gle, they too
will find themselves sucked into the backwater, impotent, insignificant,
and prosperous.

It is not treasonable, I think, to hope that the war will some day be
over. And let no one imagine that when the war is over it will be found
that the new movement in France is dead or dying. In little periodicals,
photographs, brochures, letters, and stray works that from time to time
cross the Channel there is plenty of evidence that it is as vital as
ever. Even a European war cannot kill a thing of that sort. The question
is whether, after the war, young English artists will realize that they
too, by reason of their vocation, of the truth that is in them, belong
to a communion wider and far more significant than the conventicle to
which they were bred. England, we hear, is to wake up after the war and
take her place in a league of nations. May we hope that young English
artists will venture to take theirs in an international league of youth?
That league existed before the war; but English painters appear to have
preferred being pigmies amongst cranes to being artists amongst artists.
_Aurons-nous change tout ca? Qui vivra verra._ The league exists; its
permanent headquarters are in Paris; and from London to Paris is two
hundred and fifty miles--a journey of seven and a half hours in times of
peace.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Since these words were written the British Press, or the Government
maybe, has had the bright idea of interning one of them. To be sure he
was a very bad painter; but the punishment seems rather severe for an
offence which usually incurs nothing worse than a knighthood.

[22] There are, of course, exceptions. The critics of the _Times_, the
_Westminster Gazette_, and the _Evening Standard_, for instance, are
neither ignorant nor stupid; but they are all, one fancies, hampered by
nervous and ill-educated editors.

[23] I have referred already to Mr. Roger Fry's article in the
_Burlington Magazine_, and would draw attention also to his article in
the _Nation_.

ART AND WAR[24]

An acquaintance of mine, a French artist, who used to live in England
and paint pictures for which I care nothing but on which the cultured
dote, started early in August to join his regiment, leaving behind him
his wife and five children. So miserable was the prospect before these
that a benevolent lady wrote to such of her rich friends as happened to
be amateurs of painting praying them to buy a picture or two and