"We have resolved to give our unanimous and definite consent to the proposition submitted to the House to declare a state of war between the Republic of Cuba and the German Empire, and to join, in this great conflagration of the world, our efforts to those of the United States of North America. We fight in this conflict, which will decide the trend of all morality and civilization in the universe, united tot he great republic which in a day not long distant drew her sword and fired her guns over Cuban fields and seas in battle for our liberty and sovereignty. We go to fight as brothers beside that great people who have been ever the friends and protectors of Cuba, who aided us during the darkest days of our tragic history, in moments when opposed by enormous strength, we had nearly disappeared from the face of the earth, when we had no other refuge, no other loyal and magnanimous friend than the great North American people."
Speech of the President of Haiti, M. Philippe Sudre Dartiguenave, on May 12, previous to Haiti's breach with Germany:
"What cause could be more holy than that defended at this moment, with unanimous and admirable enthusiasm by the people of the United States, by Cuba, by a great deal of Latin America, in moral cooperation with the Entente Powers! At Savannah, we fought with the soldiers of Washington for the independence of the country of Franklin, of Lincoln, of John Brown…. At the cry of distress of Bolivar, did we not throw ourselves into the South America's struggle for independence? The task before us in this supreme moment is worthy, glorious, because it is that of international justice, the liberty of nations, of civilization, of all Humanity."
As we have seen above, four of the Central American Republics have aligned themselves with the United States since her entry into the war, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany very shortly after the definite action of the United States was known, the statement of Don Joaquin Mendez representing the prevalent feeling: "The rupture has aligned Guatemala 'ipso facto' with those who are the defenders of the modern ideas of democracy and freedom." Small in size and limited in resources, it is not likely that any active part will be taken by Central America in the war; she is removed from the most dangerous zones and will not suffer, it is to be hoped, more than the inevitable and temporary economic embarrassments due to dislocation of the world's industrial systems. But her spirit is reflected in such announcements as this notice from the front page of a little daily paper published in S. Pedro Sula, Honduras:
"This periodical is Latin and as such professes its sympathy in favor of the Allied nations now struggling so nobly in defense of Liberty with, as their aim, the establishment of a lasting peace which will render impossible the future development of schemes of conquest."
The position of Costa Rica, informally aligned with the Allies and the United States, is peculiar in that she cannot formalize her position until her new government has received the recognition of these countries. Don Ricardo Fernandez Guardia, the foremost writer of Costa Rica, says that, "The fact that we have offered the use of our ports, since April 9, 1917, to the navy of the United States, undoubtedly constitutes a breach of neutrality, and in consequence Costa Rica considers herself as enlisted in the ranks of the Allies 'de facto.' There is an overwhelming sentiment of sympathy with the Allies both on the part of the government and the great majority of the people of Costa Rica."
Panama, immediately following the news of the United States' breach with Germany, declared herself "ready to do all within her power to protect the Panama Canal"; Uruguay, although making no breach of relations with the Central Powers, supported United States action and denounced submarine warfare as carried on by Germany; Paraguay, too, expressed her sympathy with the United States which she said "was forced to enter the war to establish the rights of neutrals."
Thus the only Latin American nations which have rigidly preserved a neutral attitude are Mexico, whose own internal problems form an entirely sufficient reason; Ecuador, Venezuala and Colombia. They are still political neutrals, but no one who knows the Latin soul can doubt that there is in each of these lands a strong feeling of admiration for the vindication of Latin elasticity which France and Italy and Portugal have show, and for the dogged might of England whose naval skill has prevented the strangulation of the commerce of the world; in this matter all these lands are interested, since all are raw-material producers shipping their products abroad. This sentiment was concisely expressed by Ruy Barbosa, the Brazilian orator, when on August 5 the "Liga pelos Alliados" held a meeting of "homage to England" on the third anniversary of her entry into the war, and he declared it "an honor and pleasure to salute the great English nation to whom we owe in this war the liberty of the seas and the annihilation of German methods upon the ocean, without which European resistance to the German attack and the preservation of the independence of the American continent would be impossible."
