GERMAN GIRL’S LETTER

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10207, 18 February 1919, Page 6

GERMAN GIRL’S LETTER

Throughout the trai/lo course of the* great world war nt/ophecies. not only (bearing upon the imi/iedtato and ulterior result of hostilities, but also purporting to (five the actual date of termination, had their vogue Vi/om time time. i These egregious. ' prognostications, ns varied as thev wtfge numerous, found no credence in the mind of the aober-mand-ed citizen, and were' unhesitatingly relegated bv him to their appropriate sphere in his considered - outlook upon events and atf.'iirs. : , Some of them, it may he recnUed, were in all seriousness and good faith stated to bo founded upon Biblical authority; othojs had t /ieir origin amongst disciples of the own/It; others again were the outcome of, fantastic manipulation or dates and names: and vet others; and perhaus the most absurd of them all, were discovered in Nature’s handiwork upon such familiar objects as the corn and th// bracken of the countryside. Tber*.* are, however, to be found , m every land bpth men and women of simple faith. who. when confronted with the ijrospect of-personal or national misfort’anc, seek consolation for their stricken hearts i.n what to stronger minds is but the grotesque and inconceivable. "MY BEAK. GOOD ADOYD.’’ Thus, a German fraulein, in the absence of her soldier lover fighting his country’s battles, built her hopes of hi® early return upon a prediction that had apparently gained currency in the district where she lived. . Her feelings are touchingly portrayed in the letter, which reads as follow ' , , T ■ , "Mv dear, good Aloyd,—At last I set mrself to write you the promised letter. According to what I have road I cannot rejoice over your leave. It is horrible that you cannot get even a few days 5 leave. How gladly Tvculd I have seen you after fo Ion? a eoparatiou, but unfortunately that i« net. Kranted to us. “I sometimes think yon should not conic, iVi departure u’ou.d .bo all the harder. The main thing is that very 'soon i-oi should come back for alwnva. The longest part of the war must bo over bv now. 1 • ... "It has been calculated that peace wr.ll conic on the eleventh day of the eleventh month: that is to say. in November. If that shall bo ihe ease remains to be seen. In the long interval many a (bravo soldier must give up his ute. The letter appears to hare been written on July 11th, 1915. from a village in South-Western Germany, and within a week of its date was found by a Soaforth Highlander in the pocket of a dead German upon tho field of battle on the Western front. Alas, for the realisation of , human hopes! That ingenuous epistle, and the circumstances of -its discovery, point to a, tragic sequel, but tho writers reference to the day presaged for tho end of the war, to put no higher value upon it. is surely evidence of a xemarlyiblo example of coincidence.