Defenders of Democracy
by Militia of Mercy . Gift Book Committee · English · Gutenberg #3227 · 534,186 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Defenders of Democracy
Author: Militia of Mercy . Gift Book Committee
Release date: May 1, 2002 [eBook #3227]
Most recently updated: January 8, 2021
Language: English
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Credits: This Etext prepared by Brett Fishburne
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEFENDERS OF DEMOCRACY ***
Ver.12.12.00*END*
This Etext prepared by Brett Fishburne (william.fishburne@verizon.net)
"The kinship of blood between nations may grow weaker, but the
kinship of ideals and purposes constitutes a permanent bond of
union." John Lewis Griffiths
The net proceeds of the sale of this book will be used in aiding
the needy families of the men of the Naval Militia who have been
called to the defense of liberty.
Dedication
To our sailors, soldiers, and nurses in appreciation of their
heroism and sacrifice in the cause of Liberty and Democracy.
"Oh, land of ours be glad of such as these." Theodosia Garrison.
"To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything
that we are, and everything that we have, with the pride of those
who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend
her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and
happiness, and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her,
she can do no other." Woodrow Wilson.
A Message From Vice Admiral William Sowden Sims, U.S.N., Commanding
the American Naval Forces Operating in European Waters
In such an hour as that with which we are now confronted, when so
much depends upon the individual efforts, our hearts swell with
pride as we learn of the thousands of America's best, staunch and
true men who are so willingly forgetting their own personal welfare
and linking their lives and all that they are with the cause of
liberty and justice, which is so dear to the hears of the American
people. All honor to those who are giving themselves as such willing
sacrifices, and may God grant that their efforts may be speedily
rewarded by a world condition which will make them realize that
their efforts have accomplished the desired result, and that the
world is better and happier because of them.
[signed] Wm. S. Sims
American Expeditionary Force Office of the Commanding General
August 4th, 1917
I am very pleased to have an opportunity to say a word in praise
of the Militia of Mercy.
Unless our women are imbued with Patriotic sentiments, there will
be little to hope for in our life. A nation is only as great as
its womanhood; and, as are the women, so are the sons. All praise
to the women of America!
Please accept my very best wishes for the success of your organization.
[signed] John J. Pershing.
Introduction
I have seldom yielded so willingly to a request for my written
views as I do in this instance, when my valued friend, the master
journalist, Melville E. Stone, has asked me, on behalf of the Book
Committee, to write an introduction for "The Defenders of Democracy."
Needless to say, I comply all the more readily in view of the fact
that the book in which these words will appear is planned by the
ladies of the Militia of Mercy as a means of increasing the Fund
the Society is raising for the benefit of the families of "their
own men" on the battle-line.
And what a theme! It demands a volume from any pen capable of doing
it justice. For the present purposes, however, I approve strongly
of a compilation which shall express the reasoned opinions of writers
representing the allied nations, while it is a real pleasure to
turn for a few minutes from the day's anxieties and consider the
one great force which supplies the leaven to a war-sodden world.
Are men to live in freedom or as slaves to a soulless system?--that
is the question which is now being solved in blood and agony and
tears on the battlefields of the Old World. The answer given by
the New World has never been in doubt, but its clarion note was
necessarily withheld in all its magnificent rhythm until President
Wilson delivered his Message to Congress last April. I have
no hesitation in saying that Mr. Wilson's utterance will become
immortal. It is a new declaration of the Rights of Man, but
a finer, broader one, based on the sure principles of Christian
ethics. Yet, mark how this same nobility of thought and purpose
runs like a vein of gold through the rock of valiant little Belgium's
defiance of the Hun, of President Poincare's firm stand, and of Mr.
Lloyd George's unflinching labors in the Sisyphean task of stemming
the Teutonic avalanche. Prussia's challenge to the world came with
the shock of some mighty eruption undreamed of by chroniclers of
earthquakes. It stunned humanity. Nowhere was its benumbing effect
more perceptible than in these United state, whose traditional
policy of non-interference in European disputes was submitted so
unexpectedly to the fierce test of Right versus Expediency. And
how splendidly did President, Senator, Congress and the People
respond to the test! Never for one instant did America's clear
judgment falter. The Hun was guilty, and must be punished. The
only issue to be solved was whether France, Britain, Italy and
Russia should convict and brand the felon unaided, or the mighty
power of the Western World should join hands with the avengers of
outraged law. Well, a purblind Germany settled that uncertainty
by a series of misdeeds which no nation of high ideals could allow
to pass unchallenged. I do believe most firmly that President
Wilson gave the criminal such chances of reform as no court of law
in the world would grant. But, at last, his patience was exhausted.
Whether the enslavers of Germany thought, in that crass ignorance
of other men's minds they have so often displayed, that America
meant to keep out of the war at all costs, or were merely careless
of consequences so long as the immediate end was attained, is now
immaterial. From the welter of Teutonic misdeeds and lies arises
the vital, the soul-inspiring spectacle of a union of all democracies
against the common foe.
And right here, as the direct speech of New York has it, I want to
pay tribute to the sagacity, the clarity of vision, the sure divination
of the truth amidst a fog of deceit, which has characterized almost
the whole Press of the United States since those feverish days at
the end of July, 1914, when the nightmare of war was so quickly
succeeded by its dread reality. Efforts which might fairly be
described as stupendous were put forth by the advocates of Kultur
to win, if not the approval, at least the strict neutrality of
America. That the program of calculated misrepresentation failed
utterly was due in great part to the leading newspapers of New York,
Chicago, Philadelphia and the other main centers of industry and
population. Never has the value of a free Press been demonstrated
so thoroughly. The American editor is accustomed to weigh the gravest
problems of life on his own account without let or hindrance from
tradition, and it can be affirmed most positively that, excepting
the few instances of a suborned pro-German Press, the newspapers
of the United States condemned the Hun and his methods as roundly
and fearlessly as the "Independence Belge" itself whose staff had
actually witnessed the horrors of Vise and Louvain. These men
educated and guided public opinion. Republican or Democrat it
mattered not--they set out to determine from the material before
them what was Right and what was Wrong. Once convinced that the
Hun was a menace they made their readers understand beyond cavil
just what that menace meant. So I claim that the editors of the
United States are entitled to high rank among the Defenders of
Democracy. When the history of the war, or rather a just analysis
of its causes and effects, comes to be written I shall be much
mistaken if the critical historian does not give close heed and
honorable mention to the men who wrote the articles which kept the
millions of America thoroughly and honestly informed. Think what
it would have meant had their influence been thrown into the scale
against the Allies! By that awesome imagining alone can the extent
of their service by measured.
If I have wandered a little from my theme, since our veritable
"Defenders" are the men who are giving their life's blood at the
front, and the band of noble women who are tending them in hospital,
it will surely be understood that, if I name them last they are
first in my heart. I have seen much of the war. I know what your
soldiers, sailors and nurses are called on to endure. I rejoice
that in dedicating this book to them, you honor them while they
live. Never let their memory fade when they are dead. They gave
their lives for their friends, and greater love than that no man
hath.
[signed]Northcliff
Essential Service
"I wish all success to 'The Defenders of Democracy.' The men who
are in this war on the part of the United States are doing the one
vitally important work which it is possible for Americans to do at
this time. Nothing else counts now excepting that we fight this
war to a finish. Those men are thrice fortunate who are given
the chance to serve under arms at the front. They are not only
rendering the one essential service to this country and to mankind,
but they are also earning honor as it cannot otherwise be earned
by any men of our generation. As for the rest of us, our task is
to back them up in every way possible."
[signed]Theodore Roosevelt
Kittery Point, Me., October 14, 1917
I am never good at messages or sentiments, but perhaps if Mr.
Rouland's portrait of me were literally a speaking likeness it
would entreat you to believe that I revere and honor in my heart
and soul, the noble ideals of the Militia of Mercy.
Yours sincerely,
[signed]W. D. Howells.
[The following is written in long hand] How Can I Serve?
There are strange ways of serving God You sweep a room or turn a
sod, And suddenly to your surprise You hear the whirr of seraphim
And ?uid you're under God's own eyes And building palaces for
him.
There are strange, unexpected ways Of going soldiering these days
It may be only census-blanks You're asked to conquer with a pen,
But suddenly you're in the ranks And fighting for the rights of
men!
[signed]Hermann Hagedorn.
For the Militia of Mercy August 15, 1917.
The Editors gratefully acknowledge the rich contributions to this
book which it has been their privilege to arrange. The generous
spirit which has accompanied each gift permeates the pages, and
its genial glow will be felt by all of our readers.
The book is only a fire-side talk on the ideals and purposes held
in common by those who belong to the friendly circle of the Allies,
and is not intended to have diplomatic, economic or official
significance. The Editors, however, have been honored by the
approval of their plan, and have received invaluable assistance from
diplomatists, statesmen and men of affairs in securing contributions
otherwise inaccessible at the present time.
We wish to acknowledge (although we cannot adequately express our
appreciation) the gift from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES of
his portrait, and his kind recognition of our desire to render an
international service.
We are especially indebted to VISCOUNT ISHII, Special Ambassador
from Japan to Washington, D. C., and to LORD NORTHCLIFFE, Chairman
of the British War Mission, for their thoughtful and sympathetic
articles written during days crowded with official duties.
We owe a debt of thanks to HIS EXCELLENCY, the ITALIAN AMBASSADOR,
for the privilege of publishing for the first time in America,
D'ANNUNZIO'S sonnet to GENERAL CADORNA; to THEIR EXCELLENCIES, the
PORTUGUESE, GREEK, and CHINESE MINISTERS, for helpful suggestions
and translations; to MR. WILLIAM PHILLIPS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
STATE; to MR. JOHN HAYS HAMMOND; to MR. JOHN LANE, MR. W. J. LOCKE,
MRS. THEODORE McKENNA, all of London, England, who assembled our
rich English contributions for us; to MR. WILLIAM DE LEFTWICH DODGE
for the cover design, a rare and beautiful tribute to our defenders;
to MR. MELVILLE E. STONE, without whose personal influence we could
not have secured contributions from all of our Allies in so short
a time; to MR. J. JEFFERSON JONES and MR. WILLIAM DANA ORCUTT, who
have devoted time and thought without stint to the making of the
book, and have given the committee the advantage of their technical
knowledge and distinguished taste entirely as a patriotic service;
to MISS LILIAN ELLIOTT for her many translations from Portuguese
and Spanish writers; to MISS LA MONTAIGNE, CHAIRMAN of THE CARDINAL
MERCIER FUND; to MR. TALCOTT WILLIAMS, MR. ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON,
MR. DANIAL FROHMAN; to THE BRITISH WAR MISSION, THE FRIENDS OF
FRANCE AND HER ALLIES COMMITTEE, and to THE RUSSIAN AND SERBIAN
CIVIL RELIEF COMMITTEES. To ALL we give our heartfelt thanks.
THE EDITORS.
Preface
This beautiful book is the expression of the eager desire of all
of the gifted men and women who have contributed to it and of the
members of the Militia of mercy to render homage to our sailors,
soldiers, nurses and physicians who offer the supreme sacrifice
to free the stricken people of other lands and to protect humanity
with their bodies from an enemy who has invented the name and created
the thing "welt-schmerz"--world anguish. But we want it do more
than extol their heroism and sacrifice, we want The Defenders of
Democracy to help them win the war. It has been the thought of
those who planned the book to meet three things needful, not only
to the army at the front, but to that vaster army at home who watch
and work and wait (and perhaps we need it more than they who have
the stimulus of action)--to strengthen the realization that our
soldiers of sea and land, though far away, are fighting for a cause
which is vitally near the heart of every man and every woman, and
the soul of every nation--human freedom; "to forge the weapon of
victory by fanning the flame of cheerfulness," and to be the means
of lifting the burden of anxiety from those who go, lest their loved
ones should suffer privation, bereft of their protecting care. So
truly is this an Age of Service, that the response to the scope
and spirit of our work was immediate and within four months from
the day we sent our first request for co-operation in carrying out
our plans, we had received the rich contributions contained in this
book from men and women of letters and other arts, not only from
our own generous country, but from our allies.
Perhaps the most difficult task fell to those who were asked not
to write of the war but to practice the gentle art of cheering us
all up--an art so easily lost in these days of sorrow, suspense
and anxiety--yet we have received many delightful contributions
in harmony with this request, and so the cheerful note, the finer
optimism, recurs again and again, and is sustained to the last
page.
Such a book is historic. It is a consecration of the highest gifts
to the cause of human freedom and human fraternity. The Militia of
Mercy, in expressing its gratitude to the men and women so greatly
endowed who have made this book possible, trust they will find
a rich reward in the thought that it will give both spiritual and
material aid to those who are fighting in the great war.
The book will be sold for the benefit of the families of the men
of the Naval Militia now in the Federal Service and taking part in
sea warfare. John Lane Company have published the book at cost,
so that the publisher's profits, as well as our own, will be given
to the patriotic work of the Militia of Mercy.
It has been repeatedly said during the past year that America had
not begun to feel the war. If America has not, how many Americans
there are who have! We all know that the responsibilities and
inequalities of war were felt first by our sailors. The whole
outlook on life changed for many families of the Naval Militia the
day after diplomatic relations with Germany were severed. Husbands,
fathers and sons were called to service without any opportunity to
provide for current expenses or to arrange for the future welfare
of their loved ones. The burden of providing for the necessities
of life fell suddenly, without warning, upon the wives and mothers
of the civilian sailors. The world knew nothing of these cases,
but the members of the Militia of Mercy who have visited the needy
families, realize with what heroism, courage and self-sacrifice
the women have done and are doing their part.
For those of us who look on, to help them is not charity, but
opportunity for patriotic service to give a VERY LITTLE to those
who are giving ALL THEY CHERISH and ALL THEY HOLD DEAR for the sake
of human Liberty and Democracy.
Table of Contents
Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States. A Message. . . . vi
Vice Admiral William Sowden Sims, U.S.N. A Message . . . . . . . . vii
Commanding the American Naval Forces Operating in European Waters
General John J. Pershing, U.S.A. A Letter. . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Commanding General American Expeditionary Force
Lord Northcliffe. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Chairman, British War Mission to the United States
Theodore Roosevelt. Essential Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Twenty-sixth President of the United States. Author and
Statesman
William Dean Howells. A Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv
American Author, New York, President of the American Academy of
Arts and Letters
Hermann Hagedorn. "How Can I Serve?" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
American Writer, New York. President, Vigilantes, American
League of Artists and Authors for Patriotic Services
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Contributions of Writers
Belgium
Gaston De Leval. Belgium and America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Belgian Advocate for Edith Cavell
Emile Cammaerts. Good Old Bernstorff! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Belgian Poet
China
Tsa Yuan-Pei. The War in Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Chancellor of the Government University of Peking
(Translation, Courtesy of the Chinese Minister)
A Symposium--Democracy
George Sterling. Invocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
American Poet, California
George A. Birmingham. The Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
(Canon James O. Hannay) Irish Clergyman and Man of Letters
John Galsworthy. The New Comradship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
English Writer
William J. Locke. Questionings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
English Novelist
Henry Van Dyke. Democracy in Peace and War . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
American Clergyman, Diplomat and Writer
An Interlude
Harriet Monroe. Sunrise over the Peristyle . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
American Poet, Chicago
The Drama
Daniel Frohman. Reminiscences of Booth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Theatrical Manager and Writer, New York
J. Hartley Manners. God of My Faith: A One Act Play . . . . . . . 24
Dramatist, New York
France
Frederick Coudert. To France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
American Lawyer and Publicist
Anatole France. Ce Que Disent Nos Morts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
French Author. (Translation by Emma M. Pope)
Rupert Hughes. The Transports (Poetical Version of Sully
Prud'homme's "Les Berceaux") . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
American Writer, New York
Stephane Lauzanne. La Priere du Poilu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
French Writer, Editor Le Matin. (Translation by Madame Carlo
Polifeme)
Great Britain
Honourable James M. Beck. A Tribute to England . . . . . . . . . 61
American Lawyer and Publicist
Lord Bryce. Unity and Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
English Statesman and Author
Robert Hichens. Our Common Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
English Novelist
Stephen McKenna. Poetic Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
English Statesman and Novelist
Lady Aberdeen. The Spell of the Kilties . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
(Wife of the Marquis of Aberdeen and Temair, K. T., Scotland)
Mrs. Belloc Lowndes. Sherston's Wedding Eve . . . . . . . . . . . 87
English Novelist, London
Ralph Connor. A Canadian Soldier's Dominion Day at Shorncliffe . 105
Canadian Novelist
Stephen Leacock. Simple as Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Canadian Writer, Professor McGill University, Montreal
May Sinclair. The Epic Standpoint in the War . . . . . . . . . . 118
English Writer, London
Greece
Eleutherios Venizelos. The Greek Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
(Translation, with notes, by Caroll N. Brown)
Italy
William Roscoe Thayer. Italy and Democracy. A Tribute to Italy . 127
American Historian and Poet
Gabriele D'Annunzio. Al Generale Cadorna . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Italian Poet
C.H. Grangent. Sonnet
(Poetical version in English of the above) . . . . . . . . . 132
Professor of Romance Languages, Harvard University
Amy Bernardy. The Voice of Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Italian Writer
Japan
Viscount K. Ishii. Japan's Ideals and Her Part in the Struggle . 137
Japanese Statesman, Special Ambassador to Washington, D.C., 1917
Latin America
Salomon De La Selva. Tropical Interlude . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Nicaraguan Poet
Lilian E. Elliott, F.R.G.S. Latin America and the War . . . . . . 145
Literary Editor, Pan American Magazine
Salomon De La Selva. Drill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Portugal
Henrique Lopes De Mendonca. The People's Struggle . . . . . . . . 161
Portuguese writer. Member of Academy of Science, Lisbon
Edgar Prestage. Portugal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
English Writer, A Friend of Portugal
Roumania
Achmed Abdullah. Roumania--An Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . 166
Novelist. Of the Family of the Ameer of Afghanistan
Russia
Ivan Narodny. The Soul of Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Russian Patriot and Writer. Member of the Russian Civilian
Relief Committee, New York
Ivan Narodny. The American Bride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Sergey Makowsky. The Insane Priest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Russian Poet. (Translation by Constance Purdy)
Serbia
M. Boich. Without a Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Serbian Poet. (Translation by Professor Miloche Trivonnatz)
United States of America
Indian Prayer. To the Mountain Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Interpreted by Mary Austin
Maurice Hewlett. To America, 4 July, 1776 . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
English Man of Letters
Charles W. Eliot. The Need of Force to Win and Maintain Peace . . 195
President Emeritus of Harvard University
James Cardinal Gibbons. Woman and Mercy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Cardinal, Baltimore, Maryland
John Lewis Griffiths. Joan of Arc--Her Heritage . . . . . . . . . 199
From an address delivered in London, 1911
Dr. J.H. Jowett. Things Which Cannot Be Shaken . . . . . . . . . 201
English Clergyman, 5th Ave. Presbyterian Church, N.Y.
Owen Johnson. Somewhere in France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
American Author
Melville E. Stone. The Associated Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Journalist, General Manager of the Associated Press, N.Y.
Mary Austin. Pan and the Pot-Hunter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
American Writer, New York
Robert W. Chambers. Men of the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
American Author, New York
Arthur Guy Empey. Jim--A Soldier of the King . . . . . . . . . . 226
American. Volunteer Soldier in the British Army and Author,
"Over the Top"
Edna Ferber. Heel and Toe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
American Novelist, Chicago
Theodosia Garrison. Those Who Went First . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
American Poet, New Jersey
Louise Closser Hale. A Summer's Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
American Actress and Author, New York
Louis Untermeyer. Children of the War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
American Poet, New York
Fannie Hurst. Khaki-Boy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
American Novelist and Dramatist, New York
Robert Underwood Johnson. Hymn to America . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
American Editor and Author, New York
Amy Lowell. The Breaking Out of the Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
American Poet, Cambridge, Mass.
Mrs. John Lane. Our Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
American by Birth, Author, London, England
George Barr McCutcheon. Pour La Patrie . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
American Novelist, Indiana and New York
Edna St. Vincent Millay. Sonnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
American Poet, Camden, Maine
Gouverneur Morris. The Idiot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
American Author, New York
James Oppenheim. Memories of Whitman and Lincoln . . . . . . . . 299
American Poet, New York
James F. Pryor. Bred to the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
American Lawyer and Writer
Evaleen Stein. Our Defenders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
American Poet and Story Teller, La Fayette, Indiana
Alice Woods. The Bomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
American Story Writer
Myron T. Herrick. To Those Who Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
American Statesman, Diplomatist, Publicist, Cleveland, Ohio
Amelie Rives. The Hero's Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Princess Troubetzkoy, American Novelist and Poet, Virginia
We gratefully acknowledge the privilege of reproducing the following
articles:--
"The Need of Force to Win and Maintain Peace," by Dr. C. W.
