FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141  
142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   >>   >|  
. The man you thought of as a brother looks at you with eyes of passionate hatred; you have eaten bread and salt together; you have drunk together; you have been uplifted by the same books; you have been sublimed by the same music; but he is a German, and your blood was made in another land, and he looks at you with suspicion and hate--perhaps you are a spy. (The spy mania! Dear Lord, what absurd, bloody, and abominable stories I could write of this madness which has Europe by the throat, this madness which is only another form of war hysteria.) A reversal to barbarism; you and the man who was your friend have gone back to the fear and hatred of primitive savages, meeting at the corner of a dark wood. All of humanity we have acquired in the slow way of evolution sloughs off us. We are savages once more. For science is dead. All the laboratories are shut, save those where poison is brewed and destruction is put up in packages. Education has ceased, save that fierce Nietzschean education which declares: "The weak and helpless must go to the wall; and we shall help them go." All that made life humanly fair is hidden in the fetid clouds of war where savages (in terror and hysteria) grope for each other's throats. The glory of war--rot! The heroism of war--rot! The scarlet and beneficent energies of war--rot! When you look at it close what you see are hulking masses of brutes with fear behind them prodding them on, or wild and splendid savages, hysterical with hate, battling to save their hearth fires and women from the oncoming horde. Reversal to barbarism. Think it over. Upon whom falls the stress of war? Not upon the soldier. He is killed and fattens the soil where he falls; or he is maimed and hobbles off toward a pension or beggary--both tolerable things; anyway he has drunk deep of cruelty and terror and may go his way. By rare good grace he may have been a hero. In other words, he may have been a Belgian--which is a word like a decoration, a name to make one strut like a Greek of Thermopylae--and become thus a permanent part of the world's finest history. * * * * * I would like to write here the name of a friend, Charles Flamache of Brussels. He was 21 years old. He was an artist who had already tasted fame. He had known the love of woman. That his destiny might be fulfilled he died, the blithe, brave boy, in front of Liege. It was the right death at the right time--ere yet
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141  
142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
savages
 

hysteria

 

madness

 

friend

 

terror

 
barbarism
 
hatred
 

fattens

 
maimed
 

killed


soldier

 

hobbles

 
things
 

tolerable

 
pension
 

beggary

 
stress
 
tasted
 

hearth

 

artist


battling

 

splendid

 

hysterical

 

oncoming

 

Reversal

 

cruelty

 

finest

 

history

 

permanent

 

fulfilled


Flamache

 
Brussels
 

Charles

 

destiny

 

Thermopylae

 
Belgian
 

blithe

 
decoration
 

reversal

 
primitive

stories
 

Europe

 
throat
 
meeting
 

corner

 

sloughs

 
evolution
 

humanity

 
acquired
 

abominable