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The greater part of these verses dealing with the war were written
in France during my recent seven months' sojourn there, and for the
purpose of using in entertainments given in camps and hospitals to
thousands of American soldiers.

They were the result of coming into close contact with the soldiers'
mind and heart, and were intentionally expressed in the simplest
manner, without any consideration of methods approved by modern
critics. The fact that I have been asked to autograph scores of
copies of many of these verses (and one of them to the extent of 350
copies) is more gratifying to me than would be the highest encomiums
of the purely literary critic.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
London,
October 1918.



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