Elliot--"New York Times." "The Breaking Out of the Flags," by Amy
Lowell--"Independent." "The Bomb," by Alice Woods--"Century Magazine."
"Children of the War," by Louis Untermeyer--"Collier's Weekly."
All other contributions have been especially written for "The
Defenders of Democracy."
Illustrations
Childe Hassam. Allies' Day. From the Original Painting.
(Color) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece
American Artist, New York
Portrait. Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States . . . . vi
Portrait Photograph. His Eminence Cardinal Mercier . Facing page 4
Albert Sterner. Sympathy. From the Original Drawing . . . . . . 6
American Artist, New York
Photograph. "The Happy Warriors." (Marshal Joffre and General
Pershing.) Courtesy of L'Illustration, Paris . . . . . . . 14
Jules Guerin. Ballet by Moonlight. (Color) From the Original
Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
American Artist, New York
Jacquier. Marshal Joffre. Drawn from life . . . . . . . . . . . 44
J. J. Van Ingen. Memory. From the Original Drawing . . . . . . . 52
American Artist, New York
Portrait Photograph. The Right Honourable Arthur James Balfour . 66
Charles Dana Gibson. Her Answer. From the Original Sketch . . . 126
American Artist, New York
Portrait Photograph. General Cadorna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
William De Leftwich Dodge. From the Original Paintings in Oils
(1) The Consecration of the Swords . . . . . . . . . . Cover Design
(2) Atlantic and Pacific. (Color) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
(3) Gateway of All Nations. (Color) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
American Artist, New York
O. E. Cesare. Russia's Struggle. From the Original Cartoon . . . 168
American Artist, New York
John S. Sargent. "Big Moon" (Black Foot Chief.) From the
Original Drawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
American Painter, Boston, Mass.
John S. Sargent. A Profile. From the Original Drawing Sketch . . 194
George Barnard. Abraham Lincoln . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
American Sculptor, New York
Portrait in Oil. Theodore Roosevelt. By George Burroughs Torrey 204
In the Brooklyn Museum
Portrait Photograph. Melville E. Stone . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Penrhyn Stanlaws. Souvenir de Jeunesse. (Color) From the
Original Pastel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Scotch Artist, New York
Portrait Photograph. Vice Admiral William Sowden Sims . . . . . . 224
Portrait Photograph. General John J. Pershing . . . . . . . . . . 234
Walter Hale. "Once the Giant Toy of a People who Frolicked."
From the Original Water Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
American Artist, New York
John T. McCutcheon. The Married Slacker. From the Original
Drawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
American Artist, Indiana
W. Orlando Rouland. Portrait of W. D. Howells. From the Original
Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
American Artist, New York
George Bellows. They Shipyard. (Color) From the Original Oil
Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
American Artist, New York
Joseph Pennell. Dawn. From the Original Drawing . . . . . . . . 324
American Artist, New York
We are grateful to
The Beck Engraving Co., of New York and Philadelphia, for furnishing
the black-and-white reproductions without charge, and the four-color
plates at cost.
The Plimpton Press, of Norwood, Mass., for its cooperative assistance.
The Walker Engraving Co., of New York, for supplying the color
plates for the cover at cost.
M. Knoedler & Co., of New York, for the privilege of reproducing
Jacquier's drawing from life of Marechal Joffre.
Frederick Keppel & Co., of New York, for Mr. Pennell's drawing.
Belgium and America
It would be a banality to speak about the gratitude of the Belgian
people toward America. Every one knows from the beginning of the
war that when the Belgians were faced with starvation, it was the
American Commission for Relief which saved the situation, forming
all over the country, in America and elsewhere, those Committees
who collected the funds raised to help the Belgians, and saw that
they reached the proper channel and were utilized to the best
advantage of the Belgian people.
But helping to feed the people was not enough. The Americans did
more. They gave their heart. Every one of them who came into
my country to act as a volunteer for the Commission for Relief,
brought with him the sympathy of all the people that were behind
him. Every one of these young Americans, who, under the leadership
of Mr. Hoover, came into my country to watch the distribution of the
foodstuffs imported by the Commission for Relief, became a sincere
friend of my countrymen. He stood between us and the Germans as a
vigilant sentry of the civilized world, and was able to tell when
he returned to America all the sufferings and all the courage of
the Belgian population.
I remember traveling in America some ten years ago, and being
asked, while I was reading a Belgian paper, where this paper came
from and when I answered "It came from Belgium, the next question
was: "Belgium? It is a province of France, isn't it?" Now I
do not think that any person in America, nor in any other part of
the world, will not know where Belgium is.
The American Commission for Relief has to be credited with putting
in closer contact the suffering population of my country with all
persons the world over who were eager to assist it. It especially
brought the sufferings of our people nearer to the heart of the
American population. Every one knows that. But what every one does
not know is the silent and effective work performed in Belgium by
Mr. Brand Whitlock, the American Minister. He was the real man at
the right place and at the right hour. No one could have better
than he, with his deep humanitarian feeling, been able to understand
the moral side of the sufferings of the Belgians under the German
occupation. No one could better than he find, at the very moment
when they were needed, the words appropriate to meet the circumstances,
and to convey to the people of this stricken country the feelings
which Mr. Whitlock knew were beating in the hearts of all Americans.
When the German authorities forbade the display of the Belgian Flag,
and the Tri-Color so dear to our hearts had to be hauled down, the
American Flag everywhere took its place. Washington's birthday and
Independence Day were almost as solemn festivities to the Brussels
people as the fete nationale, and thousands of persons called
at the legation on those days; deputations were sent by the town
and official authorities to show how deep was the Belgian feeling
for the United States. America was for the Belgians "une second
Patrie," because they felt that, although America was at the time
remaining neutral, her sympathy was entirely on our side, and when
the time would come she would even prove it on the battlefields.
It may therefore be said that although the war has had for my country
the most cruel consequences, there is one consolation to it. It
has shown that humility is better than the pessimist had said it
was, and that money is not the only god before which the nations
bow. It has revealed that all over the world, and especially in
America, there is a respect for right and for duty; it has proved
that the moral beauty of an action is fully appreciated. The war
has revealed Belgium to America, and America to Belgium. The tie
between our two countries is stronger than any tie has ever been
between two far distant people, and nothing will be able to break
it, as it rests not on some political interest or some selfish
reason, but because it has been interwoven with the very fibers of
the hearts of the people.
[signed]G. de Leval Avocat la cour d'Appel de Bruxelles, Legal
advisor to the American and British Legations in Belgium.
Good Old Bernstorff!
Then entrance of America in the war has been nothing short of a
miracle--perhaps, with the Marne, the most wonderful miracle, among
many others, which we have witnessed since August, 1914.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am not necessarily referring
to supernatural influences. This will remain a matter of opinion--or
rather of belief. I am merely speaking from the ordinary point
of view of the main in the street concerning what is likely or not
likely to happen in the world.
People have very generously admired Belgium's attitude, but anybody
knowing the Belgians and their King might have prophesied Liege,
and the Yser battle. Others have praised the timely interference
of England and the self-sacrifice of the many thousand British
volunteers who rushed to arms, during the early days of the war,
to avenge the wrong done to a small people whose only crime was
to stand in the way of a blind and ruthless military machine. But
such an attitude was too much in the tradition of British fair
play to come as a surprise to those who knew intimately the country
and the people. Besides, from the Government's point of view,
non-intervention would have been a political mistake for which the
whole nation would have had to pay dearly in the near future, as
subsequent events have conclusively shown.
But America? What had America to do in the conflict? She had not
signed the treaties guaranteeing Belgium's neutrality. She was
not directly threatened by German Imperialism. She had never taken
any part in European politics. Her moral responsibility was not
engaged and her immediate interest was to preserve to the end all
the advantages of neutrality and to benefit, after the war, by the
exhaustion of Europe...
I had the opportunity of seeing, a few days ago, the second contingent
of American troops marching through London on their way to France.
The Belgian flag flew from our window and, as we cheered the men,
some of them, recognizing the colors, waved their hand towards
us. And as I watched their bright smile and remembered the eager
interest shown by so many citizens of the States to Belgian's fate,
and the deep indignation provoked beyond the Atlantic by the German
atrocities and by the more recent deportations, I was inclined
to think, for one moment, that I had solved the problem, and that
their sympathy for Belgium had brought these soldiers to the rescue.
We are so easily inclined to exaggerate the part which one country
is playing!
But as I looked at the men again, I was struck by the grim expression
on their faces, the almost threatening determination of their light
swinging step. And I soon realized that neither their sympathy
for England, France or Belgium had brought them here. They had not
come merely to fight for other peoples, they had their own personal
grievance. they were not there only to help their friends, but
also to punish their enemies.
As I turned in to resume my work, I heard a friend of mine who
whispered, rubbing his hands: "Good old Bernstorff! Kind old von
Paepen! Blessed old Ludendorf!"
And I understood that Germany had been our best champion, and that
her plots, her intrigues, and her U boats had done more to convert
America than our most eloquent denunciations. There is no neutrality
possible in the face of lawlessness and Germanism. Sooner or later
we feel that "he how is not with Him is against Him." And there
is no compromise, no conciliation which might prevail against such
feeling.
[signed] Em. Cammaerts
The War in Europe
Translation of a part of an address by Mr. Tsa Yuan-Pei, Chancellor
of the Government University of Peking and formerly Minister of
Education in the first Republican Cabinet, delivered on March 3rd,
1917, at Peking before the "Wai Chiao Hou Yuan Hui," or a "Society
for the Support of Diplomacy."
I am a scholar and not a practical politician. Therefore I can
only give you my views as a man of letters. As I see it, the War
in Europe is really one between Right and Might, or in other words,
between Morality and Savagery. Our proverbs run to this effect:
"Every one should sweep the snow in front of his door and leave
alone the frost on the roof of his neighbor," and that "when the
neighbors are fighting, close your door." These proverbs have been
used by the anti-war party in China as arguments against China's
entrance into the War. The War in Europe, however, is not the "frost
on the roof of our neighbor," but rather the "snow right in front
of our door." It is not a "fight between neighbors," but rather a
quarrel within the family--the family of Nations. China therefore
cannot remain indifferent. For, if Germany should eventually win
the War, it would mean the triumph of Might over Right, and the
world would be without moral principles. Should this occur, it
would endanger the future of China. It is therefore necessary for
China to cast her lot with the Right.
Courtesy of CHINESE MINISTER.
Invocation
Because of the decision of a few,-- Because in half a score
of haughty minds The night lay black and terrible, thy winds, O
Europe! are a stench on heaven's blue. Thy scars abide, and here
is nothing new: Still from the throne goes forth the dark that
blinds, And still the satiated morning finds The unending thunder
and the bloody dew.
Shall night be lord forever, and not light? Look forth, tormented
nations! Let your eyes Behold this horror that the few have
done! Then turn, strike hands, and in your burning might Impel
the fog of murder from the skies, And sow the hearts of Europe
with the sun!
[signed]George Sterling.
Bohemian Club, San Francisco 1915
The Test
It has been my fortune to see something of the war with the army
in France, and something also of what war means for those at home
who, having sent out sons and brothers, are themselves compelled
to wait and watch. I have seen suffering beyond imagination, pain,
hardship and misery. I have seen anxiety and sorrow which I should
have guessed beforehand men could not have borne without going mad.
But I have also seen the human spirit rise to wonderful heights.
Men and women have shown themselves greater, nobler, stronger than
in the old days of peace I thought they could be.
It would not be very astonishing if the strain of war had called
forth a fresh greatness in those whose lives were already seen to
be in some way great; in our leaders, our teachers, our thinkers.
Or if an added nobility had appeared in our aristocracies of birth,
intellect, education, wealth, or whatever other accidents set men
above the mass of their fellows. Of such we expect a great response
to a great demand. And we have not been disappointed. The old
rule of life, NOBLESSE OBLIGE, has proved that it still possesses
driving force with the most of those to whom it applies. The thing
which has amazed me is the greatness of the common man.
This I in no way expected or looked for. I confess that, before
the war, I was no believer in the great qualities of those who are
called "the people." They seemed to me to be living lives either
selfish, sometimes brutal, always sordid; or else mean, narrow, and
circumscribed by senseless conventions. I believed that society,
if it progressed at all, would be forced forward by the few, that
the many had not in them the qualities necessary for advance, were
incapable of the far visions which make advance desirable. I know
now that I was wrong, and I have come to the faith that the hoe of
the future is in the common people who have shown themselves great.
So, I suppose, I may contribute to a book with such a title as
"The Defenders of Democracy." For now I am sure that democracy
has promise and hope in it. Only I am not sure that democracy has
even begun to understand itself. The common people have displayed
virtues so great that those who have seen them unite in a chorus
of praise. Their leaders, elected persons, guides chosen by votes
and popular acclamation, have shown in a hundred ways that they
will not, dare not, trust the people. Our silly censorships, our
concealments of unpleasant truths, our suppression of criticism,
our galling infringements of personal liberty, witness to the fact
that authority distrusts the source from which it sprang; that the
leaders of our democracy reckon the common people unfit to know, to
think or to act. If we are defending democracy we are sacrificing
liberty. Will you, in America, do better in this respect than we
have done? you believed in the common people before England did.
You believe in them, if we may trust your words, more completely
than England does. Do you believe in them sufficiently to trust
them? Or do you think that democracy can be defended only after
it has been blindfolded, hand-cuffed and gagged? This is what you
have got to show the world. No one doubts that you can fight. No
one doubts that you will fight, with all your strength, as England
is fighting. What we wonder is whether your great principle of
government, by the people and for the people, will stand the test
of a war like this.
[signed]James O. Hannay
The New Comradeship
Democracy is the outward and visible sign that a nation recognizes
its own needs and aspirations. Democracy wells up from the very
pit of things. Its value is its foundation in actuality, its
concordance with the slow unending process of man's evolution from
the animal he was. Democracy, for one with any comic and cosmic
animal sense, is the only natural form of government, because
alone it recognizes States as organisms, with spontaneous growth,
and a free will of their own. Democracy is final; other forms of
government are but steps on the way to it. It is the big thing,
because it can and does embody and make use of Aristocracy. It
is the rule of the future, because all human progress gradually
tends to recognition of God in man, and not outside of him; to the
establishment of the humanistic creed, and the belief that we have
the future in our own hands.
In life at large, whom does one respect--the man who gropes and
stumbles upward to control of his instincts, and full development
of his powers, confronting each new darkness and obstacle as it
arises; or the man who shelters in a cloister, and lives by rote
and rules hung up for him by another in his cell? The first man
lives, the second does but exist. So it is with nations.
The American and the Englishman are fundamentally democratic because
they are fundamentally self-reliant. Each demands to know why he
should do a thing before he does it. This is, I think, the great
link between two peoples in many ways very different; and they who
ardently desire abiding friendship between our two countries will
do well never to lose sight of it. Any sapping of this quality
of self-reliance, or judging for oneself, in either country, any
undermining of the basis of democracy will imperil our new-found
comradeship. You in America have before all things to fear the
warping power of great Trusts; we in England to dread the paralyzing
influence of Press groups. We have both to beware of the force
which the pressure of a great war inevitably puts into the hands of
Military Directorates. We are for the time being hardly democracies,
even on the surface; the democratic machinery still exists, but is
so ungeared by Censorship and Universal Service, that probably it
could not work even if it wanted to. We are now in the nature of
business concerns, run by Directors safe in office till General
Meetings, which cannot be held till after the War. But I am not
greatly alarmed. When the War is over, the pendulum will swing
back; the individual conscience which is our guarantee for democracy
and friendship will come into its own again, and shape our destinies
in common towards freedom and humanity. The English-speaking
democracies, in firm union, can and ought to be the unshifting
ballast of a better world.
[signed] John Galsworthy
Questionings
I have a brilliant idea which, without any parade of modesty, I
hereby commend to the notice of the American, French and British
Governments. Let them get together as soon as may be and give us an
authoritative definition of Democracy. Then we shall know where,
collectively, we are. Of course you may say that it has been
defined for all time by Abraham Lincoln. But thrilling in its
clear simplicity as his slogan epigram may be, a complex political
and social system cannot be fully dealt with in fifteen words. I
thought I knew what it was until a tidy few millions of friends
and myself were knocked silly by recent events in Russia. Here,
where the privates of a regiment hold a mass meeting and discuss for
hours an order to advance to the relief of sorely pressed comrades
and decide not to obey it, and eventually throw down their rifles
and with a meus conscia recti, proudly run away, we have Democracy
with a vengeance. Not one of the Defenders of Democracy who are
writing in this book would stand for it a second. Nor would they
stand for the slobbering maniacs who yearn to throw themselves into
the arms of the Germans, and, with the kiss of peace and universal
brotherhood, kiss away their brother's blood from their blood-smeared
faces. Nor would they stand entirely for those staunch democrats
who, inspired with a burning sense of human wrongs but with none
of proportion or humor, would sacrifice vital interests of humanity
in general for the transient amelioration of the lot of a particular
section of the community. For years these visionaries told us that
every penny spent on army or navy was a robbery of the working-man.
We yielded to him many pennies; but alas, they now have to be repaid
in blood.
America has joined the civilized world in the struggle against the
surviving systems of medieval barbarism in Europe that have been
permitted to exist under the veneer of civilization. She sees clearly
what she has to destroy. So do we. No American and Englishman
can meet but that they grip hands and thank God together that they
are comrades in this Holy War. They are out, like Knights of Fable,
to rid the earth of a pestilential monster; and they will not rest
until their foot is on his slain monster's head.
Which is, by Heaven! a glorious and soul-uplifting enterprise. In
it the blood of the Martyrs, rising to God. But with this difference:
the Martyrs died for a constructive scheme--that of Christianity.
What is the constructive scheme for which we are dying? It is easy
to say the Democratization of Mankind. It is a matter of common
assent that this consummation is ardently desired by the Royal Family
of England, by enlightened Indian Princes, by the philanthropists
of America, by the French artist, by the Roumanian peasant, by the
howling syndicalist in South Wales, by the Belgian socialist, by
the eager soul in the frail body who is at the helm of storm-tossed
Russia to-day, by the Montenegrin mountaineer, by the Sydney Larrikin
yelling down conscription, by millions of units belonging to the
civilized nations of such social and racial divergence that the
mind is staggered by the conception of them all fighting under one
banner. But are we sure they are all fighting for the same thing?
If they're not, there will be the deuce to pay all over the
terrestrial globe, even with a crushed Central European militarism.
Therefore, with the same absence of modesty I cry for an authoritative
crystallization of the democratic aims of the civilized world.
England and France have groped their way through centuries towards
a vague ideal. America proudly began her existence by a proclamation
of the equal rights of man. She proudly proclaims them now; but the
world is involved in such a complicated muddle, that the utterances
of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln (to say nothing of their
intellectual and political ancestor Jean Jacques Rousseau) require
amplification. The political thought of the older nations of
Europe is tired out. It is for the fresher genius of America to
lead them towards the solution of the greatest problem which has
ever faced mankind:--the final, constructive and all-satisfying
definition of the myriadwise interpreted word Democracy.
[signed] W. J. Locke
Democracy in Peace and War
Democracy is by nature a lover of peace. That is the state which
it regards as the normal condition of human life, and in which
it seeks its best rewards and triumphs by the organization of the
common effort of all citizens for the common welfare.
But while democracy is pacific in its desires and aims, it is not
a "pacifist." It is willing and able, though not always at the
moment ready, to take up arms in self-defense. In its broadening
vision of a fraternity of mankind, which shall be in the good future
not only intranational but also international, it is willing also
to FIGHT for the safety of its principles everywhere, and for the
security of all the peoples in a true and orderly liberty. That
is the position of the democracy of the United States of America
to-day.
As in peace, so in war, the success of the democratic effort
depends upon the fullness of the cooperation between all classes
and conditions of men and women. Those men who are fit for military
service on land or sea must render it willingly and to the utmost
of their strength. Those who by reason of age or weakness cannot
undertake that service without danger of becoming a burden to the
fighting forces, must work to sustain the army and the fleet of
freedom. "If any man will not work neither let him eat."
The women also must do their part, since they are citizens just as
much as the men. They must undertake those tasks of industry of
which they are capable and thus relieve the need of labor in all
fields. Above all they must give themselves to those tasks of mercy
for which they have a natural aptitude. And through all they must
give sympathy, inspiration, and courage to the men who fight for
Liberty and Democracy.
[signed] Henry van Dyke
Sunrise over the Peristyle
"Ye shall know the truth, and
the truth shall make you free."
Look! we shall know the truth--it is thy word;
The truth, O Lord--shining, invincible,
Unawed. And shall we love it, Lord, like this,
This half-dark flushing with the wondrous hope?
How can we love it more?
Sweet is the hush
Brimming the dim void world, soothing the beat
Of the great-hearted lake that lies unlit
Beyond that silver portal. Peace is here
In moony palaces that rose for her
Pale, lustrous--it is well with her to dwell.