Nothing would, I think, be more improper than that any nation should be urged to enter the war against her own feelings; but for those who have taken or may yet take that step there is one very high consideration which cannot be forgotten—the effect upon the national spirit of To-morrow of a gallant and decisive attitude Today. Who has more finely expressed this sense of the formation of the heritage of ideas than the modern Portuguese poet Quental?
Even as the winds the pinewood cones down castUpon the ground and scatter by their blowingAnd one by one, down to the very last,The seeds along the mountain ridge are sowing.Even so, by winds of time, ideas are strewnLittle by little, though none see them fly—And thus in all the fields of life are sownThe vast plantations of posterity.
["Odes Modernas, by Anthero de Quental, translated by George Young.]
[signed] Lilian E. Elliott.
October 20, 1917.
Drill
Williams College, April, 1917
One! two, three, four!One! two, three, four!One, two!…It is hard to keep in timeMarching throughThe rutted slimeWith no drum to play for you.One! two, three, four!And the shuffle of five hundred feetTill the marching line is neat.
Then the wet New England valleyWith the purple hills aroundTakes us gently, musically,With a kindly heart and willing,Thrilling, filling with the soundOf our drilling.
Battle fields are far away.All the world about me seemsThe fulfillment of my dreams.God, how good it is to beYoung and glad to-day!
One! two, three, four!One, two, three!…
Now, as never before,From the vastness of the sky,Falls on me the sense of war.Now, as never before,Comes the feeling that to dieIs no duty vain and sore.Something calls and speaks to me:Cloud and hill and stream and tree;Something calls and speaks to me,From the earth, familiarly.I will rise and I will go,As the rivers flow to sea,As the sap mounts up the treeThat the flowers may blow—God, my God,All my soul is out of me!
God, my God,Your world is much too beautiful! I feelMy senses melt and reel,And my heart aches as if a sudden steelHad pierced me through and through.I cannot bearThis vigorous sweetness in your air;The sunlight smites me heavy blow on blow,My soul is black and blueAnd blind and dizzy. God, my mortal eyesCannot resist the onslaught of your skies!I am no wind, I cannot rise and goTearing in madness to the woods and sea;I am no tree,I cannot push the earth and lift and grow;I am no rockTo stand unmovable against this shock.Behold me now, a too desirous thing,Passionate lover of your ardent Spring,Held in her arms too fast, too fiercely pressedAgainst her thundering breastThat leaps and crushes me!
One! two, three, four!One! two, three, four!One, two, three!…
So it shall beIn Flanders or in France. After a longWinter of heavy burdens and loud war,I will forget, as I do now, all thingsExcept the perfect beauty of the earth.Strangely familiar, I will hear a song,As I do now, above the battle roar,That will set free my pent imaginingsAnd quiet all surprise.My body will seem lighter than the air,Easier to sway than a green stalk of corn;Heaven shall bend above me in its mirthWith flutter of blue wings;And singing, singing, as to-day it sings,The earth will call to me, will call and riseAnd take me to its bosom there to bearMy mortal-feeble being to new birthUpon a world, this world, like me reborn,Where I shall beAlive again and young again and glad and free.
One! two, three, four!One! two, three, four!One, two, three!…
All the world about me seemsThe fulfillment of my dreams.
[signed] Salomon De La Selva.
The People's Struggle
"Let no free country be alien to the freedom of another country."
"Portugal is going solemnly to affirm on the field of battle her adhesion to this precept, though uttered by German lips. In defense of it, Portuguese will fight side by side with Englishmen, as they fought with them at Aljubarrota, side by side with Frenchmen, who fought with them at Montes Claros. Were it necessary to appeal to a motive less disinterested than the noble ideal proclaimed by Schiller, we have this: the payment of an ancient debt to which our honor binds us. Let us go forward to defend territories of those who defended ours, let us maintain the independence of nations who contributed to the salvation of our own independence.
