feature. No more peaceful faces than one sees at times on the
battlefield, and sudden death, despite the Litany, is not the least
enviable exit. In this case there was something like a mild surprise on
the countenance. The rather stolid face could never have been very
expressive. An unposted letter was found on the dead man's body. It was
written in German, and I was asked to interpret it, in case it should
contain any important information. There was no important information;
just messages to friends and kindred, just the trivialities of camp
life.

The man was an invader, and in my eyes deserved an invader's doom. If
sides had been changed, he would have been a rebel, and would have
deserved a rebel's doom. I was not stirred to the depths by the sight,
but it gave me a lesson in grammar, and war has ever been concrete to me
from that time on. The horror I did not feel at first grew steadily. "A
sweet thing," says Pindar, "is war to those that have not tried it."

II

[Note: SPANGENBERG was a literary "bummer." The real author was one
ANDREAS GUARNA of Salerno. See FRAeNKEL, Zeitschrift fuer
Litteraturgeschichte, xiii, 242.]

[Note: Pindar's words are: [Greek: glyky d' apeiroisi polemos].]

Concrete or abstract, there are general resemblances between any two
wars, and so war lends itself readily to allegories. Every one has read
Bunyan's Holy War. Not every one has read Spangenberg's Grammatical War.
It is an ingenious performance, which fell into my hands many years
after I had gone forth to see and to feel what war was like. In
Spangenberg's Grammatical War the nouns and the verbs are the contending
parties. Poeta is king of the nouns, and Amo king of the verbs. There is
a regular debate between the two sovereigns. The king of the verbs
summons the adverbs to his help, the king of the nouns the pronouns.
The camps are pitched, the forces marshalled. The neutral power,
participle, is invoked by both parties, but declines to send open
assistance to either, hoping that in this contest between noun and verb
the third party will acquire the rule over the whole territory of
language. After a final summons on the part of the king of the verbs,
and a fierce response from the rival monarch, active hostilities begin.
We read of raids and forays. Prisoners are treated with contumely, and
their skirts are docked as in the Biblical narrative. Treachery adds
excitement to the situation. Skirmishes precede the great engage