ABSTRACT
I begin by considering the aftermath of the Wade White affair as recorded in both women’s diaries before moving the focus onto Ackland’s diaries together with two of her unpublished short stories. I discuss Ackland’s perception of herself as dumb and silent, an estimation to which she returned with astonishing frequency. I go on to suggest that Warner’s influence on Ackland the poet may not have been entirely benign; at times there was not so much a conversation between the two women, as an exchange between speech and silence. The chapter concludes with a summary of the extent to which the two women did, or did not, influence each other’s writing.