"But the objective is a higher one, I repeat. This has been made quite clear within the last few months, through the revolution in Russia, the participation of the United States, and the solidarity, more or less effective, of all the democracies. It is the people's struggle for right, for liberty, for civilization against the dark forces of despotism and barbarism. Portugal would betray her historic mission were she now to fold her arms, the arms which discovered worlds. When the earth was given to man, it was not that it should be peopled by slaves. The sails of Portuguese ships surrounded the globe like a diadem of stars, not as a collar of darkness to strangle it."
Henrique Lopes De Mendonca
of the Academy of Science of Lisbon, speaking at Lisbon in May, 1917.
Translation by L. E. Elliott.
Portugal
Lisbon, 18th August, 1917
I have received your letter of August 2nd, in which you ask me, as representing Portugal, to send a message to the American people to be printed in the book "Defenders of Democracy," and state that a distinguished Portuguese official has been good enough to mention my name to you as that of "an authoritative writer on Portuguese affairs."
I am sensible of the honor done me, but not being a citizen ofPortugal, I dare not presume to speak for that country.
A foreigner however, with friends in both the camps in which Portuguese society is divided, may perhaps be able to state some facts unknown to the American public and of interest at the present time.
And first let me remark that the entry of America into the war, which is a pledge of victory for the Allies, has been a surprise and a relief to the Portuguese, who are by nature pessimists. We Anglo-Saxons are considered to be mainly guided in our conduct by material considerations—did not Napoleon call the English "a nation of shopkeepers"?—and the saying "Time is money" is frequently quoted against us; hence hardly any Portuguese imagined that America would abandon the neutrality which seemed commercially profitable, and even after the decision had been taken, few though that the United States were capable of raising a large army and of transporting it overseas.
Now that America and Portugal are fighting side by side, in a common cause, it is well that they should understand one another. For all their differences of race, religion and language, their ideas are similar. The Portuguese being kindly, easy-going folk, hate militarism and the reign of brute force which is identified with German "Kultur." As they prize their independence and know their weakness, both inclination and necessity lead them to the side of the powers who may be supposed to favor the continuance of their separate existence and the retention by them of their colonies; as they have a keen sense of justice, and respect their engagements, they feel and have shown their sympathy with violated and outraged Belgium and with the other victims of German aggression. Why then, it may be asked, did they not support whole-heartedly the Government of the Republic when it determined to take part in the war? The answer is simple.
They felt that their first duty was to protect their colonies, threatened by the enemy, and that in a war where the combatants are counted by millions, the small contingent that Portugal could furnish would be of little weight on the battlefields of Europe. Unless treaty obligations and considerations of honor forced them to be belligerents, they considered that as Portugal was poor and had relatively to population almost the heaviest public debt of any European Country, they ought to remain neutral—that this view was mistaken is daily becoming clearer to them, thanks in part to the propaganda of the Catholic paper "Ordem" and the official Monarchist journal "Diario Nacional," which have insisted as strongly as the Republican press on the necessity of Portuguese participation in the war, in accord with her ancient traditions. He who risks nothing, gains nothing. By her present heavy sacrifices for a great ideal, Portugal wins a fresh title to universal consideration, and by helping to vanquish Germany she defends her oversea patrimony, which the Germans proposed to annex.
I have said that the ideas of the United States and Portugal are similar. But the pressing needs of Portugal are a competent administration, public order and social discipline, which Germany possesses to a remarkable degree, and admiration of these has laid Portuguese Conservatives open to the charge of being pro-German. Many of them judge from experience that the desiderata I refer to cannot be secured in a democracy, while a few of them have gone so far as to desire a German triumph, because they foolishly thought that the Kaiser would restore the monarchy. None of them, I think, sympathize with German methods; but they have suffered from a century of revolutions, dating from 1820, and attribute these disasters to the anti-Christian ideas of the French Revolution. In America that great movement had beneficent results, as I understand, which only shows that one man's drink is another's poison.
