om in a
lifetime one is present at a perfect piece of irony like that of those
shouting Flemish peasants.

As Antwerp was falling, a letter was given to me by a friend. It was
written by Aloysius Coen of the artillery, Fort St. Catherine Wavre,
Antwerp. He died in the bombardment, thirty-four years old. He wrote:

Dear wife and children:

At the moment that I am writing you this the enemy is before us,
and the moment has come for us to do our duty for our country. When
you will have received this I shall have changed the temporary life
for the eternal life. As I loved you all dearly, my last breath
will be directed toward you and my darling children, and with a
last smile as a farewell from my beloved family am I undertaking
the eternal journey.

I hope, whatever may be your later call, you will take good care of
my dear children, and always keep them in mind of the straight
road, always ask them to pray for their father, who in sadness,
though doing his duty for his country, has had to leave them so
young.

Say good-by for me to my dear brothers and sisters, from whom I
also carry with me a great love.

Farewell, dear wife, children, and family.

Your always remaining husband, father, and brother.

ALOYS.

Then Antwerp fell, and a people that had for the first time in memory
found itself an indivisible and self-conscious state broke into sullen
flight, and its merry, friendly army came heavy-footed down the road to
another country. Grieved and embittered, they served under new leaders
of another race. Those tired soldiers were like spirited children who
had been playing an exciting game which they thought would be applauded.
And suddenly the best turned out the worst.

Sing, Belgians, sing, though our wounds are bleeding.

writes the poet of Flanders; but the song is no earthly song. It is the
voice of a lost cause that cries out of the trampled dust as it
prepares to make its flight beyond the place of betrayal.

For the Belgian soldiers no longer sang, or made merry in the evening. A
young Brussels corporal in our party suddenly broke into sobbing when he
heard the chorus of "Tipperary" float over the channel from a transport
of untried British lads. The Belgians are a race of children whose
feelings have been hurt. The pathos of the Belgian army is like the
pathos of an orphan-asylum: it is unconscious.

They