The truth--will not these phantom fabrics fail
Under the fierce white fire--yes, float away
Like mists that wanly rise and choke the wind?
So merciless is truth--how shall we live
And bear the glare? Now rosily smiles the earth,
And bold young couriers climb the slope of heaven,
With gaudy flags aflare. The towered clouds,
Lofty, impregnable, are captured now--
Their turrets flame with banners. Who abides
Under the smooth wide rim of the worn world
That the high heavens should hail him like a king--
Even like a lover? If it be the Truth,
Ah, shall our souls wake with the triumph, Lord?
Shall we be free according to thy word,
Brave to yield all?
Look! will it come like this--
A vivid glory burning at the gate
Over the sudden verge of golden waves?
The tall white columns stand like seraphim
With high arms locked for song. The city lies
Pearled like the courts of heaven, waiting the tread
Of souls made wise with joy. Why should we fear?
The Truth--ah, let it come to test the dream;
Give us the Truth, O Lord, that in its light
The world may know thy will, and dare be free.
[signed]Harriet Monroe
Reminiscences of Booth
Few of the younger people of the present generation know, by personal
experience, how nobly and incomparably Edwin Booth enriched the
modern stage with his vivid portraitures of Shakespearean characters.
The tragic fervor, the startling passion, and the impressive dignity
with which he invested his various roles, have not been equaled, I
daresay, by any actor on the English speaking stage since the days
of Garrick and Kean. He had a voice that vibrated with every mood,
and a mien, despite his short stature, that gave a lofty dignity
to every part that he played. But Booth as himself was a simple,
modest, amiable human being. Many of us younger men came to know
him in a personal way, when he established in New York City the
Players' Club, which he dedicated to the dramatic profession, and
which is now a splendid and permanent monument to his fame and
generosity.
I saw him frequently and had many chats with him. When I undertook
the management of E. H. Southern, he was very much interested
because he knew young Sothern's father, the original Lord Dundrery;
so, when Mr. Sothern appeared in the first play under my management,
"The Highest Bidder," I invited Mr. Booth to witness the performance.
He expressed his delight at seeing his old friend's son doing such
delightful work, and the three of us afterwards met at a little
supper at the Players'. He told us that he came nearly being the
Godfather of young Sothern, and that he was to have been called
"Edwin" after himself; but the reason why his name was changed to
"Edward," he explained, was as follows: When young Sothern was
born in New Orleans, the elder Sothern telegraphed Booth, asking
him to stand as Godfather to his boy, but Booth did not wish to
take the responsibility, doubtless for reasons of his own, and so
his name was changed to "Edward"; but he confessed that it was a
matter he greatly regretted. He told us many stories of his early
career as an actor, one of which I remember as a very amusing experience
on the part of the elder actor when on his way to Australia. Mr.
Booth had an engagement to play in that distant section, and with
five members, the nucleus of a company, started from San Francisco.
They had occasion to stop at Honolulu en route. The stop there
being longer than originally anticipated, and the news of his
arrival having spread, King Kamehameha sent a request that he give
a performance of "Richard III" in the local theater. In spite of
managerial difficulties, Booth (being then a young man, ardent and
ambitious) sought to give a semblance with the scanty material at
hand, of a fair performance. He had to secure the cooperation of
members of the local amateur company. The best he was enabled to
do for the part of Queen Elizabeth was an actor, short in stature,
defective in speech and accent, but earnest in temperament, whom
he cast for this eminent role. The other parts were filled as
best he could, and the principals with him enabled Mr. Booth to
give some semblance of a decent performance. In order to properly
advertise the event, he secured the assistance of several Hawaiians,
and furnished them with a paste made out of their native product
called "poi." He discovered later, to his amazement, that not
a bill had been posted, and that the "poi," being a valuable food
article, had been appropriated by the two individuals, who decamped.
Mr. Booth, with his colleagues, then personally posted the town
with the bills of the impending performance. On the evening the
house was crowded. The King occupied a seat in the wings, there
being no place for him in the hall. When the throne scene was to
be set for the play, word was sent to His Majesty humbly asking
the loan of the throne chair, which he then occupied, for use in
the scene--a favor which His Royal Highness readily granted. At
the end of the performance, word was brought to Booth that the King
wished to see him. Booth, shy and modest as he was, and feeling
that he could not speak the language, or that His Royal Highness
could not speak his, approached His Majesty timidly. The latter
stepped forward, slapped the actor heartily on the back and said:
"Booth, this is as fine a performance as I saw your father give
twenty years ago."
The question as to whether an actor should feel his part or control
his emotions, has been an argument which has interested the dramatic
profession for many years, since it was first promulgated by the
French writer Diderot, and afterwards ably discussed by Henry Irving
and Coquelin. Of course, we all feel that no matter how violent
the actor's stress of emotion is, he must control his resources
with absolute restraint and poise. Sometimes, however, an actor
feels he is under the sway of his part in an unusual degree and
comes to the conviction, through his excitement, that he has given
a greater performance than usual. So Booth, one night at his own
theater, seeing his beloved daughter in a box, and desiring to
impress her with his work, played with, as he felt, a degree of
emotion that made him realize that he had given an unusually powerful
interpretation. At the end of the play, his daughter ran back to
him and said: "Why, dad, what is the matter with you?" And Booth,
awaiting her approval, said: "Matter?" "Why you gave the worst
performance I ever witnessed," she said. This control of one's
resources and the check upon one's feelings was indicated at another
time during a performance of Booth, of "Richelieu," as told to me
by the actor's friend, the late Laurence Hutton, the writer. Mr.
Hutton and Mr. Booth were sitting in the latter's dressing room at
Booth's Theater. Booth was, as usual, smoking his beloved pipe.
When he heard his cue, he arose, and walked with Hutton to the
prompter's entrance, where, giving his pipe to his friend, said:
"Larry, will you keep the pipe going until I come off?" Booth
entered on the scene; then came the big moment in the play when the
nobles and the weak King had assembled to defy the power of the
Cardinal; and Richelieu launches (as Booth always did with thrilling
effect) the terrifying curse of Rome--a superb bit of oratorical
eloquence. At the conclusion, the house shouted its wild and
demonstrative approval, and when the curtain dropped on this uproar
for the last time, Booth approached Hutton at the prompter's entrance
saying, in his usual quiet voice: "Is the pipe still going, Larry?"
No actor we have ever known has inspired so much genuine affection--I
may say almost idolatry--as the simple Edwin Booth aroused in the
hearts of his friends and his fellow-workers. In the beautiful
Players' Club House, which he bequeathed to the dramatic profession,
he presented also his own valuable theatrical library, numbering
several thousand memorable works on the stage; and no one event
greater than this gift to his fellow-players has ever occurred in
the dramatic profession.
[signed]Daniel Frohman
God of My Faith
A Play for Pacifists in One Act
"If the God of my faith be a liar
Who is it that I shall trust?"
The People in the Play
Nelson Dartrey
Dermod Gilruth
The action passes in Dartrey's Chambers in the late Spring of
Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen.
(The lowering of the Curtain momentarily will denote the passing
of several days.)
God of My Faith
The curtain discloses a dark oak room
NELSON DARTREY is seated at a writing table studying maps. He is
a man in the early thirties, prematurely worn and old. His face
is burned a deep brick color and is sharpened by fatigue and loss
of blood. His hair is sparse, dry and turning gray. Around the
upper part of his head is a bandage covered largely by a black
skull-cap. Of over average height the man is spare and muscular.
The eye is keen and penetrating: his voice abrupt and authoritative.
An occasional flash of humor brings an old-time twinkle to the one
and heartiness to the other. He is wearing the undress uniform of
a major in the British army.
The door bell rings.
With an impatient ejaculation he goes into the passage and opens
the outer door. Standing outside cheerfully humming a tune is a
large, forceful, breezy young man of twenty-eight. He is DERMOD
GILRUTH. Splendid in physique, charming of manner, his slightly-marked
Dublin accent lends a piquancy to his conversation. He has all
the ease and poise of a traveled, polished young man of breeding.
Dartrey's face brightens as he holds out a welcoming hand.
DARTREY
Hello, Gil.
GILRUTH
(Saluting him as he laughs genially) May I come into officers'
quarters?
DARTREY
I'm glad to have you. I'm quite alone with yours on my hands. (He
brings Gilruth into the room and wheels a comfortable leather arm
chair in front of him) Sit down.
GILRUTH
Indeed I will not. Look at your desk there. I'll not interrupt
your geography for more than a minute.
DARTREY
(Forces him into the chair) I'm glad to get away from it. Why,
you look positively boyish.
GILRUTH
And why not? I am a boy. (Chuckles)
DARTREY
What are you so pleased with yourself about?
GILRUTH
The greatest thing in the world for youth and high-spirits. I'm
going to be married next week.
DARTREY
(Incredulously) You're not?
GILRUTH
I tell you I am.
DARTREY
Don't be silly.
GILRUTH
What's silly about it?
DARTREY
Oh, I don't know.
GILRUTH
Of course you don't know. You've never tried it.
DARTREY
I should think not.
GILRUTH
Well, I'm going to and I want you to father me. Stand up beside
me and see me through. Will you?
DARTREY
If you want me to.
GILRUTH
Well, I do want you to.
DARTREY
All right.
GILRUTH
You don't mind now?
DARTREY
My dear chap. It's charming of you to think of me.
GILRUTH
I've known you longer than any one over here. And I like you
better. So there you are.
DARTREY
(Laughing) Poor old Dermod! Well, well!
GILRUTH
There's nothing to laugh at, or "well, well" about.
DARTREY
Do I know the---?
GILRUTH
(Shakes his head) She's never been over before. Everything will
be new to her. I tell you it's going to be wonderful. I've planned
out the most delightful trip through Ireland--she's Irish, too.
DARTREY
Is she?
GILRUTH
But, like me, born in America. She's crazy to see the old country.
DARTREY
She couldn't have a better guide.
GILRUTH
(Enthusiastically) She's beautiful, she's brilliant: she's
good--she's everything a man could wish.
DARTREY
That's the spirit. Will you make your home over here?
GILRUTH
No. We'll stay till the autumn. Then I must go back to America.
But some day when all this fighting is over and people talk
of something besides killing each other I want to have a home in
Ireland.
DARTREY
I suppose most of you Irishmen in America want to do that?
GILRUTH
Indeed they do not. Once they get out to America and do well they
stay there and become citizens. My father did. Do you think he'd
live in Ireland now? Not he. He talks all the time about Ireland
and the hated Sassenachs--that's what he calls you English--and
he urges the fellows at home in the old country to fight for their
rights. But since he made his fortune and became an American
citizen the devil a foot has he ever put on Irish soil. He's always
going, but he hasn't go there yet. And as for living there? Oh,
no, America is good enough for him, because his interests are
there. I want to live in Ireland because my heart is there. So
was my poor mother's.
(Springing up) Now I'm off. You don't know how happy you make me
by promising to be my best man.
DARTREY
My dear fellow--
GILRUTH
And just wait until you see her. Eyes you lose yourself in. A
voice soft as velvet. A brain so nimble that wit flows like music
from her tongue. Poetry too. She dances like thistledown and
sings like a thrush. And with all that she's in love with me.
DARTREY
I'm delighted.
GILRUTH
I want her to meet you first. A snug little dinner before the
wedding. She's heard so much against the English I want her to
see the best specimen they've got.
(Dartrey laughs heartily) I tell you if you pass muster with her
you have the passport to Kingdom come. (Laughing as well as he
grips Dartrey's hand) Good-by.
DARTREY
(As they walk to the door) When will it be?
GILRUTH
Next Tuesday. I'll ring you up and give you the full particulars.
DARTREY
In church?
GILRUTH
Church! Cathedral! His Eminence will officiate.
DARTREY
Topping.
GILRUTH
Well, you see, we Irish only marry once. So we make an occasion
of it.
DARTREY
Splendid. I'll look forward to it.
GILRUTH
(Looking at the bandage) Is your head getting all right?
DARTREY
Oh, dear, yes. It's quite healed up. I'll have this thing off
in a day or two. (Touching the bandage) I expect to be back in
a few weeks.
GILRUTH
(Anxiously) Again?
DARTREY
Yes.
GILRUTH
If ever a man had done his share, you have.
DARTREY
They need me. They need us all.
GILRUTH
The third time.
DARTREY
There are many who have done the same.
GILRUTH
(Shudders) How long will it last?
DARTREY
Until the Hun is beaten.
GILRUTH
Years, eh?
DARTREY
It looks like it. We've hardly begun yet. It will take a year to
really get the ball rolling. Then things will happen. Tell me.
How do they feel in America? Frankly.
GILRUTH
All the people who matter are pro-Ally.
DARTREY
Are you sure?
GILRUTH
I'm positive.
DARTREY
Are you? Come, now.
GILRUTH
Why, of course I am.
DARTREY
They may be pro-Ally, but they're not pro-English.
GILRUTH
That's true. Many of them are not. But if ever the test comes,
they will be.
DARTREY
(Shakes his head doubtfully) I wonder. It seems a pity not to
bury all the Bunker-Hill and Boston-tea-chest prejudices.
GILRUTH
You're right there.
DARTREY
Why your boys and girls are taught in their school-books to hate
us.
GILRUTH
In places they are. Now that I know the English a little I have
been agitating to revisit them. It all seems so damned cheap and
petty for a big country to belittle a great nation through the
mouth of children.
DARTREY
There's no hatred like family hatred. After all we're cousins,
speaking the same tongue and with pretty much the same outlook.
GILRUTH
There's one race in America that holds back as strongly as it can
any better understanding between the two countries, and that's
my race--the Irish. And well I know it. I was brought up on it.
There are men to-day, men of position too, in our big cities who
have openly said they want to see England crushed in this war.
DARTREY
So I've heard. It would be a sorry day for the rest of civilization,
and particularly America, if we were.
GILRUTH
You can't convince them of that. They carry on the prejudices
and hatred of generations. I have accused some of them of being
actively pro-German; of tinkering with German money to foster
revolution in Ireland.
DARTREY
Do you believe that?
GILRUTH
I do. Thank God there are not many of them. I have accused them
of taking German money and then urging the poor unfortunate poets and
dreamers to do the revolting while they are safely three thousand
miles away. I don't know of many who are willing to cross the water
and do it themselves. Talking and writing seditious articles is
safe. Take my own father. He says frankly that he doesn't want
Germany to win because he hates Germans. Most Irishmen do. Besides
they've done my father some very dirty tricks. But all the same
he wants to see England lose. All the doubtful ones I know, who
don't dare come out in the open, speak highly of the French and are
silent when English is mentioned. I blame a great deal of that on
your Government. You take no pains to let the rest of the world
know what England is doing. You and I know that without the
British fleet America wouldn't rest as easy as she does to-day, and
without the little British army the Huns would have been in Paris
and Calais months ago. We know that, and so do many others. But
the great mass of people, particularly the Irish, cry all the time,
"What is England doing?" Your government should see to it that
they know what she's doing.
DARTREY
It's not headquarters' way.
GILRUTH
I know it isn't. And the more's the pity. Another thing where
you went all wrong. Why not have let Asquith clear up the Irish
muddle? Why truckle to a handful of disloyal North of Ireland
traitors? If the Government had court martialed the ring-leaders,
tried the rest for treason and put the Irish Government in Dublin,
why, man, three-quarters of the male population of the South of
Ireland would be in the trenches now.
DARTREY
Don't let us get into that. I was one of the officers who mutinied.
I would rather resign my commission than shoot down loyal subjects.
GILRUTH
(Hotly) Loyal? Loyal! When they refused to carry out their
Government's orders? When they deny justice to a long suffering
people? Loyal! Don't prostitute the word.
DARTREY
(Angrily) I don't want to---
GILRUTH
(Going on vehemently) It's just that kind of pig-headed ignorance
that has kept the two countries from understanding each other. Why
shouldn't Ireland govern herself. South Africa does. Australia
does. And when you're in trouble they leap to your flag. Yet
there is a country a few miles from you that sends the best of her
people to your professions and they invariably get to the top of
them. Irishmen have commanded your armies and Ireland has given
you admirals for your fleet and at least one of us has been your
Lord Chief Justice. Yet, by God, they can't be trusted to govern
themselves. I tell you the English treatment of Ireland makes her
a laughing-stock of the world.
DARTREY
(Opens the door, then turns and looks straight at Gilruth) My head
bothers me. Will you kindly---
GILRUTH
(All contrition) I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to blaze out. Do
forgive me like a good fellow. It's an old sore of mine and
sometimes it makes me wince. It did just now. Don't be mad with
me.
(The sound of a boy's voice calling newspapers is heard faintly in
the distance; then the hoarse tones of a man shouting indistinctly;
then a chorus of men and boys comes nearer and nearer calling
of some calamity. Dartrey hurries out through the outer door.
Gilruth stands ashamed. He does not want to leave his friend in
bad blood. He would like to put things right before going. He
waits for Dartrey to come back.
In a few minutes Dartrey walks through the outer doorway and into
the room. He is very white, very agitated and his face is set and
determined. He is reading a special edition of an evening paper
with great "scare" head lines.
The sound of the voices crying the news in the street grows fainter
and fainter.
Dartrey stops in front of Gilruth and tries to speak; nothing
coherent comes from his lips. He thrusts the paper into Gilruth's
hands and watches his face as he reads.
Gilruth reads it once slowly, then rapidly. He stands immovable
staring at the news-sheet. It slips from his fingers and he cowers
down, stooping at the shoulders, glaring at the floor.)
DARTRY
(Almost frenzied) Now will your country come in? Now will they
fight for civilization? A hundred of her men, women and children
done to death. Is that war? Or is it murder? Already men are
reading in New York and Washington of the sinking of that ship and
the murder of their people. What are they going to do? What are
YOU going to do?
GILRUTH
(Creeps unsteadily to the door; standing himself with a hand on the
lock; his back is to the room. He speaks in a strange, far-off,
quavering voice)
She was on the LUSITANIA! Mona. She was on it. Mona was on it.
(Creeps out through the street door and disappears)
(Dartrey looks after him)
(The curtain falls and rises again in a few moments. Several days
have elapsed. Dartrey, in full uniform, is busily packing his
regimental kit. The bandage has been removed from his head. The
telephone bell rings. Dartrey answers it)
DARTREY
Yes. Yes. Who is it? Oh! Do. Yes. No. Not at all. Come up.
All right.
(Replaces the receiver and continues packing)
(In a few moments the door-bell rings. Dartrey opens the outer
door and brings Gilruth into the room. He is in deep mourning; is
very white and broken. He seems grievously ill. Dartrey looks at
him commiseratingly. He is sensitive about speaking)
GILRUTH
(Faintly) Put up with me for a bit? Will you?
(Dartrey just puts his hand on the man's shoulder)
(Gilruth sinks wearily and lifelessly into a chair)
She is buried.
DARTREY
What?
GILRUTH
(Nods) She is buried. In Kensal Green. Half an hour ago.
DARTREY
(In a whisper) They found her?
GILRUTH
(Nods again) Picked up by some fishermen.
DARTREY
Queenstown?
GILRUTH
A few miles outside. I went there that night and stayed there
until--until she--they found her.
(Covers his face. Dartrey puts his arm around him and presses his
shoulder)
I wandered round there for days. Wasn't so bad while it was light.
People to talk to. All of us on the same errand. Searching.
Searching. Hoping--some of them. I didn't. I knew from the first.
I KNEW. It was horrible at night alone. I had to try and sleep
sometimes. They'd wake me when the bodies were brought in. Hers
came toward dawn one morning. Three little babies, all twined in
each others arms, lying next to her. Three little babies. Cruel
that. Wasn't it?
(Waits as he thinks; then he goes on dully; evenly, with no emotion)
Fancy! She'd been out in the water for days and nights. All alone.
Tossed about. Days and nights. She! who'd never hurt a soul.
Couldn't. She was always laughing and happy. Drifting about. All
alone. Quite peaceful she looked. Except--except--
(Covers his eyes and groans. In a little while he looks up at
Dartrey and touches his left eye)
This. Gone. Gulls.
(Dartrey draws his breath in sharply and turns a little away)
In a few hours the cuts opened. The salt-water had kept them
closed.
DARTREY
Cuts?
GILRUTH
(Nods) Her head. And her face. Cuts. Blood after all that time.
(He clenches and unclenches his hands nervously and furiously. He
gets up slowly, walks over to the fireplace, shivers, then braces
himself trying to shake off the horror of his thoughts. Then he
begins to speak brokenly and tremblingly endeavoring to moisten
his lips with a dry tongue)
Never saw anything to equal the kindness of those poor peasants.
They gave the clothes from their bodies; the blankets from their
beds. And took nothing. Not a thing. "We're all in this," they
said. "We're doing our best. It's little enough." That's what
they sayd. Pretty find the Irish of Queenstown. Eh?