Divergent ideals and other considerations led Portuguese Conservatives to throw their influence into the scale in favor of neutrality, but now that their country is at war they have accepted the fact and can be trusted to do their duty. At the front political and other differences are forgotten and the soldiers, whatever their creed, are honoring the warlike traditions of their race and reminding us of the days when Wellington spoke of Portuguese troops as the "fighting-cocks" of his army.
By organizing with great efforts and sending a properly trained and equipped expeditionary force to France, the Government of the Republic has deserved well of the country and the Allies, and I believe that it has unconsciously been the agent of Divine Providence. The men, when they return will bring with them a firmer religious faith, the foundation of national well-being, and a higher standard of conduct than prevails here at present; they may well prove the regenerators of a land which all who know it learn to love, a land, the past achievements of whose sons in the cause of Christianity and civilization are inscribed on the ample page of history. Portugal which produced so many saints and heroes, which founded the sea road to India and discovered and colonized Brazil, cannot be allowed longer to vegetate, for this in the case of a country means to die.
[signed] Edgar Prestage
Roumania
An Interpretation
A Serbian politician, conversing with a traveler from Western Europe, mentioned the words "a nice national balance;" and when the other, bored to death with the everlasting wrangle of the turbulent Balkans, tried to lead the conversation to Shakespeare and the Musical Glasses, away from Macedonia and Albania and "komitadjis" and Kotzo-Vlachs, the Serbian remarked with a laugh that the nice national balance of which he was speaking was not political, but economic and social.
"You see," he said, "we Serbians are born peasants, born agriculturists, men of the glebe and the plow. The Roumanian, on the other hand, is a born financier. Gold comes to his hand like fish to bait. He comes to Serbia to make money—and he makes it."
"But," said the Western European, "isn't that rather hard on theSerbian?"
"No! Not a bit! For it is the young Serbian who marries theRoumanian's daughter, and the young Serbian girl who marries theRoumanian's son. Thus the Serbian money, earned by the Roumanian,is still kept in the country. You know," he added musingly, "theRoumanians are a singularly handsome, a singularly engaging people.I myself married a Roumanian."
"A rich Roumanian's daughter, I suppose?"
"Heavens, no! A poor girl."
And he added with superb lack of logic:
"Who wouldn't marry a Roumanian—be she rich—OR poor!"
The secret of the Balkans is contained in that simple rhetoric question.
For, clear away from the days when the Slavs made their first appearance in Southern Europe and, crossing the Danube, came to settle on the great, green, rolling plain between the river and the jagged frowning Balkan Mountains, the proceeded southwards and formed colonies among the Thraco-Illyrians, the Roumanians, and the Greeks, to the days of Michael the Brave who drove the Turks to the spiked gates of Adrianople and freed half the peninsula for a span of years; from the days when gallant King Mirtsched went down to glorious defeat amongst the Osmanli yataghans to the final day when the Russian Slav liberated the Roumanian Latin from the Turkish yoke, the Roumanian has held high the torch of civilization and culture.
Latin civilization!
Latin culture!
Latin ideals!
Straight through, he has been the Western leaven in an Eastern land.
Geographically, the Fates were unkind to him.
For he stood in the path of the most gigantic racial movements of the world. His land was the scene of savage racial struggles. His rivers ran red with the blood of Hun and Slav, of Greek and Albanian, of Osmanli and Seljuk. His fields and pastures became the dumping-ground of residual shreds of a dozen and one nations surviving from great defeats or Pyrrhic victories and nursing irreconcilable mutual racial hatreds.
But the old Latin spirit proved stronger than Fate, stronger than numbers, stronger than brute force. It proved strong enough to assimilate the foreign barbarians, instead of becoming assimilated by them. It was strong enough to wipe out every trace of Asian and Slavic taint. It was strong enough to keep intact the Latin idea against the steely shock of Asian hordes, the immense, crushing weight of Slave fatalism, the subtleties of Greek influence.
The Roumanian is a Roman.
His cultural ideal was, and is, of the West, of Rome of France—AND of Himself; and he has kept it inviolate through military and political disaster, through slavery itself.
