secreted away, and never mailed by the original author. There was no indication of the name or unit of the writer, presumed dead, nor did he mention the name of the girl he loved so dearly. Since tracing the letters’ owner proved impossible, the young officer sent them to the publisher John Lane in an attempt to bring the letters to the attention of the American woman for whom the letters were written. The lady was never found, however, and the romantic soldier remains a mystery today.
 
First published in 1916, this touching correspondence provides a clear depiction of the emotional realities and devastation of war.