(Dartrey nods. He does not trust himself to speak)
A monument. That's what the Irish peasants of Queenstown should
have. A monument. Never slept, some of them. Wrapped the soaking
woman in their shawls--and the little children. Took off their
wet things and gave them dry, warm ones. Fed them with broths they
cooked themselves. Spent their poor savings on brandy for them.
Stripped the clothes off their own backs for them to travel in when
they were well enough to go. And wouldn't take a thing. Great
people the Irish of Queenstown. Nothing much the matter with them.
A monument. That's what they should have. And poetry.
(Thinks for a while, then goes on)
Laid out the bodies too; just as reverently as if they were their
own people. They laid her out. And prayed over her. And watched
with me over her until she was put into the--. Such a tiny shell
it was, too. She had no father or mother or brother or sisters.
I was all she had. That's why I buried her here. Kensal Green.
She'll rest easy there.
(He walks about distractedly. Suddenly he stops and with his hands
extended upwards as if in prayer, he cries)
Out of my depths I cry to Thee. I call on you to curse them.
Curse the Prussian brutes made in Your likeness, but with hearts
as the lowest of beasts. Curse them. May their hopes wither. May
everything they set their hearts on rot. Send them pestilence,
disease and every foul torture they have visited on Your people.
Send the Angel of Death to rid the earth of them. May their souls
burn in hell for all eternity.
(Quickly to Dartrey)
and if there is a god they will. But is there a good God that such
things can be and yet no sign from Him? Listen. I didn't believe
in war. I reasoned against it. I shouted for Peace. And thousands of
cravens like me. I thought God was using this universal slaughter
for a purpose. When His end was accomplished He would cry to
the warring peoples "Stop!" It was His will, I thought, that out
of much evil might come permanent good. That was my faith. It
has gone. How can there be a good God to look down on His people
tortured and maimed and butchered? The women whose lives were devoted
to Him, defiled. His temples looted, filled with the filth of the
soldiery, and then destroyed. And yet no sign. Oh, no. My faith
is gone. Now I want to murder and torture and massacre the foul
brutes.... I'm going out, Dartrey. In any way. Just a private.
I'll dig, carry my load, eat their rations. Vermin: mud: ache
in the cold and scorch in the heat. I will welcome it. Anything
to stop the gnawing here, and the throbbing here.
(Beating at his head and heart)
Anything to find vent for my hatred.
(Moving restlessly about)
I'm going through Ireland first. Every town and village. It's
our work now. It's Irishmen's work. All the Catholics will be in
now. No more "conscientious-objecting." They can't. It's a war
on women and little children. All right. No Irish-Catholic will
rest easy; eat, sleep and go his days round after this. The call
has gone out. America too. She'll come in. You watch. She can't
stay out. She's founded on Liberty. She'll fight for it. You
see. It's clean against unclean. Red blood against black filth.
Carrion. Beasts. Swine.
(Drops into a chair mumbling incoherently. Takes a long breath;
looks at Dartrey)
I'm selling out everything back home.
DARTREY
Why?
GILRUTH
I'm not going back. I'm bringing everything over here. England,
France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia--they can have it. All of it.
They've suffered. Only now do I know how much. Only now.
(Fiercely) I want to tear them--tear them as they've torn me. As
they mangled her.
(Grits his teeth and claws with his fingers) Tear them--that's
what I want to do. May I live to do it. May the war never end
until every dirty Prussian is rotting in his grave. Then a quick
end for me, too. I've nothing now. Nothing.
(Gets up again wearily and dejectedly; all the blazing passion
burnt out momentarily)
This was to have been my wedding-day; our wedding-day. Now she's
lying there, done to death by Huns. A few days ago all youth and
freshness and courage and love. Lying disfigured in her little coffin.
I know what you meant now by wanting to go back for a third time.
I couldn't understand it the other day. It seemed that every one
should hate war. But you've seen them. You know them. And you
want to destroy them. That's it. Destroy.... The call is all
over the world by now. Civilization will be in arms.... To hell
with your Pacifists. It's another name for cowards. They'd lose
those nearest them: the honor of their women; the liberty of their
people--and never strike a blow. To hell with them. It's where
they should be. I was one of them. No more. Wherever I meet them
I'll spit in their faces. They disgrace the women they were born
of; the country they claim.... To hell with them.
DARTREY
(Tries to soothe him) You must try and get some grip on yourself.
GILRUTH
(His fingers ceaselessly locking and unlocking) I'll be all right.
It's a relief to talk to you. (Sees the preparations for Dartrey's
departure) Are you off?
DARTREY
Yes. To-night.
GILRUTH
I envy you now. I wish I were going. But I will soon. Ireland
first. I must have my say there. What will the "Sinn Feiners"
say to the LUSITANIA murder? I want to meet some of them. What
are our wrongs of generations to this horror? All humanity is at
stake here. I'll talk to them. I must. They'll have to do something
now or go down branded through the generations as Pro-German. Can
a man have a worse epitaph? No decent Irishman will bear that;
every loyal Irishman must loathe them.... I'll talk to them--soul
to soul.... Sorry, Dartrey. You have your own sorrow.... Good
of you to put up with me. Now I'll go....
(Goes to the door, stops, takes out wallet)
Just one thing. If it won't bother you.
(Tapping some papers)
I've mentioned you here.... If I don't come through--see to a few
things for me. Will you? They're not much. Will you?
DARTREY
Of course I will.
GILRUTH
(Simply) Thank you. You've always been decent to me.... Dartrey.
To-day! You would have been my best man--and she's--
DARTREY
(Shaking him by the shoulders) Come, my man. Pull up.
GILRUTH
I will. I'll be all right. In a little while I'll be along out
there. I hope I server under you. (Grips his hand) Good-by.
DARTREY
Keep in touch with me.
GILRUTH
All right.
(Passes out, opens and closes the outer door behind him and disappears
in the street. Dartrey resumes his preparations)
The End of the Play
[signed]J. Hartley Manners
To France
For the third time in history it has fallen to the lot of France to
stem the Barbarian tide. Once before upon the Marne, Aetius with
a Gallic Army stopped the Hun under Attila. Three hundred years
later Charles Martel at Tours saved Europe from becoming Saracen,
just as in September, 1914, more than eleven centuries later,
General Joffre with the citizen soldiery of France upon that same
Marne saved Europe from the heel of the Prussianized Teuton, the
reign of brute force and the religion of the Moloch State. These
were among the world's "check battles." Yet the flood of barbarism
was only checked at the Marne, not broken; again the flood arose
and pressed on to be stopped once more at Verdun--the Gateway of
France--in the greatest of human conflicts yet seen.
America was a spectator, but not an indifferent one. Once again
mere momentary material interest counseled abstention; precedent
was invoked to justify isolation and indifference. The timid,
the ignorant, the disloyal, those to whom physical life was more
precious than the dictates of conscience, counseled "peace and
prosperity." Many began to wonder if America had a soul and was
indeed worth saving as the policy of "Terrorism" on land followed
that of "Terrorism" on the high seas seemed to leave us indifferent.
Yet the same spirit, as of yore, dominated the nation. The people
of America at last understood that it was not any particular rule
of law, but the existence of law itself, divine and human, that
was involved in the Fate of France.
The task confronting this nation is a stupendous one. Let there
be no illusion. The war may well be long and painful, beyond
expression, but the past few weeks have taught us that the nation
will bear the strain with that same courage and enduring perseverance
as in the past, following the example of the Fathers and inspired by
the traditions of the American Revolution, this people will stand
like a stone wall with our splendid Ally of old and of to-day--France--and
from Great Britain from whence came our institutions, to end forever
the Hohenzollern system of blood and iron so that a better future
may come to Europe and America, one in which peace may be builded upon
a guaranty of justice and law--a world order in which fundamental
moral postulates and human rights may never again be set at defiance at
the behest of mere material force, however scientifically organized.
To France has fallen the honor of checking, to Britain the burden
of containing by sea and land, to America now comes the duty of
finally overthrowing that common enemy of democratic institutions
and ordered liberty, the foe whose morality knows no truth, whose
philosophy admits no check upon the "will to power."
In France the traveler passing along the roads to the northeast
leading to Lorraine may see at every cross-road a great index
finger pointing to the single word VERDUN. To many thousands,
nay, hundreds of thousands of men passing over these roads in the
five fateful months of critical battle, these six letters spelled
mutilation and death, yet the word was an inspiration to heroism
in every home of France, and from every corner of the land men
followed that great index finger pointing, as it did indeed, to
the modern Calvary.
To-day at every cross-road must we here in America set up a great
index hand with the words "TO FRANCE." To France, land of suffering
humanity, in whose devastated fields again must be saved the same
principles for which Americans fought at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga,
at Yorktown, at Gettysburg and in the Wilderness; to France, where
the fate of the world is still pending; to France, which has again
checked the Huns of the modern world as it did those of the ancient;
to France, the manhood of this nation must now be directed, to
save the heritage of the American Revolution and the Civil War, to
preserve the dearest conquests of the Christian civilization; to
France will our men go by the thousands, hundreds of thousands, if
need be by the million, to prove that the soul of America is more
completely intent upon battling for the right than ever before,
intent that slavery in another but far subtler and more dangerous
form may not prevail upon the earth.
It was Washington who gave as the watchword of the day in those
soul-trying hours that preceded the birth of our nation the immortal
and prophetic phrase, "America and France--United Forever."
[signed]Frederick Coudert THE END.
Ce Que Disent Nos Morts
Il n'est pas besoin de rappeler le souvenir de ceux qui nous furent
chers et ne sont plus, à notre peuple qui passe, non sans raison,
pour célébrer avec ferveur le culte des morts. N'est-ce pas
en France, au dix-neuvième siècle, qu'est née cette philosophie
qui met au rang des premiers devoirs de l'homme la reconnaissance
envers les générations qui nous ont précédés dans la tombe, en nous
laissant le fruit de leurs pensées et de leurs travaux? Certes la
religion des ancêtres est de tous les temps et de tous les climats;
elle est même chez certains peuples orientaux la religion unique;
mais en quel pas les liens entre les morts et les vivants sont-ils
plus forts qu'en France, les deuils plus solennels à la fois et plus
intimes? Chez nous, d'ordinaire, les defunts aimés et vénérés ne
quittent pas tout entiers le foyer où ils vécu; ils y respirent
dans le coeur de ceux qui demeurent; ils y sont imités, consultés,
écoutés.
Je me rappelle trop confusément pour en faire usage ici une scène
très belle d'une vieille chanson de geste, GIRART DE ROUSILLON,
je crois, où l'on voit une fille de roi contempler, la nuit, après
une bataille, la plaine où gisent les guerriers innombrables tomber
pour sa querelle. "Elle eut voulu, dit le poète, les embrasser
tous." Et, du fond de mes très lointains souvenirs, cette royale
fille m'apparait comme une image de notre France pleurant aujourd'hui
la fleur de sa race abondamment moissonnée.
Aussi n'est-ce pas pour exhorter mes concitoyens à commemorer en ce
jour nos morts selon un usage immémorial, que j'écris ces lignes,
mais pour honorer avec notre peuple tout entier ceux qui lui ont
sacrifié leur vie at pour mediter la leçon qu'ils nous donnent du
fond de leur demeures profondes.
Et tout d'abord, à la mémoire des notres, associons pieusement la
mémoire des braves qui ont versé leur sang sous tous les étendards
de l'Alliance, depuis les canaux de l'Yser jusqu'aux rives de la
Vistule, depuis les montagnes du Frioul jusqu'aux défiles de la
Morava, et sur les vastes mers.
Puis, offrons les fleurs les plus nobles palmes aux innocentes
victimes d'une atroce cruauté, aux femmes, aux enfants martyrs, à
cette jeune infirmière anglaise, coupable seulement de générosité
et dont l'assassinat a soulevé d'indignation tout l'univers.
Et nos morts, nos morts bien aimés! Que la patrie reconnaissante
ouvre assez grand son coeur pour les contenir tous, les plus humbles
comme les plus illustrés, les héros tombés avec gloire à qui l'on
prepare des monuments de marbre et de bronze et qui vivront dans
l'histoire, et les simples qui rendirent leur dernier souffle en
pensant au champ paternel.
Que tous ceux dont le sang coula pour la patrie soient bénis!
Ils n'ont pas fait en vain le sacrifice de leur vie. Glorieusement
frappés en Artois, en Champagne, en Argonne, ils ont arrêté l'envahisseur
qui n'a pu faire un pas de plus en avant sur la terre sacrée qui
les recouvre. Quelques-uns les pleurent, tous les admirent, plus
d'un les envie. Ecoutons les. Tendons l'oreille: ils parlent.
Penchons-nous sur cette terre bouleversée par la mitraille où
beaucoup d'entre eux dorment dans leurs vêtements ensanglantés.
Agenouillons-nous dans le cimetière, au bords des tombes fleuries
de ceux qui sont revenus dans le doux pays, et là, entendons le
souffle imperceptible et puissant qu'ils mêlent, la nuit, au murmure
du vent et au bruissement des feuilles qui tombent. Efforçons-nous
de comprendre leur parole sainte. Ils disent:
FRERES, vivez, combattez, achevez notre ouvrage. Apportez la victoire
et la paix à nos ombres consolées. Chassez l'étranger qui a deja
reculé devant nous, et ramenez vos charrues dans les champs qui
nous avons imbibés de notre sang.
Ainsi parlent nos morts. Et ils disent encore:
FRANÇAIS, aimez-vous les uns les autres d'un amour fraternal et,
pour prevaloir contre l'ennemi, mettez en commun vos biens et vos
pensées. Que parmi vous les plus grands et les plus forts soient
les serviteurs des faibles. Ne marchandez pas plus vos richesses
que votre sang à la patrie. Soyez tous égaux par la bonne volonté.
Vous le devez à vos morts.
VOUS nous devez d'assurer, à notre exemple, par le sacrifice de
vous-mêmes, le triomphe de la plus sainte des causes. Frères, pour
payer votre dette envers nous, il vous faut vaincre, et il vous
faut faire plus encore: il vois faut mériter de vaincre.
Nos morts nous ordonnent de vivre et de combattre en citoyens d'un
peuple libre, de marcher résolument dans l'ouragan de fer vers la
paix qui se levera comme une belle aurore sur l'Europe affranchie
des menaces de ses tyrans, et verra renaître, faibles et timides
encore, la JUSTICE et L'HUMANITE étouffées par le crime de l'Allemagne.
Voila ce qu'inspirent nos morts à un Français que le détachement
des vanités et le progrès de l'age rapprochent d'eux.
[signed]Anatole France
What our Dead Say to Us
There is no need to recall to the minds of our people those who
were dear to us and have passed hence, for they are celebrating--and
with good cause--the anniversaries of their deaths. Was it not in
France, in the 19th century, that there was born that philosophy
which placed in the rank of the foremost duties of mankind gratitude
towards those generations who have preceded us to the grave, and
have left us the fruits of their thoughts and of their labors?
Indeed, ancestral worship prevails in all climes and at all periods;
in fact, with certain Oriental nations it is the only religion.
But in what country is the link between the dead and the living
so strong as it is in France--the rites at the same time so solemn
and so intimate? With us, as a rule, our dead, beloved and venerated,
never entirely depart from the homes in which they have dwelt, but
take up their abode in the hearts of the living who imitate them,
consult them, pay heed to them.
I recollect, too vaguely to make full use of it here, a beautiful
scene from the heroic song, "Girart de Roussillon," I think it
is, where one is shown a king's daughter, one night after a battle
gazing across the battlefield where lay the innumerable warriors
who had fallen in the fight. "She felt a desire," said the poet,
"to embrace them all." And from the depths of my far-away memories
this apparition of the daughter of a royal house arises before me
as an image of our France to-day, weeping for the flower of our
race so abundantly cut down.
My object in writing these lines is not to exhort my fellow-citizens
to commemorate to-day our noble dead, according to immemorial
custom, but to honor as a united people those who have sacrificed
their lives for their country and to meditate upon the lesson that
comes to us from their scattered burial places.
First, with the memory of our own, let us with all piety associate
the memory of those brave ones who have shed their blood under all
the Allies' standards, from the streams of the Yser to the banks
of the Vistule; from the mountains of Frioul to the defiles of
Morava, and on the vast seas.
Then, let us offer our choicest flowers of memory to the innocent
victims of an atrocious cruelty, to the women, the child martyrs,
to that young English nurse, guilty only of generosity, whose
assassination aroused the indignation of the entire universe.
And our dead, our beloved dead! May a grateful country open wide
enough its great heart to contain them all, the humblest as well
as the most illustrious, the heroes fallen with glory to whom
have been erected monuments of bronze and marble, who will live in
history, and those simple ones who drew their last breath thinking
of the green fields of home.
Blessed be all those whose blood has been shed for their country!
Not in vain have they sacrificed their lives. At the glorious
encounter at Artois, Champagne, and Argonne they repulsed the
invader who could not advance one step farther on the ground made
sacred by their fallen bodies. Some weep for them, all admire them,
more than one envies them. Let us listen to them. They speak.
Let us make every effort to hear them. Let us prostrate ourselves
on this ground, torn up by shot and shell, where many of them sleep
in their blood-dyed garments. Let us kneel in the cemetery at the
foot of the flower-strewn graves of those who were brought back to
their country, and there listen to the whispers, scarcely audible
but powerful, which mingle through the night with the murmur of
the breeze and the rustle of the falling leaves. Let us make every
effort to understand their inspired words. They say:
BROTHERS, live, fight, accomplish our work. Win victory and peace
for the sake of your dead. Drive out the intruder who has already
retreated before us, and bring back your plows into the fields now
saturated with our blood.
Thus speak our dead. And they say, further:
FRENCHMEN, love one another with brotherly love, and, in order
that you may prevail against the enemy, put into common use your
possessions and your ideas. Let the greatest and strongest among
you serve the weak. Be as willing to give your money as your blood
for your country. Be willing that perfect equality shall exist
amongst you. You owe this to your dead. Because of our example,
you owe us the assurance that by your self-sacrifice ours will be
the triumph in this holiest of all causes. Brothers, in order to
pay your debt to us you must conquer, and you must do still more:
you must deserve to conquer.
Our dead demand that we shall live and fight as citizens of a free
country; that we shall march resolutely through the hurricane of
steel toward Peace, which shall arise like a beautiful aurora over
Europe freed from the menace of her tyrants, and shall see reborn,
though weak and timid, Justice and Humanity, for the time being
crushed through the crime of Germany.
Thus are the French, detached from the vanities and progress of
the age, drawn nearer to our dead and inspired by them.
Anatole France Translation by E. M. Pope.
The Transports
Poetical version of Sully Prud'homme's "Les Berceaux"
The long tide lifts each might boat Asleep and nodding on the dock,
Of the little cradles they take no note Which the tender-hearted
mothers rock.
But time brings round the Day of Good-Byes For it's women's fate
to weep and endure, While curious men attempt the skies And follow
wherever horizons lure.
Yet the mighty boats on that morning tide When they flee away
from the dwindling lands Will feel the clutch of mother hands And
the soul of the far-off cradleside.
[signed]Robert Hughes
La Prière Du Poilu
(Written in the Trenches, before Verdun, December, 1915)
Et alors, le poilu, levant la tête derrière son parapet, se mit,
dans la nuit froide de décembre, à fixer une étoile qui brillait au
ciel d'un feu étrange. Son cerveau commença à remeur de lointaines
pensées; son coeur se fit plus léger, comme s'il voulait monter
vers l'astre; ses lèvres frémirent doucement pour laisser passer
une prière:
"O Etoile, murmura-t-il, je n'ai pas besoin de ta lueur, car je
connais ma route! Elle a pu me paraitre sombre au début, quand mes
yeux n'étaient point accoutumés à ses rudes contours; mais, depuis
un an, elle est pour moi éblouissante de clarté. On a beau me
l'allonger chaque jour, on n'arrivera pas à me l'obscurcir. On a
beau y multiplier les ronces et les pierres, après lesquelles je
laisse de ma chair et de mon sang, on n'arrivera pas à m'y arrêter.
Je sais que j'irai jusqu'au bout. Je vois devant moi la victoire....
Mais, là-bas, derrière moi, il y a une foule qui parfois s'inquiète
dans les ténèbres. Au moment où la vieille anné va tourner sur ses
gonds vermoulus, elle repasse en son esprit agité les évènements
qui la marquèrent. Elle songe aux peuplades barbares d'Orient que
le Germain a entraînées derrière son char: Turcs et Bulgares, Kurdes
et Malissores, et elle oublie les grandes nations qui s'enrôlèrent
sous la bannière de la civilisation. Elle songe aux territoires
que foule la lorde botte tudesque, et elle oublie les empires que
nous détenons en gages: ici, l'ouest et l'est Africains, grands
comme quatre fois toute l'Allemagne, avec leurs 5000 kilomètres de
voies ferrées et leurs mines de diamants; là, ces îles d'Océanie et
cette forteresse d'Asie: Kiao-Tchéou, que le kaiser avait proclamé
la perle de ses colonies. Elle s'alarme de toutes les pailles que,
dans sa course désordonnée, ramasse l'Allemagne et ne voit pas les
poutres énormes qui soutiennent la France.... Nous autres, qui
sommes la poutre, nous savons mieux, nous voyons mieux.