Roumania has remained a window of Europe looking toward Asia as surely and as steadily as Petrograd was a window of Asia looking toward Europe.
The Roumanian is proud of his Latin descent; and he shows his ancestry not only in his literature, his art, and his every day life, but also, perhaps chiefly, in his government which is practically a safe and sane oligarchy, modeled on that of ancient Florence, and, be it said, fully as successful as that of the Florentine Republic.
Latin, too, is his diplomacy. It is clean—AND clever. It is the big stick held in a velvet glove. It is supremely able. He seeks a great advantage with a modest air, in contrast to the Greek who seeks a modest advantage with a grandiloquent air.
He seeks no "réclame," but goes ahead serenely, unfalteringly, sure in his knowledge that he is the torch-bearer of ancient Rome in the savage Balkans.
[signed] Achmed Abdullah
The Soul of Russia
There is a strange saying in Russia that no matter what happens to a man, good results to him thereby. No matter what hair-breadth escapes he has, what calamities he faces, what hardships he undergoes, he emerges more powerful, more experienced from the ordeal. Danger and privation are more beneficial in the long run than peace and joy. A nation of some fifty different races gradually melting into one, a country covering a territory of one-sixth of the surface of the earth and a population of 185,000,000, the Russians have remained to the outside world the apaches of Europe, wild tribes of the steppes. In the imagination of an average American or Englishman, Russia was something Asiatic, something connected with the barbaric East, a country beyond the horizon. It was considered as lacking in culture and civilization, and as a menace to the West. "Nichevo, sudiba!"—(It doesn't matter, everything is fate) replies a Russian, crossing himself. The whole psychology of the Slavic race is crystallized in these two impressionistic words.
What John Ruskin said in his famous historic essay applies to Russia: "I found that all the great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in war." Every great Russian reform has taken place suddenly as a consequence of some nation-wide calamity. The Tartar invasion united Russia into one powerful nation; the Crimean War abolished the feudal system; the Russo-Turkish War gave the judicial reforms and abolished capital punishment; the Russo-Japanese War gave the preliminary form of Constitutional government in the Duma; the present war is opening the soul of Russia to the world by giving an absolute democratic form of government to the united Slavic race. The present war will reveal that Russia the known has been the very opposite extreme of Russia the unknown.
The outside world is wondering how the Russian character will fit in with the aspirations of democracy. They cannot reconcile the Russia of pogroms and Serbia with the Russia of wonderful municipal theaters, great artists, writers, musicians and lovers of humanity. The world has known the tyrants like Plehve, Trepoff, Orloff and Stolypin, or others like Rasputin, Protopopoff and forgets that Russia has also produced geniuses like Dostoyewsky, Turgenieff, Tchaikowsky, Tolstoy, Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Mendeleyeff and Metchnikoff. The world has looked at Russia as a land of uncultivated steppes, of frozen ground, hungry bears and desperate Cossacks, and forgets that in actuality this is the Russia of the past very extreme surface and next to it is a Russia of great civilization and the highest art, unknown yet to the West generally.
One of the strangest peculiarities of Russian life is that you will find the greatest contrasts everywhere. Here you will see the most luxurious castles, cathedrals, convents, villas and estates; there you will find the most desolate huts of the moujiks and lonely hermit caves in the wilds of Siberia. Here you will meet the most selfish chinovnik, the most fanatic desperado or reckless bureaucrat; there you face the noblest men and women, supermen, physically and mentally. You will find that all Russian life is full of such mental and physical contrasts.
This is the dualism that confronts like a sphinx the foreigners. In the same way you will find that the Russian homes are full of contrasting colors, bright red and yellow, white and blue. The Russian music is the most dramatic phonetic art ever created; it reaches the deepest sorrow and the gayest hilarity and joy. Dreamy, romantic, imaginary, simple, hospitable and childlike as an average moujik, is the soul of the people. Nowhere is there a hint of those qualities which are thrown up as dark shadows on the canvas of his horizon. While with one hand Russia has been conquering the world, with the other she has been creating the most magnificent masterpieces of humanity. In the same generation she produces a Plehve and a Tolstoy, both in a way, true to national type.
