Gallipoli, the grave of British Imperialism, streaming to
heaven with the dust and smoke of bursting shells and rifle fire and the
smoke and flame of burning brushwood. In the sea of Marmora a big ship
crowded with Turkish troops was sinking; and, purple under the clear
water, he could see the shape of the British submarine which had
torpedoed her and had submerged and was going away. Berlin prepared its
frugal meals, still far from famine. He saw the war in Europe as if he
saw it on a map, yet every human detail showed. Over hundreds of miles
of trenches east and west of Germany he could see shells bursting and
the men below dropping, and the stretcher-bearers going back with
the wounded. The roads to every front were crowded with reserves and
munitions. For a moment a little group of men indifferent to all this
struggle, who were landing amidst the Antarctic wilderness, held his
attention; and then his eyes went westward to the dark rolling Atlantic
across which, as the edge of the night was drawn like a curtain, more
and still more ships became visible beating upon their courses eastward
or westward under the overtaking day.
The wonder increased; the wonder of the single and infinitely
multitudinous adventure of mankind.
"So God perhaps sees it," he whispered.
(7)
"Look at this man," said the Angel, and the black shadow of a hand
seemed to point.
It was a Chinaman sitting with two others in a little low room separated
by translucent paper windows from a noisy street of shrill-voiced
people. The three had been talking of the ultimatum that Japan had sent
that day to China, claiming a priority in many matters over European
influences they were by no means sure whether it was a wrong or a
benefit that had been done to their country. From that topic they had
passed to the discussion of the war, and then of wars and national
aggressions and the perpetual thrusting and quarrelling of mankind. The
older man had said that so life would always be; it was the will of
Heaven. The little, very yellow-faced, emaciated man had agreed with
him. But now this younger man, to whose thoughts the Angel had so
particularly directed the bishop's attention, was speaking. He did not
agree with his companion.
"War is not the will of Heaven," he said; "it is the blindness of men."
"Man changes," he said, "from day to day and from age to age. The
science of the West has taught us that. Man changes and war changes and
all thin
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