"O Etoile, apprends à ceux qui ne sont pas dans la tranchée la
confiance!...
"Le passé est là qui enseigne l'avenir. Chaque fois qu'une armée
quelconque, prise de la folie de l'espace, a voulu s'enfoncer dans
les terres lointaines et abandonner le berceau où elle puisait sa
force et ses vivres, elle est morte de langueur et d'épuisement,
elle s'est éffritée comme la pierre qu'on arrache de l'assemblage
solide des maisons, elle n'est pas plus revenue que ne reviennent
les grains de poussière qu'emporte le vent.... Voici plus d'un
siècle que des légions ont tenté la conquète de l'Egypte et ces
légions étaient les plus magnifiques du monde. Elles avaient des
chefs qui s'appelaient Desaix, Kléber et Bonaparte; mais elles
n'avaient pas la maitrise de la mer et rien ne revint des sables
brulants du désert. Voici un siècle aussi qu'une armée la plus
formidable d'Europe, conduite par le plus fameux conquérant qu'ait
connu l'univers, tenta de submerger l'immense empire russe; mais
l'empire était trop grand pour la grande armée et rien ne revint
des solitudes glacées de la steppe.... Puisse, de même, aller
loin, toujours plus loin, l'armée allemande déjà décimée, haletante,
épuisée! Puisse-t-elle pousser jusqu'au Tigre, jusqu'à l'Euphrate,
jusqu'à l'Inde!...
"O Etoile, apprends à ceux qui ne sont pas dans la tranchée,
l'Histoire!...
"Certes ces nuits d'hiver sont longues. Et tous tes scintillements,
Etoile, ne valent pas le sourire de la femme aimée au logis.
Cependant, tu as quelque chose de la femme, puisque tant d'hommes
te suivent aveuglément: tu en as la grâce et l'éclat; et toi, au
moins, nul couturier boche ne t'habilla jamais!... Tu possèdes
même des vertus que ne possède pas toujours la femme: tu as la
patience et le calme. Les nuages ont beau s'interposer entre tes
adorateurs et toi, l'aurore a beau chaque matin éteindre tes feux,
tu t'inclines devant la loi suprême de la nature et nulle révolte
ne vint jamais de toi.... Tâche d'inspirer ta soumission à tes
soeurs terrestres qui, dans les villes, attendent le retour des
guerriers.
"O Etoile, apprends à celles qui ne sont pas dans les tranchées,
la Discipline!...
"Que tous, que toutes sachent qu'il y a quelque chose au-dessus
du Nombre, au-dessus de la Force, au-dessus même du Courage: et
c'est la Persévérance.... Il y eut, une fois, un match de lutte
qui restera à jamais célèbre dans l'histoire du sport: celui de
Sam Mac Vea contre Joe Jeannette. Le premier, trapu, massif, tout
en muscles: un colosse noir du plus beau noir. Le second, plus
léger, plus harmonieux, tout en nerfs: un métis jaune du plus beau
cuivre. Le combat fut épique: il se poursuivit pendant quarantedeux
rounds et dura trois heures. Au troisième round, puis au septième,
Sam Mac Vea jetait Joe Jeannette à terre et sa victoire ne paraissait
plus faire de doute. Cependant, Joe Jeannette peu à peu revint à
la vie, se cramponna, se défendit, vécut sur ses nerfs, puis attaqua
à son tour. Au quarante-deuxième round, épaule contre épaule,
haletants, ruisselants de sang, ils se portaient les derniers coups;
mais le ressort de Sam Mac Vea était cassé et, devant l'assurance
de son adversaire, il se sentit vaincu... Alors on vit le grand
géant noir lever les bras et s'écrouler en disant: I GUESS I CAN
NOT.... (Je crois que je ne peux pas...) Ainsi, bientôt peut-être,
verrons-nous s'écrouler l'Allemagne, en avouant: "Je ne peux
pas...."
"O Etoile, apprends à ceux qui ne sont pas dans la tranchée, la
Boxe!..."
[signed]Stéphane Lauzanne
The Prayer of "Le Poilu"
Then "Le Poilu" standing, in the cold December night, behind
the breastworks, fixed his gaze upon a star that was shining with
a strange brilliance in the sky above. His mind was stirred with
thoughts of far away things. His heart grew lighter, as though it
yearned to reach the star; his lips trembled, and softly he breathed
a prayer.
"O Star," he murmured, "I need not thy glimmering light, for I
know my way. The road may have appeared dark at first when my eyes
were unaccustomed to its sharp turns, but for a year it has been
divinely illumined for me. Even if it grew longer each day, it will
never seem dark again. Although torn by thorns and cut by stones,
nothing can make me turn back. I know that I shall go on, steadfast
to the end. I behold before me Victory.... But there,--behind
me, is a multitude sorely troubled in the darkness.
"Now, as the old year revolves on its rusty hinges, those who wait
at home live over in their troubled hearts the events which marked
its passing. They think of the barbarous hordes of the Orient
which the German has caught in his train; Turks and Bulgarians,
Kurds and Malissores, and they overlook the great nations enrolled
under the banner of civilization. They brood over lands ground
under the iron heel of the Teuton and overlook the Empires that we
hold; here, West and East Africa, four times as large as all Germany,
with their thousands of miles of railroads and their diamond mines;
there, the Islands of Oceania and the fortress of Asia: Kiao-Tcheou,
which the Kaiser has proclaimed the pearl of his colonies. They
are alarmed at the chaff that Germany gathers in her lawless course
and they do not see the mighty girders that stay France. But we
who are the girders, we know better, we see farther.
"O Star, teach those who are not in the trenches.... Confidence!
"By the light of the past we behold the future. Whenever an army,
seized with the frenzy of conquest, has forced its way into a far
land, abandoning the cradle whence it drew its life and strength,
it has wasted away, it has perished from utter exhaustion. Like
stones loosened from a solid wall, it has disintegrated. Like the
grain of dust which the wind has blow away, it has vanished never
to return.
"More than a century ago legions attempted the conquest of Egypt.
They were the most magnificent in the world. Their chiefs bore
the names of Desaix, Kleber and Bonaparte. But they had not the
mastery of the seas, and returned not from the burning sands of the
desert.... Think also of the time when the most formidable army
of Europe, led by the greatest conqueror the world has ever known,
tried to overwhelm the vast Russian Empire. But the empire was
mightier than the Great Army, and it returned not from the glacial
solitude of the steppes.... So let it go far, ever farther on,
that German army already decimated, panting, exhausted; let it
reach the Tigris, the Euphrates, even far off India! It will not
return.
"O Star, teach those who are not in the trenches.... History!
"Truly the winter nights are long, and all the rays, O Star, are
not worth the smile of the loved woman at the hearth. And yet,
thou hast something of woman, since so many men follow thee blindly:
thou hast her grace and splendor. [No German couturier will ever
clothe you!] Thou hast even virtues that women do not possess,
for thou art patient and calm. Clouds come between thy worshipers
and thee, dawn each morning extinguishes thy light, yet dost thou
bow before the supreme law of nature without a murmur. I pray
thee inspire with submission thy sisters of the earth; teach them
calmly and patiently to await the return of their warriors.
"O Star, teach those who are not in the trenches.... Discipline!
"Would that all men, that all women might know that there is
something above Numbers, above Force, above even Courage, and that
is PERSEVERANCE! A few years ago there was a boxing match between
Sam Mac Vea and Joe Jeannette that will remain famous in the history
of the sport. Mac Vea was a heavy weight, strong, all muscle: a
veritable black giant. Joe Jeannette, light, well proportioned,
all nerve: a mongrel of the best sort. The match was epic. It
went on for forty-two rounds and lasted three hours. At the third
round, and again in the seventh, Sam Mac Vea threw Joe Jeannette,
and his victory seemed assured. But little by little Joe Jeannette
revived, pulled himself together, defended himself, and through
sheer nerve, began to attack. At the forty-second round, shoulder
to shoulder, panting, dripping wet and covered with blood they
struck the last blow. The resources of Sam Mac Vea were exhausted,
and through the very assurance of his adversary he felt himself
beaten.... Suddenly the great giant lifted his arms and gave way,
saying: 'I guess I cannot.'...
"Thus shall we soon see Germany fall to the earth, saying brokenly,
'I cannot.'...
"O Star, teach those who are not in the trenches...to be game!"
Stéphane Lauzanne
Translation by Madame Carlo Polifème.
A Tribute to England
It may be said of this war, as the master mind of all the ages said
of adversity, that "its uses are sweet," even though they be as a
precious jewel shining in the head of an ugly and venomous toad.
While the world-war has brutalized men, it has as a moral paradox
added immeasurably to the sum of human nobility. Its epic grandeur
is only beginning to reveal itself, and in it the human soul has
reached the high water marker of courage and honor.
The war has enriched our language with many new expressions, but
none more beautiful than that of "Somewhere in France." To all noble
minds, while it sounds the abysmal depths of tragic suffering, it
rises to the sublimest heights of heroic self-sacrifice.
The world has paid its tribute to the immortal valor of France,
and no words could pay the debt of appreciation which civilization
owes to this heroic nation; but has there been due recognition of
the equal valor and the like spirit of self-sacrifice which has
characterized Great Britain in this titanic struggle?
When the frontier of Belgium was crossed, England staked the existence
of its great empire upon the issue of the uncertain struggle. It
had, as figures go in this war, only a small army. If it had been
niggardly in its effort to defend Belgium, and save France in her
hour of supreme peril, England might have said, without violating
any express obligation arising under the ENTENTE CORDIALE, that
in giving its incomparable fleet it had rendered all the service
that its political interests, according to former standards of
expediency, justified; and it could have been plausibly suggested
that the ordinary considerations of prudence and the instinct of
self-preservation required it, in the face of the deadly assault
by the greatest military power in the world, to reserve its little
army for the defense of its own soil. England never hesitated, when
the Belgian frontier was crossed, but moved with such extraordinary
speed that within four days after its declaration of war its
standing army was crossing the channel, and within a fortnight it
had landed upon French soil the two army corps which constituted
the backbone of her military power.
What follows will be remembered with admiration and gratitude
by the English speaking races as long as they endure, for nothing
in the history of that race is finer than the way in which the so
called "contemptible little British Army," as the Kaiser somewhat
prematurely called it--outnumbered four to one, and with an even
greater disproportion in artillery--withstood the powerful legions
of Von Kluck at Mons. Enveloped on both flanks they stood as a
stone wall for three days against an assault of one of the mightiest
armies in recorded history, and only retreated when ordered to do
so by the high command of the Allied forces in order to conform to
its strategic plans. The English were not defeated at Mons. It
was a victory, both in a technical and moral sense.
The retreat from Mons to the Marne was one of terrible hardship
and imminent danger. For nearly fourteen days, in obedience to
orders, the British soldiers,--fighting terrific rear guard actions,
which, in retarding the invaders, made possible the ultimate
victory,--slowly retreated, never losing their morale, although
suffering untold physical hardships and the greater agony of temporary
defeats, which they could not at that time understand, and yet it
is to their undying credit, in common with their brave comrades
of the French Army, that when the moment came to cease the retreat
and to turn upon a foe, which flushed with unprecedented victory
still greatly outnumbered the retreating armies, the British soldier
struck back with almost undiminished power. The "miracle of the
Marne" is due to Tommy Atkins as well as to the French Poilu.
Even more wonderful was the defense of Ypres. There was a time in
the first battle of Ypres when the British high command, denuded
of shells, were allotting among their commands, then engaged in a
life-and-death struggle, ammunition which had not yet left England.
So terribly was the "first seven divisions" of glorious memory
decimated in this first battle of Ypres, that at a critical time,
the bakers, cobblers and grooms were put into the trenches to fill
the gaps made by the slain soldiers in that great charnel house.
The "thin red line" held back--not for days, but for weeks,--an
immensely superior force, and the soldiers of England unflinchingly
bared their breasts to the most destructive artillery-fire that
the world at that time had ever known. They held their ground and
saved the day, and the glory of the first and second battles of
Ypres, which saved Calais, and possibly the war itself, will ever
be that of the British Army.
Over four million Britons have volunteered in the war, and although
very few of them had ever had an previous military experience, yet
their stamina and unconquerable courage were such that the youth
of the great Empire, on more than one occasion, when called upon,
as on the Somme, to attack as well as defend, swept the famed Prussian
guard out of seemingly impregnable positions, as for example at
Contalmaison.
Will the world ever forget the children of the Mother Empire who
came so freely and nobly from far distant Canada, who wrenched Vimy
and Messines ridges from a powerful foe?
I hear still the tramp of marching thousands in the first days of
the war, as they passed through the streets of Winchester en route
to France via Southampton, singing with cheer and joy, "It is a
long way to Tipperary." Alas! It is indeed a "long, long way,"
and many a gallant English boy has fallen in that way of glory.
To-day, from the Channel to the Vosges, there are hundreds of
thousands of graves where British soldiers keep the ghostly bivouac
of the dead. They gave their young lives on the soil of France to
save France, and when the great result is finally accomplished, a
grateful world will never forget that "fidelity even unto death" of
the British soldier. Their place on Fame's eternal camping ground
is sure.
What just man can fail to appreciate the work of the English
sailor? It has been said by Lord Curzon, that never has an English
mariner in this war refused to accept the arduous and most dangerous
service of patrolling the great highways of the deep. No soldier
can surpass in courage or fortitude the mine sweepers, who have
braved the elemental forces of nature, and the most cruel forces
of the Terror, which lurks under the seas.
The spirit of Nelson still inspires them, for every mariner of
England has done his duty in this greatest crisis of the modern
world.
And how can words pay due tribute to the work and sacrifices of the
women and children of England? They have endured hardships with
masculine strength, and have accepted irreparable sacrifices with
infinite self-sacrifice.
When the three British cruisers were sunk early in the war by a
single submarine, and many thousand British sailors perished, the
news was conveyed to a seaport town in England, from which many of
them had been recruited, by posting upon a screen the names of the
pitifully few men who had survived that terrible disaster. Thousands
of women, the wives and daughters of those who had perished, waited
in the open square in the hope, in most cases in vain, to see the
name of some one who was dear to them posted among the survivors;
and yet when the last names of the rescued were finally posted, and
thousands of English women, there assembled, realized that those
who were nearest and dearest to them had perished beneath the waves,
these women of England, instead of lamentations or tears, in the
spirit of loftiest and most sacred patriotism united their voices
and sang "Britannia Rules the Waves," and re-affirmed their belief
that, notwithstanding all the powers of Hell, that "Britons never
would be slaves."
Who shall then question England's right to a conspicuous place in
this worldwide tournament of Fame? In all her past history, there
has never been any page more glorious. Without her, as without
France, civilization would have perished. To each nation be lasting
honor!
The spirit of Shakespeare has animated his people, and that mighty
spirit still says to them in his own flaming words---
"In God's name, cheerily on, courageous friends,
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace
By this one bloody trial of sharp war."
[signed]James M. Beck
Unity and Peace
Great Britain and the United States were politically separated
nearly a century and a half ago, because Britain was not in those
days governed by the will of the people as she has been for the
last eighty years and more. But the ideals of the two nations
have been for many generations substantially the same. Both have
loved Liberty ever since the time when their common ancestors
wrested it from feudal monarchs. A time has now come when both
nations are called to defend, and to extend in the world at large,
the freedom they won within their own countries. America has
harkened to the call. Renouncing her former isolation, she has
felt that duty to mankind requires her to contend in arms for the
freedom she has illustrated by her example. The soldiers of Britain
and France welcome the stalwart sons of America as their comrades
in this great struggle for Democracy and Humanity. With their help,
they look forward confidently to a decisive victory, a victory to
be followed by a lasting peace.
[signed] Bryce.
[caption under a picture] The Right Honourable Arthur James Balfour
"Here was a great British statesman equal to his place and fame.
He will long be remembered in America. He has done a high service
to Great Britain and all democracies." -- New York Times (Editorial)
Our Common Heritage
Not very long ago I happened to be dining in The Savoy Restaurant
in London one evening at a table close to the screen, when suddenly
there was a stir. People looked away from their dinners. The band
abruptly stopped the air it was playing, and after an instant's
pause struck up another. Every one in the crowded restaurant stood
up. And then there came in slowly from the outer hall a procession
of serious looking men in uniform, who, walking in couples, made
their way to a large table almost in the middle of the room. They
gained their places. The air ceased. The new comers sat down.
And we all went on with our dinners and our interrupted conversations.
What did we talk about? Well, I will dare forswear that at
all the tables the same subject was discussed. And that subject
was--America. For the air we had heard was "The Star Spangled
Banner," and the men we had seen were General Pershing, commanding
the first American contingent to France, and his Staff, who had
landed that day in England. It was a great moment for Britishers,
and those of us who were there will probably never forget it. For
it meant the beginning of a New Era, and, let us hope, of a new
sympathy and a new understanding.
Since then we have learnt something of what America is doing. We
know that ten millions of men have registered as material
for the American army, that a gigantic aircraft scheme and a huge
shipbuilding program are in process of realization; that enormous
camps and cantonments have been established for the training of
officers and men, that American women have crossed the Atlantic,
in spite of the great danger from submarines, to act as nurses at
the front, that the regular army has been increased to thrice its
former size, that the volunteer militia has been doubled through
voluntary enlistment, and that an immense expenditure has been voted
for war purposes. We know all this and we are glad, and thankful
that hands have been held out to us across the sea.
True sympathy and true understanding are very rare in this world.
Even between individuals they are not easy to bring about, and
between nations they are practically unknown. Diversity of tongues
builds up walls between the peoples. But the Americans and the
British ought to learn to draw near to each other, and surely the
end of this war, whenever it comes, will find them more inclined
for true friendship, for frank understanding, than they have ever
been yet, less critical of national failings, less clearsighted
for national faults. The brotherhood of man, which the idealistic
Russian sighs for, may only be a far away dream, but the brotherhood
of those who speak one language, have one great aim, and fight
side by side for freedom against force, law against lawlessness,
justice against persecution, right against evil, is a reality, and
must surely endure long after the smoke of the world war has faded
into the blue sky of peace, and the roar of the guns has died away
into the silence of the dawn for which humanity is longing.
The happy warriors lead us. Let us follow them and we shall attain
a goodly heritage.
[signed] Robert Hichens.
Poetic Justice
I
The blow fell without warning, and a typewritten notice informed
the Poet that the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation required the
tiny, thread-bare chambers in Stafford's Inn, where he had lived
unobtrusively for seven happy, insolvent years.
"'There was no worth in the fashion; there was no wit in the
plan,'" murmured the Poet. The rooms were too small even for a
Deputy-Director-General, and he knew that not one of the
silk-stockinged, short-skirted, starling-voiced young women
with bare arms and regimental badges, who acted as secretaries to
Deputy-Director-Generals, would consent to walk up four flights
of creaking, uncarpeted stairs to the dusty sparrows' nest on the
housetop that was his home.
For a while he scented a vendetta, but--deleterious poetry apart--he
had injured no man, and the personnel of the Cabinet Committee was
as little known to him as his poetry to the Cabinet Committee. In
general, too, he was the object of a certain popularity and pitying
regard; the Millionaire sent him presents of superfluous game each
year, the Iron King invited him at short notice to make a fourteenth
at dinner and the Official Receiver unloaded six bottles of sample
port wine when the Poet succumbed to his annual bronchitis. Even
the notice of eviction was politely worded and regretful; it was
also uncompromising in spirit, and the Poet made his hurried way
to four house-agents. No sooner had he started his requirements
to be a bed-sitting-room (with use of bath) within the four-mile
radius than all four agents offered him a Tudor manor house in
Westmoreland; further, they refused to offer him anything else, but
on his own initiative he discovered a studio in Glebe Place and a
service-flat in Victoria Street.
"I saw in the paper that you'd been turned out," said the Millionaire
that night, when the Poet trudged home, footsore and fretful, to
find his chambers occupied by the Iron King, the Private Secretary,
the Lexicographer, the Military Attaché and their friends. "What
are you going to do about it?" he continued with the relentlessness
of a man who likes a prompt decision, even if it be a wrong one.
"You know nothing about business, I'm sure; leases, premiums,
insurance, all that sort of thing. You're in a hole; I don't see
what more there is to be said."