In the popular American imagination, which invariably seizes upon a single point, three things stand out as representative of Russia: the moujiks, the Cossacks and the Siberian penal system. The vast unknown spaces between these three have been filled in with the dark colors of poverty and oppression, so that a Russian is looked upon as an outcast of evolution, an exile of the ages.
the Russia of the dark powers is past; thus soon will pass the Russian chinovnik, the Russian spy and the Russian gloom, who have been a shadow of the Slavic race. From now all the world will listen to the majestic masterpieces of the Russian composers, see the infinite beauty of the Russian life and feel the greatness of the Russian soul. Not only has Russia her peculiar racial civilization, her unique art and literature, and national traditions, but she has riches of which the outside world knows little, riches that are still buried. The Russian stage, art galleries, archives, monastery treasuries and romantic traits of life remain still a sealed book to the outsiders. Take for instance, Russian music, the operas of Rimsky-Korsakoff, the plays of Ostrowsky and the symphonies of Reinhold Gliere or Spendiarov and you will have eloquent chapters of a modern living Bible. No music of another country is such a true mirror of a nation's racial character, life, passion, blood, struggle, despair and agony, as the Russian. One can almost see in its turbulent-lugubrious or buoyant-hilarious chords the rich colors of the Byzantine style, the half Oriental atmosphere that surrounds everything with a romantic halo.
The fundamental purpose of the pathfinders of Russian art, music, literature and poetry was to create beauties that emanated, not from a certain class or school, but directly from the souls of the people. Their ideal was to create life from life. Though profound melancholy seems to be the dominant note in Russian music and art, yet along with the dramatic gloom go also reckless hilarity and boisterous humor, which often whirl one off one's feet. This is explained by the fact that the average Russian is extremely emotional and consequently dramatic in his artistic expressions. Late Leo Tolstoy said to me on one occasion: "In our folksong and folk art is evidently yearning without end, without hope, also power invisible, the fateful stamp of destiny, and the fate in preordination, one of the fundamental principles of our race, which explains much that in Russian life seems incomprehensible for the foreigners."
Thus the Russian art and soul in their very foundations are already democratic, simple, direct and true to the ethnographic traits of the race. In the same way you will find the Russian home life, the peasant communities, the zemstvoe institutions, offsprings of an extremely democratic tendency, perhaps far more than any such institution of the West. Instead of the rich or noblemen absorbing the land of the peasants, we find in Russia the peasant commune succeeding tot he property of the baron. An average Russian peasant is by far more democratic and educated, irrespective of his illiteracy than an average farmer of the New World. He has the culture of the ages in his traditions, religion and national folk-arts. Russia has more than a thousand municipal theaters, more than a hundred grand operas, more than a hundred colleges and universities or musical conservatories. Russia has a well-organized system of cooperative banks and stores and a marvelous artelsystem of the working professional classes which in its democratic principles surpasses by far the labor union systems of the West. Herr von Bruggen, the eminent German historian writes of the Russian tendency as follows: "Wherever the Russian finds a native population in a low state of civilization, he knows how to settle down with it without driving it out or crushing it; he is hailed by the natives as the bringer of order, as a civilizing power."
I have always preached and continue to do so in the future, that Russia and the United States should join hands, know and love each other, the sooner the better. Russia needs the active spirit, the practical grasp of the things, which the people of the United States possess. Nothing will help and inspire an average Russian more than the sincere democratic hand of an American. A dose of American optimism and active spirit is the best toxin for free Russia. On the other hand, the American needs just as much Russian emotionalism, aesthetic culture and mystic romanticism, as he can give of his racial qualities.
The old system having gone, Russia is free to open her national, spiritual and physical treasures. For some time to come neither Germany nor other European countries, will be able to go to Russia, for even if the war does not last long, its havoc will take years to repair. Endless readjustments will have to take place in each country affected by the war. Russia, being more an agricultural, intellectual-aristocratical country, will fell least of all the after effects of the past horrors, therefore has the greatest potentialities. There is not only a great work, adventure and romance that waits an American pioneer in Russia, but a great mission which will ultimately benefit both nations. It should be understood that the Russian democracy will not be based upon the economic-industrial, but aesthetic-intellectual principles of life. It is not the money, the financial power that will play the dominant role in free Russia, but the ideal, the dramatic, the romantic or mystic tendency. Money will never have that meaning in Russia which it has in the West. It will be the individual, the emotional, the great symbol of the mystic beyond, that will speak from future democratic Russia only in a different and more dynamic form, as it has been speaking in the past.
As Lincoln is the living voice of the American people, thus Tolstoy is and remains the glorified Russian peasant uttering his heart to the world. The voice of this man alone is sufficient to tell the outside world that the Russian democracy is a creation not of form and economics but of spirit and aesthetics.
[signed]Ivan Narodny
Author of "Echoes of Myself," "The Dance," "The Art of Music," XVolume, etc.
The American Bride
Petka had been for years a village tailor but he had never been able to save enough money to open a grocery-store. He hated his profession and hated to think that he could never get anything higher in the social rank of the place than what he was. While the name of a tailor sounded to him so cheap, that of a merchant flattered his ambition immensely. But there was no chance to earn the five hundred rubles, which, he thought, was necessary to change the profession.
"If I marry a poor peasant girl like Tina or Vera, I'll never get anywhere," soliloquized Petka and made plans for his future.
Petka knew a girl with two hundred ruble-dowry, but she was awfully homely and deaf; and he knew a widow with three hundred rubles, but she was twenty years older than himself. It was a critical situation.
One day Petka heard that the daughter of an old peddler had a dowry of five hundred rubles, exactly the amount he needed. After careful planning of the undertaking he hired a horse and drove to the lonely cottage of the rag peddler to whom he explained as clearly as he could, the purpose of his visit.
"My Liz ain't at home," the old man replied. "She is in that distant country called America. Good Lord, Liza is a lady of some distinction. If you should see her on the street you would never take her for my daughter. She wears patent-leather shoes, kid-gloves, corsets and such finery. Why, I suppose she has a proposal for every finger, if not more. She is some girl, I tell you."
Petka listened with throbbing heart to the thrilling story of the old man, scratched his head and said:
"I suppose that she is employed in some high class establishment or something like that?"
"Of course, she is," grunted the peddler proudly. "She might be employed or she might not. She has written to me that she is a lady all right."
"What is her special occupation?"
"She is employed as the waitress in a lunch-room on the so called Second Avenue corner at New York. And her salary reaches often thirty dollars a month, which represents a value in our money of something over sixty rubles. Now that is not a joke. She has all the food and lodging free. Why, it's a real gold-mine."
"Has she saved already much?"
"She has five hundred dollars in the savings bank, and she has all the hats and shoes, and gloves and such stuff that would make our women faint. So you see she is the real thing."
The happy father pulled the daughter's letter from the bottom of his bed and reached it over to the visitor. Petka read and reread the letter with breathless curiosity. In the letter which was also a small snap-shot picture of the girl. Petka looked at the picture and did not know what to say. To judge from her photograph, she was a frail spinster, with high cheekbones, a long neck and a nose like a frozen potato. But the trimming of her hair, her city hat with flowers, and her whole American bearing made her interesting enough to the ambitious tailor. For a long time he was gazing at the picture and thinking.
"Do you think that Liza would marry a man like me? I am a well known tailor. But I have now a chance to become a merchant in our village. I need some money to make up the difference, and why not try the luck? Liza might be a well known waitress in New York, but to be a merchant's wife is a different thing. Don't you think she might consider my proposal seriously?"
The old peddler puffed at his pipe, walked to the window and back as if measuring the matter most seriously.