So far the Poet, his mind wavering wearily between Glebe Place and
Victoria Street, had said nothing; he turned silently to the Iron
King, wondering how, without being rude, to indicate his desire
for bed.
"I saw rather a decent place that might suit you," drawled the
Private Secretary, smoothing a wrinkle out of his shapely silk
socks. "It's next to my Chief's in Belgrave Square. Of course,
I don't know what rent they want for it..."
The Iron King shook his head.
"He couldn't afford it," he said, speaking through and around and
over the Poet. "Now I'm told that there are some very comfortable
and cheap boarding-houses near Kensington Palace Gardens...."
The Poet drew the cork of a fresh bottle of whisky and collected
four unbroken tumblers, a pewter mug and two breakfast cups without
handles. As so often before, his destiny seemed to be slipping
out of his control into the hands of the practical, strong-voiced
men who filled his sitting-room to overflowing and would not
let him go to bed. The Military Attaché knew of a maisonnette in
Albemarle Street; the Official Receiver had been recently brought
into professional contact with a fine Georgian property in
Buckinghamshire, where they could all meet for a week-end game of
golf at Stoke Pogis. Somewhere in Chelsea--not Glebe Place--the
Lexicographer had seen just the thing, if only he could be quite
sure about the drains.... With loud cheerfulness they accepted
the Millionaire's postulate that the Poet knew nothing of business;
unselfishly they placed all their experience and preferences at
his disposal.
"Of course, there's the servant problem," an undistinguished voice
remarked two hours later; and the Poet, settling to an uneasy sleep
in his chair, mentally ruled out the Chelsea studio.
"The ordinary surveyor's no use," broke in the Lexicographer, pursuing
his own line of thought. "What you want is a drainage expert."
"I know these good, honest, middle-aged couples," cried the Iron
King with the bitterness of an oft-defrauded widower. "The woman
always drinks, and them man always steals the cigars..."
"I have nothing but gas in my place," said the decorous voice of
the Private Secretary, "and I have it on pretty good authority that
there'll be a great coal shortage this winter. I don't want that
to go any further, though..."
The Millionaire rose to his feet with a yawn.
"He must get an experienced woman-friend to help him with things
like carpets and curtains," he ordained with mellow benevolence.
"When my wife comes back from Wales.... How soon do you have to
turn out, Poet?"
The Poet woke with a start and looked at the clock. The time was
a quarter to two, and he still wanted to go to bed.
"Ten days," he murmured drowsily.
"Jove! You haven't much time," said the Millionaire. "Now, look
here; the one thing NOT to do is to be in a hurry. Any place you
take now will probably have to serve you for several years, and
you'll find moving a lot more expensive than you think. If you can
get some kind of shake-down for a few days,--" he turned expansively
to his friends--"we may be able to give you a few hints."
The Poet became suddenly wakeful and alert.
"Do I understand that you're offering me a bed until you find me
permanent quarters?" he enquired with slow precision.
"Er--yes," said the Millionaire a little blankly.
"Thank you," answered the Poet simply. "I say, d'you men mind if
I turn you out now? It's rather late, and I haven't been sleeping
very well."
II
A week later the Poet walked up Park Lane, followed by an elderly
man trundling two compressed cane trunks on a barrow with a loose
wheel. It was a radiant summer afternoon, and taxis stood idle in
long ranks, when they were not drawing in to the curb with winning
gestures. The Poet, however, wished to make his arrival dramatic,
and it was dramatic enough to make the Millionaire's butler direct
him to the tradesman's entrance, while the Millionaire, remembering
little but suspecting all, hurried away by a side door, leaving
a message that he was out of England for the duration of the war.
The lot fell on the Millionaire's wife to invent such excuses
as would rid the house of the Poet's presence before dinner. The
Millionaire's instincts were entirely hospitable, but that night's
party had been arranged for the entertainment and subsequent
destruction of four men with money to invest and, like the Poet,
"no knowledge of business, investments, all that sort of thing."
"No, we have not met before," explained the Poet coldly and
uncompromisingly, abandoning the rather gentle voice and caressing
manners which caused women to invite him to dinner when they could
think of no one else. "Your husband and one or two of our common
friends have kindly undertaken to find me new quarters, and I have
been invited to stay here until something suitable has been found."
There was silence for a few moments, and the Millionaire's wife looked
apprehensively at the clock, while the Poet laid the foundations
of a malignantly substantial tea.
"H-how far have you got at present?" she asked with an embarrassed
laugh.
"Your husband told me to leave it to him," answered the Poet, "and
I've left it to him. There was a general feeling that I didn't
know what I wanted--house or flat, north or south of the Park, all
the rest of it--; they said there would be a scandal if I employed
a young maid, I couldn't afford two, and an old one would pawn my
clothes to buy gin. I am quoting your husband now; I know nothing
of business. Every one agreed, too, that I must have a drain of
some kind. Would you say it took long to find a bed-sitting room
with use of bath?"
The Millionaire's wife hurriedly pushed back her chair?
"My husband's going abroad for the duration of the war," she said
in loyal explanation, "but it's just possible that he hasn't started
yet."
The Millionaire, returning on tip-toe from the loft over the garage,
had sought asylum in the library, where he was smoking a cigar and
reading the evening paper. As his wife entered he looked up with
welcoming expectancy.
"How did you get rid of him?" he asked.
The Millionaire's wife pressed her hands to her temples.
"My dear! What HAVE you been promising him?" she cried.
The Millionaire swore softly, as the truth sank into his brain.
"Have another place laid for dinner," he ordered; "book two seats
for a music-hall and take him out to supper afterwards. I can't
afford to be disturbed to-night. To-morrow I must get in touch
with the Iron King.... I don't see what more there is to be said."
Four weeks later the Poet drove in a six-cylinder car from Park
Lane to Eaton Square on an indeterminate visit to the Iron King.
He was looking better for the month's good wine and food, in which
the Millionaire's house abounded; but now the Millionaire, who based
his fortune on knowing the right people in every walk of life, was
arranging to have his house taken over by the Red Cross authorities.
In a week's time the house was to be found unsuitable and restored
to him, but henceforth the Iron King was to have the honor of
entertaining the Poet.
"How you ever came to make such a promise!" wailed the Millionaire's
wife for the twentieth time, as they drove to Claridge's. "London's
so full that you might have known it's impossible to get ANYthing."
"I feel that we have exhausted this subject," answered the Millionaire
with the bruskness of a man whose nerves have worn thin; with the
menace, too, of one who, having divorced his first wife, would
divorce the second on small provocation.
The Iron King was not at home when the Poet arrived in Eaton Squire,
but a pretty, young secretary, cultured to the point of transforming
all her final "g's" into "k's" received him with every mark of
welcome. She admired the Iron King romantically and was in the
habit of writing his surname after her own Christian name to see
how the combination looked; and, when he had departed each morning
to contest his latest assessment for excess profits, she would wander
through the house, planning little changes in the arrangement of
the furniture and generally deploring the sober, colorless taste
of the first Iron Queen. So far her employer returned none of her
admiration. He addressed her loosely as "Miss--er" and forgot her
name; he never noticed what clothes she was wearing or the pretty
dimples that she made by holding down the inside flesh of her
cheeks between her eye-teeth; further, he criticized her spelling
spitefully and, on the occasion of the Millionaire's second marriage,
had dictated a savage half sheet beginning, "A young man may marry
once, as he may get drunk once, without the world thinking much
the worse of him; habitual intemperance is, on first principles,
to be deplored...."
The pretty young secretary knew from fiction and the drama that
the Iron King would never appreciate her until he stood in danger
of losing her. She welcomed the Poet as a foil and misquoted his
poetry twice before tea was over; then she invited him to accompany
her to a picture palace, but the Poet, once inside the citadel, was
reluctant to leave it until his position was more firmly established.
Scarcely entrenched at Claridge's, the Millionaire telephoned
derisively to the city, so that the Iron King returned home half an
hour before his usual time, prepared to deal with the Poet as he
dealt with querulous or inquisitive shareholders at General Meetings.
The Poet, however, was long and painfully accustomed to combat
with enraged editors and lost no time in assuming the offensive,
demanding indignantly in a high head-voice, before the Iron King
had crossed his own threshold, why no quarters had been found for
him and how much longer any one imagined that he would put up with
the indignity of being bandied from one wretched house to another.
The flushed cheeks and hysterical manner put the Iron King temporarily
out of countenance.
"My dear fellow!" he interrupted ingratiatingly.
"I'm not a business man," continued the Poet hotly. "You all of
you told me that, and I'm disposed to say: 'Thank God, I'm not.'"
The Iron King put his hat carefully out of reach and forced a smile.
"You mustn't take it like that, old chap," he said soothingly.
"I--we--all of us are doing our best. Now we won't bother about
dressing; let's go straight in and thrash the thing out over a
bottle of wine."
Instructing his butler very audibly to open a bottle of the
1906 Lanson, he slipped his arm through the Poet's and led him,
sullenly murmuring, into the dining-room. With the second bottle
of champagne, his guest ceased to be aggrieved and became quarrelsome;
when the port wine appeared, he had the Iron King cowed and broken
in moral.
"If you find fault with everything, why do you come here, why stay
here?" complained the Iron King with a last flickering effort to
recover his independence.
"Why don't you find me some other place to go to, as you promised?"
the Poet retorted, as he made his way to the morning-room and sat
down to order a month's supply of underclothes from his hosier.
III
The Iron King always boasted that honesty was the best policy
and that he was invariably willing to put his cards on the table.
The Millionaire had once professed himself likely to be satisfied
if the Iron King would only remove the fifth ace from his sleeve,
and a certain coolness between the two men resulted. In general,
however, he had the reputation of a frank, bluff fellow.
On the morrow of the Poet's arrival, he remained in bed and announced in
the quavering pencil-strokes of a sick man, that he was suffering
from anthrax, which, he might add, was not only painful but
infectious. The Poet scrawled across one corner of the note that
anthrax was usually fatal, but that, as he himself had twice had
it, he would risk taking it a third time in order to be with his
friend. Thereupon the Iron King departed to the city, leaving the
Poet to dictate blank verse to the pretty young secretary, who curled
both feet round one leg of her chair, told him that she "loved his
potry more'n anythink she'd ever read" and asked how all the hard
words like "chrysoprase" and "asphdel" were spelt. That night a
telegram arrived shortly before dinner, and the Iron King announced
that the Ministry of Munitions was sending him to America to
stabilize iron prices.
"Why can't you finish one thing before starting another?" demanded
the Poet hectoringly. "You haven't YET found me any quarters, and
you call yourself a business man. I shall of course stay on here
till your return..."
The Iron King shook his head gravely.
"That's impossible," he interrupted. "My young secretary..."
"You must take her with you," answered the Poet obstinately.
The subject was not pursued, but at bed time the Iron King roundly
asked the Poet how much he would take to go away.
"I require a home," answered the Poet frigidly, remembering the
weary day spent by him in discovering the Glebe Place studio and
the weary night spent by the Iron King in recommending Kensington
boarding houses. "I do not want your money."
"We shan't fall out over a pound or two," urged the Iron King with
a meaning motion of the hand towards his breast pocket.
"A thing is either a promise or it is not a promise," replied the
Poet, as he turned on his heel. "I know nothing of business or
what people are pleased to term 'commercial morality.'"
Four weeks later the Poet left Eaton Square for the Private
Secretary's rooms in Bury Street. He looked thin and anemic after
his month of privations, for the Iron King, improving in morale
and recapturing something of the old strike-breaking spirit, had
counter-attacked on the third day of the Poet's visit. The chauffeur,
butler and two footmen, all of military age, had been claimed on
successive appeals as indispensable, but on their last appearance
at the Tribunal the Iron King had unprotestingly presented them
to the Army. This he followed by breakfasting in bed, lunching in
the city, dining at his club and leaving neither instructions nor
money for the maintenance of the household. For a time the Poet
was saved from the greater starvation by the care of the pretty
young secretary, but without an Iron King there was no need for a
foil. Sharp words were exchanged one morning over the propriety
of grounds in coffee; the pretty young secretary declared that she
would "have nothink more to do with him or his old potry"; and in
the afternoon he packed his trunks with his own hands and with his
own hands dragged them downstairs on to the pavement, leaving the
pretty young secretary biting viciously at the corner of a crumpled
handkerchief drenched in "White Rose."
The Private Secretary received him in a manner different from that
adopted by either the Millionaire or the Iron King. The two men
were of nearly the same age, but in a deferential, if mis-spent
life the Private Secretary had learned to be non-committal. Well
he knew that he had but one bedroom; well he knew that, on admitting
it, the Poet would claim it from him.
"A spare bed?" he echoed, when the Poet dragged his trunks into
the middle of a tiny sitting room. "Really, I have no statement
to make."
"At least you will not deny," said the Poet with truculent emphasis,
"that you undertook to find me suitable accommodation and to supply
me with a bed until it was found."
"I must refer you to the reply given to a similar question on the
twenty-third ultimo," answered the Private Secretary loftily. for
a rich reward he could not have said where he had been or what he
had done on the twenty-third ultimo, but to the Poet the reply was
new and disconcerting.
"Where's my flat anyway?" he pursued doggedly.
"I have no statement to make," reiterated the Private Secretary.
After an awkward silence, during which neither yielded an inch
of ground, the Poet dragged his trunks destructively downstairs
and drove to the flat of the Official Receiver. Glowing with the
consciousness of victory, the Private Secretary dressed for dinner
and started out to his club. His good-humor was impaired, when he
observed in his hall a pendant triangle of wall-paper flapping in
the draught of the open door through which the Poet had dragged
his trunks. Further on, the paint was scarred on the stairs, and
the carpet of the main hall was rucked and disordered; there was
also a lingering suggestion of escaping gas, and the Secretary
observed a bracket hanging at a bibulous angle.
"This," he murmured through grimly set teeth, "is sheer frightfulness."
Returning to his rooms, he drawled a friendly warning by telephone
to the Millionaire, who instantly gave orders that no one of any
sex or age was to be admitted. Next he called up the Iron King and
repeated the warning; then the Lexicographer, the Official Receiver
and the Military Attaché were similarly placed on their guard, and
there was nothing to do but to proceed to his belated dinner.
The Great War, which had converted staff officers into popular
preachers, novelists into strategical experts and everyone else
into a Minister of the Crown, had left the Poet (in name, at least)
a poet and in nothing else anything at all. He acted precisely
as the Private Secretary had intended him to act, driving first to
the Lexicographer's house, where he was greeted by a suspiciously
new "TO LET" board, and thence to the Official Receiver's flat,
where a typewritten card informed him that this bell was out of
order. Embarrassed but purposeful, he directed his four-wheeler to
Eaton Square, but the blinds were down, and a semblance of mourning
draped the Iron King's house. In Park Lane a twenty-yard expanse
of straw, nine inches thick, prayed silence for the Millionaire's
quick recovery.
"I don't know where to go to next," murmured the Poet dejectedly.
"Well, I'm blest if I do," grumbled the driver. "And it's past my
tea-time. Doncher know where yer live?"
"Years ago I had rooms in Stafford's Inn," began the Poet. "Then
the Cabinet Committee..."
The cabman descended from his box for a heart to heart conversation.
"Now you look 'ere," he said. "I got a boy at 'ome the livin'
image of you..."
"But how nice!" interrupted the Poet, wondering apprehensively
whether an invitation was on its way to him.
The cabman sniffed.
"Not quite righ in 'is 'ead 'e ain't. THEREfore I don't want to
be 'arsh with yer. Jump inside, let me drive yer ter Stafford's
Inn, pay me me legal fare and a bob ter drink yer 'ealth--and
we'll say no more abaht it. If yer don't--" He made a threatening
gesture towards the Poet's precariously strapped trunks--"I'll
throw the blinkin' lot on ter the pivement, and yer can carry 'em
'ome on yer 'ead. See?"
"I couldn't, you know," objected the Poet gently.
"Jump inside," repeated the cabman.
One hope was as forlorn as another, and the Poet was too sick with
hunger to think of resistance. In time the four-wheeler rumbled
its way to think of resistance. In time the four-wheeler rumbled
its way to Stafford's Inn; in time and by force of habit the Poet
was mounting the bare, creaking, wooden stairs; in time he found
himself fitting his unsurrendered latch key into his abandoned
lock.
Beyond an eight week's layer of dust on chairs and table, the
threadbare rooms were little changed. A loaf of bread, green and
furred with mold, lay beside an empty marmalade pot from which a
cloud of flies emerged with angry buzzing; a breakfast cup without
a handle completed the furniture of the table, and in the rickety
armchair was an eight-week-old "Morning Post."
"The Cabinet Committee has neglected its opportunities," grumbled
the Poet, surveying with disfavor the dusty, derelict scene.
Then his eye was caught by a long envelope, thrust half-way under
the door, from the Cabinet Committee itself. An indecipherable
set of initials, later describing itself as his obedient servant,
was directed to inform him on a date two months earlier that it
had been decided not to requisition the offices and chambers of
Stafford's Inn. The formal notice was accordingly to be regarded
as canceled.
The Poet, who knew nothing of business, wrote instructing his
solicitors to claim for two months' disturbance from the Defense
of the Realm Commission on Losses and to include all legal costs
in the claim.
IV
Three weeks later the Private Secretary was strolling across the
Horse Guard's Parade on his way to luncheon, when he caught sight
of the Poet. Since their last altercation his conscience had been
as uneasy as a Private Secretary's conscience can be, and he strove
to avoid the meeting. The Poet, however, was full of sunshine and
smiles.
"I've not seen you for weeks!" he cried welcomingly. "How's everybody
and what's everybody doing? Is the Millionaire all right again?
I understand he's been ill."
The Private Secretary eyed his friend suspiciously.
"He has not left his house for three weeks," he answered.
"And the Iron King."
"He has not either."
The Poet's eyes lit up with dawning comprehension.
"What about the Lexicographer and the Official Receiver?" he asked.
"The same? What an infernal nuisance! I wanted to call round and
see whether they had got me a flat."
The Private Secretary shook his head.
"It's not the least use," he said emphatically. "None of them
has been outside his front door for three weeks, no one knows when
they'll come out again, no one is allowed inside. Last night I
had a box given me for the theater, and I tried to make up a party;
all their telephones were disconnected, and, when I drove round
in person, I couldn't even get the bell answered." He paused and
then enquired carelessly, "By the way, have you got into your new
quarters yet? They would be interested to know."
"I haven't got any new quarters," answered the Poet. "You remember
that you and the others were going to find them for me. I know
nothing of business--and I'm not likely to get new rooms until I
see the Millionaire and the Iron King."
At the steps of his club the Private Secretary paused, as though
wondering whether to say that the Poet was unlikely to see the
Iron King or the Millionaire until he had got his new rooms. This
prolonged voluntary self-internment was a source of inconvenience,
for in the peaceful days before the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation
had stepped in, there were pleasant parties in Eaton Square and
Park Lane. Now the Private Secretary was reduced to paying for
his own dinners more often than was agreeable. He said nothing,
however, for fear of concentrating the Poet's fire on himself.
"It must be simply wrecking their business," said the Poet to himself,
as he walked to Bedford Row to see how the claim for disturbance
was progressing. "It serves them right, though, for talking drains
when I wanted to go to bed."
Stephen McKenna
The Spell of the Kilties
What made the crowds turn out in their applauding thousands in New
York, Boston, Chicago, Brooklyn, and wherever the "Kilties" from
Canada appeared during their visit to the United States of America
on their British Recruiting Mission, during the summer of 1917?
Or why do the inhabitants of Paris single out the kilted regiments
when a March Past of the forces of the Allies is held on a National
Fete Day, and press upon the soldiers with showers of flowers and
tokens of admiration?
Is it simply because the dress worn is somewhat out of the
common, giving a touch of color to these gray times, and bringing
associations of days of old, as the men swing along, with a swish
of their kilts, to the skirl of the Pipes?
Or is there not a deeper meaning in this spontaneous welcome which
comes so evidently from the hearts of the onlookers, and one which
is reflected in the popularity of Colonel Walter Scott's New York
kilted Highlanders, and by the many find bodies of men turned
out--mostly at their own expense--by the Scottish Clan and Highland
Dress Associations, in various cities of the U. S. A.?
The truth is that deep down in the hearts of the majority of the
human race there exists a profound attachment to the ideals of
gallantry and chivalry which were nourished by the stories we loved
in childhood, and by the tales of Scottish prowess, in prose and
poetry, selected for the school-books in use by the children of
the English-speaking peoples.
Scotland has indeed been blessed by the possession of poets
and bards who have preserved her annals and sung the deeds of her
patriot heroes in so alluring a form, that her sons and daughters
are assured of a welcome in any part of the world, and start with
the great asset of being always expected to "make good" in every land
of their adoption. Wherever they may roam, we find them occupying
positions of influence, and still cherishing and promulgating the
traditions and customs of the Land of the Heather, which impel to
high thinking, resolute doing, and the upholding of old standards,
such as build up the lives both of individuals and of nations.
And thus, when the moment of emergency arrives when "to every
man and nation comes the moment to decide" you will find the men
and women of Scottish descent to the forefront in every fight for
liberty and righteousness in every part of the globe.
And in the midst of the clash and din of arms you will catch ever
and anon the sound of the up-lifting cadence of some grand old
Scottish Psalm tune, bringing comfort, and courage, and clam,--and
then the call of the Pipes, inspiring war-worn troops to accomplish
impossible tasks, such as the feats which have made the Gordon
Highlanders and their Pipers immortal--as at Dargai, and have brought
fresh glory to many a Scottish Regiment in this great war--aye,
and to many a regiment of brother Gaels from Ireland also, of whose
exploits we have heard as they rushed into the fray, preceded by
their Irish War-Pipes.
A few weeks ago, a young widow with her two months' old baby in
her arms, was following the remains of her husband to his warrior's
grave "somewhere in France." She was dry-eyed and rebellious in
her youthful despair, as she walked at the head of the sad little
procession of her husband's comrades;--and then the party met
a Highland Pipe Band, whose Pipe-Major, quick to understand the
situation, halted his men, wheeled them round, and gave the signal
to play the lovely Lament: "Lochaber no more!"
At the sound of the familiar strains the founts of sorrow were
unsealed, and weeping, but comforted, the child-wife mother was
able to commit her dead hero's dust to the grave in sure and certain
confidence of a glorious re-union, and turned to face life again
with his little son, with strength and faith renewed.
This is but a little incident, but it illustrates the hold that
the music of the Gael has on the hearts of its children, and of its
power to evoke memories and associations full of inspiration both
in joy and in sorrow.
AND IS NOT THIS THE INTERPERTATION OF THE SPELL OF THE "KILTIES"?
[signed] Lady Aberdeen and Temain
Sherston's Wedding Eve
In the gathering twilight a man stood at the eastern window of a
room which formed the top story of one of the houses in Peter the
Great Terrace--that survival from the early nineteenth century which
forms a kind of recess in the broad thoroughfare linking Waterloo
Bridge with the Strand. The man's name was Shirley Sherston, and
among the happy, prosperous few who are concerned with such things,
he was known for his fine, distinguished work in domestic architecture.
It was the evening of October 13, 1915, and Sherston was to be
married to-morrow.
Now, for what most people would have thought a puerile reason, that
with him 13 had always proved a luck number, he had much wished that
to-day should be his wedding day. And Helen Pomeroy, his future
wife, who never thought anything he did or desired to do puerile
or unreasonable, had been quite willing to fall in with his fancy.
The lucky day had actually been chosen. Then a tiresome woman, a
sister of Miss Pomeroy's mother, had said she could not be present
at the marriage if it took place on the thirteenth, as on that day
her son, who had been home on leave, was going back to the Front.
She had also pointed out quite unnecessarily, that 13 is an unlucky
number.
Staring out into the darkness, Sherston's stormy, eager heart began
to quiver with longing, with regret, and with the half-painful
rapture of anticipation. He had suddenly visioned--and Sherston
was a man given to vivid visions--where he would have been now, at
this moment, had his marriage indeed taken place this morning. He
saw himself, on this beautiful starlit, moonless night, standing,
along with his dear love, on the platform of a medieval tower, which,
together with the picturesque farmhouse which had been tacked on to
the tower about a hundred years ago, rose, close to the seashore,
on a lonely stretch of the Sussex coast.
But what was not true tonight would be true to-morrow night,
twenty-four hours from now.
He had bought tower and house three years ago, and he had spent there
many happy holidays, boating and fishing, alone, or in company of
some man chum. Sherston had never thought to bring a woman there,
for the morrow's bridegroom, for some six to seven years past, had
had an impatient contempt for, as well as fear of, women.
Sherston was a widower, though he never used the word, even in his
innermost heart, for to him the term connoted something slightly
absurd, and he was sensitive to ridicule.
Very few of the people at preset acquainted with the brilliant,
pleasantly eccentric architect, knew that he had been married
before. But of course the handful of old Bohemian comrades whom
he had faithfully kept from out of the past, were well aware of
the fact. They were not likely to forget it either, for whenever
it was mentioned, each of them at once remembered that which at
the time it had happened, Sherston had every reason to tell rather
than to conceal, namely, that the woman who had been his wife had
gone down with the Titanic.
But how long ago that now seemed!
The outbreak of war, which caused so much unmerited misfortune to
English artists and their like, and which at one moment had threatened
to wreck his own successful opening career, had brought to Shirley
Sherston a piece of marvelous good fortune..
Early in the memorable August, 1914, at a time when the fabric of
his life and work seemed shattered, and when the lameness which
he had so triumphantly coped with during his grown up life as to
cause those about him scarcely to know it was there, made it out
of the question for him to respond to his country's first call for
men, the architect happened to run across James Pomeroy, a cultivated
millionaire with whom he had once had a slight business relation.
Acting on a kindly impulse which even now Mr. Pomeroy hardly knew
whether to remember with pleasure or regret, the older man had
pressed the younger to spend a week in a country house which he
had taken for the summer near London.
That was now fourteen months ago, but Sherston, standing there,
remembered as if it had happened yesterday, his first sight of
the girl who was to become his wife to-morrow. Helen Pomeroy had
been standing on a brick path bordered with holly hocks, and she
had smiled, a little shyly and gravely, at her father's rather
eccentric-looking guest. But on that war-summer morning she had
appeared to the stranger as does a mirage of spring water to a man
who is dying of thirst in the desert.
Up to that time Sherston had always supposed himself to be attracted
to small women. He was a big, fair man, with loosely hung limbs,
and his wife--poor little baggage--had been a tiny creature, vixenish
at her worst, kittenish at her best. But Helen Pomeroy was tall,
with the noble proportions and tapering limbs of a goddess, and
gradually--not for some time, for all social life was dislocated in
England during that strange summer--Sherston became aware, with a
kind of angry revolt of soul, that he was but one of many worshipers
at the shrine.
Following an irresistible impulse, he early in their acquaintance
told Helen Pomeroy more of himself than he had ever told any other
human being; and his confidences at last included a bowdlerized
account of his wretched marriage. But though they soon became
friends, and though he went on seeing a great deal of her, all
through that autumn and winter, Sherston feared to put his fate
to the touch, and he was jealous--God alone knew how hideously,
intolerably jealous--of the khaki-clad soldiers who came and went
in her father's house in town.
and then, one day, during the second summer of their acquaintance,
a word let drop by Mr. Pomeroy, who had become fond of the odd,
restless fellow, opened a pit before Sherston's feet. It was a
word implying that now, at last, Helen's father and mother hoped
she would "make up her mind." A very distinguished soldier, whom
she had refused as a girl of twenty, had come back unchanged,
after six years, from India, and Helen, or so her parents hoped
and thought, was seriously thinking of him.
Sherston had kept away. He had even left two of her letters--the
rather formal letters which had come to mean so very much in his
life--unanswered. A fortnight had gone by, and then there had
reached him a prim little note from Mrs. Pomeroy, asking him why
he had not been to see them lately. There was a postscript: "If
you do not come soon, you will not see my daughter. She has not
been well, and we are thinking of sending her up to Scotland, to
friends who are in Skye, for a good long holiday."
He had gone to Cadogan Square (it was August 13th) as quickly as a
taxi could take him, and by a blessed stroke of luck he had found
Miss Pomeroy alone. In a flash all had come right between them.
That had only been nine weeks ago, and now they were to be married
to-morrow...
Sherston had been standing a long time at that casement of his
which commanded the huge gray mass of Somerset House, when at last
he turned round, and went quickly across the room to the other,
western, window.
Even in the gathering darkness what a faery view was there! Glad
as he was to know that after to-night he would never again see this
living room in its present familiar guise--for he had arranged with
a furniture dealer to come and take everything left in it away,
within an hour of his departure--he told himself that never again
could he hope to live with such a view as that on which he was
gazing out now.
The yellowing branches of the trees which have their roots deep in
the graveyard of the old Savoy Chapel formed, even in mid-October,
a delicious screen of living, moving leaves. Far below, to his
left, ran the river Thames, its rushing waters full of a mysterious,
darksome beauty, and illumined, here and there, with the quivering
reflection of shadowed white, green and red lights. Sherston in
his heart often blessed the Sepelin scare which had banished the
monstrous, flaring signs which, till a few months ago, had so offended
his eyes each time that he looked out into the night, towards the
water.
The lease of a fine old house in Cheyenne Walk had been chosen by
Mr. Pomeroy as his daughter's wedding gift, and already certain of
Sherston's personal possessions had been moved there. But he was
taking with him as little as possible, and practically nothing from
this memory-haunted room.
It was the big, light, airy, loft-like apartment which had attracted
him in these chambers fifteen years ago, when he had first come to
London from the Midlands, at the age of three-and-twenty. It was
here, five years later, that he had come straight back from the
Soho Registry Office with the young woman whom he had quixotically
drawn up out of a world--the nether world--where she had been
happier than she could ever hope to become with him. For Kitty
Brawle--her very surname was symbolic--was one of those doomed
creatures who love the mud, who never really wish to leave the
mud--who feel scraped and sad when clean.
Unhappy Sherston! The noblest thing he had ever done, or was ever
likely to do, in his life, proved, for a time at least, his undoing.
Kitty had made him from generous mean, from unsuspecting suspicious,
and during the wretched year they had spent together she had had
a disastrous effect on his work. At last, acting on the shrewd
advice of one of those instinctive men of the world of which Bohemia
is full, he had bought her a billet in a theatrical touring company.
There, by an extraordinary chance, Kitty made a tiny hit--sufficiently
of a hit to bring her from an American impresario a creditable
offer, contingent on her fare being paid to the States.
Gladly, how gladly only he himself had known--Sherston had taken
her passage in the Titanic, Kitty's own characteristic choice of a
boat. And he had done more. though short of money, he had given
Kitty a hundred pounds.
Four days after their parting had come the astounding news of the
sinking of the liner, followed, by Sherston, by a period of strange,
painful suspense, filled with the eager scanning of lists, cables
to and from America, finally terminated by an official intimation
that poor Kitty had gone down in, and with, the ship.
Sherston's imagination was inconveniently vivid, and for a few
poignant weeks his wife's horrible end haunted him. But after a
while he forced himself to take a long holiday in Greece, and from
there he came back with his nerves in better order than they had
ever been.
Fate, which so seldom interferes with kindly intention in the lives
of men, had cut what had become a strangling knot, and Kitty, from
a dreadful, never-forgotten burden, had become a rather touching,
piteous memory, growing ever dimmer as first the months, and then
the years, slipped by.
Even so, her ghost sufficiently often haunted this large room, and
the other apartments which composed Sherston's set of chambers, to
make him determine that Miss Pomeroy should never come there. And
she, being in this as unlike other, commonplace, young woman as she
was in everything else, had never put him to the pain of finding
an insincere excuse for his unwillingness to show her the place in
which he lived and worked....
The coming night stretched long and bleak before to-morrow's
bridegroom. There were fourteen hours to live through before he
could even see Helen, for the time of the marriage had been fixed
for eleven o'clock.
Sherston was not looking forward to the actual ceremony--no man ever
does; and though it was to be a war wedding, a great many people,
as he was ruefully aware, had been bidden to the ceremony. But
it was comfortable to know that none of the guests had been asked
to go back to the house from which he and his bride were to start
for Sussex at one o'clock, in the motor which was Mrs. Pomeroy's
marriage gift to her daughter.
Suddenly Sherston discovered the he was very hungry! He had lunched
at Cadogan Square at a quarter to two, but he had felt too inwardly
excited in that queer atmosphere of tears and laughter, of trousseau
and wedding presents, to eat.
Even the least earthly of Romantics cannot forget for long the
claims of the flesh, and so, smiling a little wryly in the darkness,
he now told himself that the best thing he could do was to go out
and get some supper. Acquainted with all the eating houses in the
region, he was glad indeed that after to-night he would never have
to enter one again.
Pulling down the green blind in front of him, Sherston walked
across the room and pulled down the blind of the other window, for
the London lighting orders had become much stricter of late. Then
he turned on the electric light switch, took up his hat and stick,
and went out into the little lobby.
Before him was a narrow aperture which opened straight on to the
steep, short flight of steps connecting his chambers with the stone
staircase of the big old house. This latter-like set of steps had
a door top and bottom, but the lower door, which gave on to the
landing, was generally left open. Turning out the light in the
lobby, Sherston put his left hand on the banister and slid down in
the darkness, taking the dozen steps as it were in one stride.
As he reached the bottom he suddenly became aware that the door
before him, that giving on the landing, was shut, and that some
one, almost certainly a child--for there was not room on the mat
for a full-grown person--was crouching down just within the door.
Sherston felt sharply, perhaps unreasonably, irritated. Known
in the neighborhood as open-handed and kindly, it had sometimes
happened, but generally only in wintry weather, that he had come
home to find some poor waif lying in wait for him. Man, woman or
child who had wandered in, maybe, before the big door downstairs
was closed, or who, if still blessed with some outer semblance of
gentility, had managed cunningly to get past the Cerberus who lived
in the basement, and whose duty it was to open the front door,
after eight at night, to non-residents.
He felt in his pocket for a half-a-crown, and then, pretending
still to be unaware that there was any one there, he fumbled for
the spring lock.
The door burst open--he saw before him the shaft of glimmering
whiteness shed by the skylight, for since the Zeppelin raid of the
month before, the staircase was always left in darkness--and the
figure of his unknown guest rolled over, picked itself up, and
stood revealed, a woman, not a child, as he had at first thought.
And then a feeling of sick, shrinking fear came over Sherston, for
there fell on his ears the once horribly familiar accents--plaintive,
wheedling, falsely timorous--of his dead wife's voice....
"Is that you, Shirley? I didn't know that you was at home. The
windows were all dark, and--" In an injured tone this: "I've been
waiting here ever so long for you to come in!"
The wraith-like figure before him was only too clearly flesh and
blood, and, as he stepped forward, it moved quickly across, and
stood, barring his way, on the top stone step of the big staircase.
Sherston remained silent. He could think of nothing to say. But
his mind began to work with extraordinary rapidity and lucidity.
There was only one thing to do, here and now. That was to give
the woman standing there a little money--not much--and tell her to
come back again the next day. Having thus got rid of her--he knew
that on no account must she be allowed to stay here the night--he
must go at once to Mr. Pomeroy and tell him of this terrible, hitherto
unimaginable, calamity. He told himself that it would be, if not
exactly easy, then certainly possible to arrange a divorce.
Determinedly, in these tense, terrible moments, he refused to let
himself face the coming anguish and dismay of the morrow. It was
just a blow, straight between the eyes from fate--that fate who he
had foolishly thought had been kind.
"Well? Are you going to let me stand here all night?"
"No, of course not. Wait a minute--I'm thinking." He spoke in a
quick, hoarse tone, a tone alas! which Kitty at one time in their
joint lives had come to associate with deep feeling on his part,
in those days when she used to come and tell the lonely man of her
sorrows, of her temptations, and of her vague, upward aspirations....
She lurched a little towards him. Everything was going far better
than she could have hoped; why, Sherston did not seem angry, hardly
annoyed, at her unheralded return!
Suddenly he felt her thin, strong arms closing round his body, in
a horrible vice-like grip--
"Don't touch me!" he cried fiercely; and making a greater physical
effort than he would have thought himself capable of, he shook
himself violently free.
He saw her reel backwards and fall, with a queer grotesque movement,
head over heels down the stone steps. The dull thud her body made
as she fell on the half landing echoed up and down the bare well
of the staircase.
Sherston's heart smote him. He had not meant to do THAT. Then
he reminded himself bitterly that drunkards always fall soft. She
could not have hurt herself much, falling that little way.
He waited a few moments; then, as she made no effort to raise
herself, he walked down, slowly, unwillingly, towards her. From
the little he could see in the dim light cast from above, Kitty
was lying very oddly, all in a heap, her head against the wall.
He knelt down by her side.
"Kitty," he said quietly. "Try and get up. I'm sorry if I hurt
you, but you took me by surprise. I--I--"
But there came no word, no moan even, in answer.
He felt for her limp hand, and held it a moment, but it lay in his,
inertly. Filled with a queer, growing fear, he struck a match,
bent down, and saw, for the first time that night, her face. It
looked older, incredibly older, than when he had last seen it, five
years ago! The hair near the temples had turned gray. Her eyes
were wide open--and even as he looked earnestly into her face,
her jaw suddenly dropped. He started back with an extraordinary
feeling of mingled fear and repugnance.
Striking match after match as he went, he rushed up again into his
chambers, and looked about for a hand mirror.... He failed to find
one, and at last he brought down his shaving glass.
With shaking hands he laid it close against that hideous, gaping
mouth, for five long dragging minutes. The glass remained clear,
untarnished.
Putting a great constraint on himself, he forced himself to move
her head. And the truth came to him! In that strange short fall
Kitty had broken her neck. For the second time he was free. But
this time her death, instead of cutting a knot, bound him as with
cords of twisted steel to shame, and yes, to deadly peril.
Slowly he got up from his knees. Unless he went and jumped over
the parapet of the Embankment into the river--a possibility which
he grimly envisaged for a few moments--he knew that the only thing
to do was to go off at once for the police, and make, as the saying
is, a clean breast of it. After all he was innocent--innocent of
even a secret desire of encompassing Kitty's death. But would it
be possible to make even the indifferent, when aware of all the
circumstances, believe that? Yes, there was one such human being--and
as he thought of her his heart glowed with gratitude to God for
having made her known to him. Helen would believe him, Helen would
understand everything--and nothing else really mattered. It was
curious how the thought of Helen, which had been agony an hour ago,
now filled him with a kind of steadfast comfort.
As Sherston turned to go down the staircase, there came the distant
sound of the bursting of a motor tire, and the unhappy man started
violently. His nerves were now in pieces, but he remembered, as
he went down the stone steps, to feel in one of his pockets, to be
sure he had what he so seldom used, a card-case on him.
On reaching the front door he was surprised to find it open, and
to see just within the hall, their white caps and pale faces dimly
illumined by the little light that glimmered in from outside, two
trained nurses with bags in their hands. They were talking eagerly,
and took no notice of him as he passed.
For a moment Sherston wondered whether he ought to tell them of
the terrible accident which had just happened upstairs--but after
a momentary hesitation he decided that it would be better to go
straight off to the Police Station. Already his excited brain saw
a nurse standing in the witness-box at a trial where he himself
stood in the dock on a charge of murder. So, past the two whispering
women, he hurried out into the darkness.
Even in the grievous state of mental distress in which he now found
himself, Sherston noticed that the street lamps were turned so low
that there only shone out, under their green shades, pallid spots
of light. And as he stumbled across the curb of the pavement, he
told himself, with irritation, that that was really rather absurd!
More accidents proceeded from the absence of light than were ever
likely to be caused by the Zeppelins.
Perforce walking warily, he hastened towards the Strand. There
was less traffic than usual, fewer people, too, on the pavement,
but it was just after nine o'clock, the quietest time of the evening.
Suddenly a huge column of flame shot up some thirty yards in front
of him, and then (it seemed to all to happen in a moment) a line of
men, police, and special constables, spread across the thoroughfare
in which he now was, barring off the Strand.
Sherston quickened his footsteps. For a moment his own disturbed
and fearsome thoughts were banished by the extraordinary and exciting
sight before him. Higher and higher mounted the pillar of fire,
throwing a sinister glare on the buildings, high and low, new and
old, round about it. "Good Heavens!" he exclaimed involuntarily.
"Is that the Lyceum on fire?" A policeman near whom he was now
standing, turned round and said shortly, "Can't say, I'm sure,
sir."
He witnessed in the next few minutes a strange scene of confusion,
of hurrying and scurrying hither and thither. Where there had
been almost pitch darkness, was now a glittering, brilliant bath
of light, in which the figures of men and women, moving swiftly to
and fro, appeared like animated silhouettes. But even as he stared
before him at the extraordinary Hogarthian vision, the roadway and
the pavements of the Strand became strangely and suddenly deserted,
while he began to hear the hoot, hoot of the fire-engines galloping
to the scene of the disaster. Before him the line of police and
of special constables remained unbroken, and barred his further
progress.
"I don't want to go past the theater," he whispered urgently. "I
only want to get to Bow Street, as quickly as possible, on a very
important matter." He slipped the half-crown he had meant to give
the waif he had taken Kitty to be, into a policeman's hand, and
though the man shook his head he let him through.
Sherston shot down the Strand, to his left. Almost filling up the
steep, lane-like street which leads down to the Savoy Hotel, were
rows of ambulances, groups of nurses, and Red Cross men, and absorbed
though he was once more in his own sensations, and the thought of
the terrible ordeal that lay in front of him, Sherston yet found
himself admiring the quickness with which they had been rushed
hither.
On he went, and crossed the empty roadway. How strange that so
little attention was being paid to the fire! Instead of a hurrying
mob of men and women, the Strand was now extraordinarily empty,
both of people and of vehicles, and now and again he could hear
the sound of knocking, of urgent knocking, as if some one who has
been locked out, and is determined to be let in.
He strode quickly along, feeling his way somewhat, for apart from
the reflection of the red sky, it was pitch dark in the side streets,
and soon he stood before the Police Station. The big old-fashioned
building was just within the outer circle of light cast by the huge
fire whose fierceness seemed to increase rather than diminish, and
Sherston suddenly espied an Inspector standing half in the open
door. "I've some very urgent business," he said hurriedly. "Could
you come inside for a moment, and take down a statement?"
"What's your business about?" said the man sharply, and in the
wavering light Sherston thought his face looked oddly distraught
and pale.
"There's a woman lying dead at No. 19 Peter the Great Terrace,"
began Sherston curtly--
The man bent forward. "There's many women already lying dead about
here, sir, and likely to be more--babies and children too--before
we're through with this hellish business!" he said grimly. "If
she's dead, poor thing, we can do nothing for her. But if you
think there's any life left in her--well, you'll find plenty of
ambulances, as well as doctors and nurses, down Strand way. But
if I was you, I'd wait a bit before going back. They're still
about--" and even as he uttered the word "about" he started back
into the shelter of the building, pulling Sherston roughly in with
him as he did so, and there came a loud, dull report, curiously
analogous to that which a quarter of an hour ago--it seemed hours
rather than minutes--Sherston had taken for the bursting of a
motor tire. But this time the sound was at once followed by that
of shattered glass, and of falling masonry.
"Good God!" he cried. "What's that?"
"A goodish lot of damage this time, I should think," said the
Inspector thoughtfully. "Though they're doing wonderfully little
considering how they--"
"THEY?"
"Zeppelins, of course, sir! Why didn't you guess that? They say
there're two over us if not three." Then in a voice, so changed,
so charged with relief, that his own mother would not have known
it for the same, the man exclaimed, "Look up, sir--there they are!
And they're off--the hellish things!" And Sherston throwing up
his head, did indeed see what looked to his astonished eyes like
two beautiful golden trout swimming across the sky just above him.
As he stood awestruck, fascinated at the astounding sight, he also
saw what looked like a falling star shoot down from one of the
Zeppelins, and again there fell on his ears that strange explosive
thud.
The man by his side uttered a stifled oath. "There's another--let's
hope it's the last in this district!" he exclaimed. "See! They're
off down the river now!"
Even as he said the words the space in front of the Police Station
was suddenly filled with a surging mass of people, men, women,
even children, making their way Strandward, to see all that there
was to see, now that the immediate danger was past.
"If I were you, sir, I think I'd stay here quietly a bit, till
the crowd has thinned, and been driven back. I take it you can't
do that poor woman of whom you spoke just now any good--I take it
she's dead, sir?" the Inspector spoke very feelingly.
"Yes, she certainly is dead," said Sherston dully.
"Well, I must be going now, but if you like to stay here a while,
I'm sure you're welcome, sir."
"No," said Sherston. "I think I'll go out and see whether I can
do anything to help."
The two passed out into the roadway, and took their place among the
slowly moving people there, the Inspector make a way for himself
and his companion through the excited, talkative, good-humored
Cockney crowd. "There it is! Can't you see it? Up there just
like a little yellow worm." "There's naught at all! You've got
the cobble-wobbles!" and then a ripple of laughter.
Sherston was borne along with the human stream, and with that stream
he suddenly found himself stopped at the westward end of Wellington
Street. Over the heads of the people before him--they were, oddly
enough, mostly women--he could see the column of flame still burning
steadily upwards, and scarcely affected at all by the huge jets of
water now playing on it.
It seemed to start from the ground, a massive pillar of fire, and
all round it was an empty space--a zone no human being could approach
for fear of being at once roasted and shriveled up to death. "The
bomb got down to the big gas main," observed a voice close to him.
"It'll be days before they get THAT fire under!"
He, Sherston, felt marvelously calm. This strange, awful visitation
had made for him a breathing space in which to reconsider what he
had better do, and suddenly he decided that he would go and consult
Mr. Pomeroy. But before doing that he must force himself to go
back and fetch certain documents which fortunately he had kept....
He made his way, with a great deal of difficulty--for it was as
if all London had by now flocked to this one afflicted area--by
a circuitous way to the Strand. Tramping through a six-inch-deep
flood of broken glass he made his way by the Embankment and the
Waterloo Bridge steps to the upper level, that leading to, and
past, Peter the Great Terrace.
A vast host was now westward from over the river, and he felt the
electric currents of joyous excitement, retrospective fear, and,
above all, of eager, almost ferocious, curiosity, linking up rapidly
about him. The rough and ready cordon of special constables seemed
powerless to dam the human tide, and caught in that tide's eddies,
Sherston struggled helplessly.
"Let me through," he shouted at last. "I MUST get through!"
"You can't get through just here--there's a house been struck in
Peter the Great Terrace! 'Twas the last bomb did it!"
Sherston uttered a groan--Ah! If only that were true! But he had
just now glanced up and seen the row of big substantial eighteenth
century houses, of which his was the end one, solidly outlined
against the star-powdered sky, though every pane of glass had been
blown out.
Then some one turned round. "It's the corner house been struck.
Bomb fell right through the skylight. They've sent for the firemen
to see what damage was done. You can't see anything from this
side."
THROUGH THE SKYLIGHT?
Sherston was a powerful man. He forced his way, he did not know
how, blindly, to the very front of the crowd.
Yes, there were two firemen standing by the low, sunk-in door, that
door through which he had come and gone hundreds, nay thousands, of
times, in his life. So much was true, but everything else was as
usual. "I live here," he said hoarsely. "Will you let me through?"
The fireman shook his head. "No, sir. I can't let any one through.
And if I did 'twould be no good. The staircase is clean gone--a
great big stone staircase, too! It's all in bits, just like a lot
of rubble. The front of the house ain't touched, but the center
and behind--well, sir, you never did see such a sight!"
"Any one hurt?" asked Sherston in a strangled tone. He felt a
most extraordinary physical sensation of lightness--of--of--was it
dissolution?--sweep over his mind and body. He heard as in a far
away dream the answer to his question.
"There was no one in the house at all, from what we can make out.
The caretaker had a lucky escape, or he'd be buried alive by now,
but he and his missus had already gone out to see the sights."
A moment later the fireman was holding Sherston in his big brawny
arms, and shouting, "An ambulance this way--send a long a nurse
please--gentleman's fainted!" The crowd parted eagerly, respectfully.
"Poor feller!" exclaimed one woman in half piteous, half furious
tones. "Those damned Germans--they've gone and destroyed the poor
chap's little all. I heard him explaining just now as what he
lived here!"
[signed]Maid Belloc Lowndes
A Canadian Soldier's Dominion Day at Shorncliffe
"Is there a holiday next Thursday?" inquired a Canadian officer of
an English confrere.
"A holiday? Not that I know of. Why should there be?"
"Why? Because it's Dominion Day."
"Dominion Day?" blankly echoed the English Officer.
"Yes! Did you never hear of it, you benighted Islander?"
"I really am afraid not," replied the English Officer, convicted
by the Canadian's tone of nothing less than crime. "Just what is
it?"
"Perhaps you have never heard of Canada?"
"Well, RATHER, we hear something of Canada these days."
Then, as the light began to break in on his darkened soul, "Ah, I
see, that is your Canadian National Day, is it not?"
"It is. And the question is, 'Are we going to have a holiday?'"
"Well, you see the King specially requested that there be no holiday
on his birthday."
"The King's birthday! Oh, that's right--but this is different,
you see."
The Englishman looked mildly surprised.
"Oh, the King's all right," continued the Canadian, answering
the other's look, "we think a lot of him these days. But--you
know--Dominion Day--"
"I hope you may get it, old chap, but I fancy we are in for the
usual grind."
The Canadian officer had little objection to the grind nor had
his men. The Canadians eat up work. But somehow it did not seem
right that the 1st of July slide past without celebration of any
kind. He had memories of that day, of its early morning hours when
a kid he used to steal down stairs to let off a few firecrackers
from his precious bunch just to see how they would go. Latterly he
had not cared for the fireworks part of it except for the Kiddies.
But somehow he was conscious of a new interest in Canada's birthday.
Perhaps because Canada was so far away and the Kiddies would be
wanting some one to set off their crackers. It was good to be in
England, the beautiful old motherland, but it was not Canada and
it did not seem right that Canada's birthday should be allowed to
pass unmarked. So too through the Commandant of the Shorncliffe
Camp, a right good Canadian he.
"I have arranged a Tattoo for the evening," he announced in
conversation with the Canadian Officer the day before the First.
"What about a holiday, Colonel?" The Commandant shook his head.
"Well, then, a half-holiday?"
"No. At least," remembering the officer's ancestry and that he
was a Canadian Highlander, "not officially, whateffer."
"Shall I get a rope for the Tug of War, do you think?"
"I think," replied the Commandant slowly with a wink in his left
eye, "you might get the rope."
This was sufficient encouragement for the 43rd to go on with and
so the rope was got and vaulting pole and standards with other
appurtenances of a day of sports. And the preparations went bravely
on. So also went on the Syllabus which for Dominion Day showed,
Company Drill, Instruction Classes, Lectures, Physical for the
forenoon, Bayonet fighting and Route marching for the afternoon.
"All right, let her go," and so the fields and plains, the lanes and
roads are filled with Canadian soldiers celebrating their Dominion
Day, drilling, bayonet fighting, route marching, while overhead
soars thrumming the watchful airship, Britain's eye. For Britain
has a business on hand. Just yonder stretches the misty sea where
unsleeping lie Britain's men of war. Beyond the sea bleeding
Belgium has bloodsoaked ground crying to Heaven long waiting but
soon at length to hear. And France fiercely, proudly proving her
right to live an independent nation. And Germany. Germany! the
last word in intellectual power, in industrial achievement, in
scientific research, aye and in infamous brutality! Germany, the
might modern Hun, the highly scienced barbarian of this twentieth
Century, more bloody than Attila, more ruthless than his savage
hordes. Germany doomed to destruction because freedom is man's
inalienable birthright, man's undying passion. Germany! fated to
execration by future generations for that she ahs crucified the
Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame. Germany! for the
balking of whose insolent and futile ambition, and for the crushing of
whose archaic military madness we Canadians are tramping on this
Dominion Day these English fields and these sweet English lanes 5,000
miles from our Western Canada which dear land we can not ever see
again if this monstrous threatening cloud be not removed forever
from our sky. For this it is that 100,000 Canadian citizens have
left their homes with 500,000 eager more to follow if needed, other
sons of the Empire knit in one firm resolve that once more Freedom
shall be saved for the race as by their sires in other days.
But the Tattoo is on--the ground chosen is the little plateau within
the lines of the 43rd just below the Officer's tents, flanked on
one side by a sloping grassy hill on the other by a row of ancient
trees shading a little hidden brook that gurgles softly to itself
all day long. On the sloping hill the soldiers of the various
battalions lie stretched at ease in khaki colored kilts and trews,
caps and bonnets, except the men of the 43rd who wear the dark
blue Glengarry. In the center of the plateau a platform invites
attention and on each side facing it rows of chairs for officers
and their friends, among the latter some officers' wives, happy
creatures and happy officers to have them so near and not 5,000
miles away.
The Commandant has been called away on a sad business, a soldier's
funeral, hence the Junior Major of the 43rd as chairman of that
important and delicately organized Committee of the Bandmasters and
Pipe Majors of the various battalions is in charge of the program.
Major Grassie is equal to the occasion, quiet, ready resourceful.
With him associated is Major Watts, Adjutant of the 9th, as
Musical Director; in peaceful times organist and choir master of
a Presbyterian congregation in Edmonton far away.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The drums in the distance begin to throb and from the eastern side
of the plain march in the band of the 9th playing their regimental
march, "Garry Owen," none the less. From the west the band of the
11th, then that of the 12th, finally (for the 43rd Band is away
on leave, worse luck) the splendid Band of the 49th, each playing
its own Regimental march which is taken up by the bands already
in position. Next comes the massed buglers of all the regiments,
their thrilling soaring notes rising above the hills, and take their
stand beside the bands already in place. Then a pause, when from
round the hill shoulder rise wild and weird sounds. The music of
the evening, to Scottish hearts and ears, has begun. It is the
fine pipe band of the 42nd Royal Highlanders from Montreal, khaki
clad, kilts and bonnets, and blowing proudly and defiantly their
"Wha saw the Forty-twa." Again a pause and from the other side
of the hill gay with tartan and blue bonnets, their great blooming
drones gorgeous with flowing streamers and silver mountings, in
march the 43rd Camerons. "Man, would Alex Macdonald be proud of
his pipes to-day," says a Winnipeg Highlander for these same pipes
are Alex's gift to the 43rd, and harkening to these great booming
drones I agree.
Ah these pipes! These Highland pipes! Truly as one of them said,
"Pipers are no just like other people!" Blowing their "Pilrock
of Donald Dhu" they swing into line, mighty and magnificent. Last
comes the brave little pipe band of the 49th. This battalion has
one Scotch company from Edmonton, which insisted on bringing its
pipe band along. Why not? "The Blue Bonnets" is their tune and
finely they ring it out. Now they are all in place, Bands, Bugle
and Pipes. The massed Bands strike up our National Song, and all
the soldiers spring to their feet and sing "Oh, Canada." A little
high but our hearts were in it. And so the program goes on. Single
bands and massed bands with solos from French Horns, Trombones and
Cornets, varied delightfully with the Highland Fling by Pipe Major
Johnson of the 42nd, and the Sword Dance by Piper Reid of the 43rd
followed by an encore, the "Shean Rheubs" which I defy any mere
Sassenach to pronounce or to dance, at least as Piper Heid of the
twinkling feet danced it that night. For he did it "in the style
of Willie Maclennan," as a piper said, "the best of his day and
they have not matched him yet." The massed pipe bands play "The
79th's Farewell at Gibraltar." Forty-one pipers and every man
blowing his best. "Aye man, it is grand hearing you," said a man
from the north. Colonel Moore of the 9th, on a minute's warning,
makes a fine speech instinct with patriotic sentiment and calls for
three cheers for Canada. He got three and a tiger and "a tiger's
pup." Major Grassie in another speech neat and to the point thanks
those who had helped to celebrate our Dominion Day and once more
calls for cheers and gets them. Then the "First Post" warns us that
we are soldiers and under orders. The massed bands play "Nearer
My God to Thee." Full and tender the long drawn notes of the
great hymn rise and fall on the evening air, the soldiers joining
reverently. The Chaplain of the 43rd congratulates the Commandment
upon the happy suggestion of a Tattoo, the Chairman upon his very
successful program and all the Company upon a very happy celebration of
our national holiday--then a word about our Day and all it stands
for, a word about our Empire, our Country, our Kiddies at home,
another word of thanks to the Committee for the closing hymn so
eminently appropriate to their present circumstances and then God
bless our King, God bless our Empire, God bless our Great Cause
and God bless our dear Canada. Good night.
The "Last Post" sounds. Its piercing call falls sharp and startling
upon the silent night. Long after we say "Good night" that last
long-drawn note high and clear with its poignant pathos lingers in
our hearts. The Dominion Day celebration is over.
[signed]Ralph Connor
Simple as Day
It was among the retorts and test-tubes of his physical laboratory
that we were privileged to interview the Great Scientist. His
back was towards us when we entered. With characteristic modesty
he kept it so for some time after our entry. Even when he turned
round and saw us his face did not react off us as we should have
expected.
He seemed to look at us, if such a thing were possible, without
seeing us, or, at least, without wishing to see us.
We handed him our card.
He took it, read it, dropped it into a bowlful of sulphuric acid,
and then, with a quiet gesture of satisfaction, turned again to
his work.
We sat for some time behind him. "This then," we thought to
ourselves (we always think to ourselves when we are left alone)
"is the man, or rather is the back of the man, who has done more"
(here we consulted the notes given us by our editor) "to revolutionize
our conception of atomic dynamics than the back of any other man."
Presently the Great Scientist turned towards us with a sigh that
seemed to our ears to have a note of weariness in it. Something,
we felt, must be making him tired.
"What can I do for you?" he said.
"Professor," we answered, "we have called upon you in response to
an overwhelming demand on the part of the public--"
The Great Scientist nodded.
"--to learn something of your new researches and discoveries in--"
(here we consulted a minute card which we carried in our pocket)
"--in radio-active-emanations which are already becoming--" (we
consulted our card again) "--a household word--"
The professor raised his hand as if to check us--
"I would rather say," he murmured, "helio-radio-active--"
"So would we," we admitted, "much rather--"
"After all," said the Great Scientist, "helium shares in the most
intimate degree the properties of radium. So, too, for the matter
of that," he added in afterthought, "do thorium, and borium!"
"Even borium!" we exclaimed, delighted, and writing rapidly in our
note book. Already we saw ourselves writing up as our headline,
"Borium Shares Properties of Thorium."
"Just what is it," said the Great Scientist, "that you want to
know?"
"Professor," we answered, "what our journal wants is a plain and
simple explanation, so clear that even our readers can understand
it, of the new scientific discoveries in radium. We understand
that you possess more than any other man the gift of clear and
lucid thought--"
The Professor nodded.
"--and that you are able to express yourself with greater simplicity
than any two men now lecturing."
The Professor nodded again.
"Now, then," we said, spreading our notes on our knee, "go at it.
Tell us, and through us, tell a quarter of a million anxious readers
just what all these new discoveries are about."
"The whole thing," said the Professor, warming up to his work as
he perceived from the motions of our face and ears our intelligent
interest, "is simplicity itself. I can give it to you in a word--"
"That's it," we said. "Give it to us that way."
"It amounts, if one may boil it down to a phrase--"
"Boil it, boil it," we interrupted.
"--amounts, if one takes the mere gist of it--"
"Take it," we said, "take it."
"--amounts to the resolution of the ultimate atom."
"Ha!" we exclaimed.
"I must ask you first to clear your mind," the Professor continued,
"of all conception of ponder able magnitude."
We nodded. We had already cleared our minds of this.
"In fact," added the Professor, with what we thought a quiet note
of warning in his voice, "I need hardly tell you that what we are
dealing with must be regarded as altogether ultra-microscopic."
We hastened to assure the professor that, in accordance with the
high standards of honor represented by our journal, we should of
course regard anything that he might say as ultra-microscopic and
treat it accordingly.
"You say, then," we continued, "that the essence of the problem is
the resolution of the atom. Do you think you can give us any idea
of what the atom is?"
The professor looked at us searchingly.
We looked back at him, openly and frankly. The moment was critical
for our interview. Could he do it? Were we the kind of person
that he could give it to? Could we get it if he did?
"I think I can," he said. "Let us begin with the assumption that
the atom is an infinitesimal magnitude. Very good. Let us grant,
then, that though it is imponderable and indivisible it must have
a spatial content? You grant me this?"
"We do," we said, "we do more than this, we GIVE it to you."
"Very well. If spatial, it must have dimension: if dimension--form:
let us assume 'ex hypothesi' the form to be that of a spheroid and
see where it leads us."
The professor was now intensely interested. He walked to and from
in his laboratory. His features worked with excitement. We worked
ours, too, as sympathetically as we could.
"There is no other possible method in inductive science," he added,
"than to embrace some hypothesis, the most attractive that one can
find, and remain with it--"
We nodded. Even in our own humble life after our day's work we
had found this true.
"Now," said the Professor, planting himself squarely in front of
us, "assuming a spherical form, and a spatial content, assuming the
dynamic forces that are familiar to us and assuming--the thing is
bold, I admit--"
We looked as bold as we could.
"--assuming that the IONS, or NUCLEI of the atom--I know no better
word--"
"Neither do we," we said.
"--that the nuclei move under the energy of such forces what have
we got?"
"Ha!" we said.
"What have we got? Why, the simplest matter conceivable. The forces
inside our atom--itself, mind you, the function of a circle--mark
that--"
We did.
"--becomes merely a function of pi!"
The Great Scientist paused with a laugh of triumph.
"A function of pi!" we repeated with delight.
"Precisely. Our conception of ultimate matter is reduced to that
of an oblate spheroid described by the revolution of an ellipse on
its own minor axis!"
"Good heavens!" we said, "merely that."
"Nothing else. And in that case any further calculation becomes
a mere matter of the extraction of a root."
"How simple," we murmured.
"Is it not?" said the Professor. "In fact, I am accustomed,
in talking to my class, to give them a very clear idea, by simply
taking as our root F,--F being any finite constant--"
He looked at us sharply. We nodded.
"And raising F
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