"It all depends—you know Liza is a queer girl—it all depends on how you strike her with a strong letter. You could not go to New York and make the proposal personally. It has to be done by mail. It all depends how well the letter is written, how everything is explained and how the idea of being a merchant's wife strikes her. She is a queer girl, like all the American women are."
"Can your Liza read and write letters?"
"Of course, she can. Liza is a lady of some standing. She can write and read like our priest. She is a highly educated girl."
"So you think a strong letter will fix her up?"
"Exactly. And tell her everything you plan to do."
Petka took Liza's address, drank a glass of vodka to the success of the plan and left the old peddler still harping on his daughter. All the way home and many days afterwards Petka could think of nothing else. It seemed to him the greatest opportunity in the world to marry a girl from America. But now and then he got skeptical of his ability to get such a prize. However, he decided to try. He admitted that the whole success lay in the shaping of a strong and convincing letter and sending it to her properly. Petka knew how to write letters, but the question was would his style be impressive enough to influence a girl in America to come to Russia and marry a man whom she had never seen? However, Petka knew Platon, the village saloon-keeper, as the most gifted man for that purpose. But in a case like this he hated to take anybody into his confidence.
After arriving home Petka began to practice, writing a love letter every day. But nothing came of it. One letter was too mild, the other too extravagant. Finally he gave it up, and whispered his secret to the inn-keeper, saying:
"Now, old man, do me the great favor and I'll fix you up when I get her dowry. I want the letter to be strong and tender at the same time."
The inn-keeper consented. But Petka had to tell all the details and the specifications. Evan Platon admitted that it required some skill to write the letter. When he had thought the matter over carefully, made some notes and discussed the subject with Petka from every angle, he took a long sheet of paper, glued a rose in the corner and wrote as follows:
"Highly respected Mademoiselle Liza:—You have never been in our village, but it is a peach. I am the cream of the place. I have here all the girls I need. I have a house and my business. But the point is I want to open a store and need a wife with experience. We have all the money. But I need some capital to begin. As you have all that and besides, I have fallen in love with you, I lay the offer before your tender feet. Your beautiful image has haunted me day and night, and your wonderful eyes follow me in my dreams, oh, you lovely rose! If you are ready to marry a merchant like myself, do not waste any time, but come over and let's have a marriage ceremony as the world has never seen here. However, before you do come, send me an early reply with a rosy yes. Most affectionately and respectfully, Petka Petroff."
"It's bully, it's superb," praised the tailor. "But it lacks the tender touch. It lacks that style which the city women like."
"I put in the punch, but you can add a love poem from some school-book if you like," protested the inn-keeper. "The city girls are funny creatures. Sometimes they like the finger, other times the fist. Who knows the taste of your Liza! The waitresses of big cities are usually broad-minded and highly educated."
After the poem was added and another rose glued on the corner of the letter, it was mailed, registered, with a note "highly urgent," and Petka breathed freely, like one who had survived a great ordeal.
Two months of heavy waiting passed and still no reply from Liza. Petka was like one on thorns. His strange romance was already known to his neighbors and now everybody was expecting the letter from America to furnish the most sensational news in all the world.
One afternoon as the tailor was sewing a pair of trousers the alderman of the village brought him a registered letter from America. Nearly half the village population had gathered outside, curious to hear the content of the letter. Petka took tremblingly and greatly excited the letter and rushed to Platon, the inn-keeper, all the time followed by the crowd. All the audience gathered in the inn and Platon was instructed to read it aloud to the gathering. As it was a ceremonial event of rare occasion, the inn-keeper stood up, and began in a solemn voice:
"My dear Petka: I am most happy to reply to your valued letter of the fifteenth of July, that I am glad to accept your proposal. But everything must be all right. I can marry only a man of the merchant class. I know the business and I can supply you with the capital you need. But you must remember that I do not like to be fooled and marry a man beneath me. No peasant or tailor for me. I stand here very high and cannot ruin my name. You have not told me your age, but I suppose you are not an old fogey. I will follow this letter next month, so you fix the wedding ceremony, secure all the musicians and manage the meals, drinks and such necessities. If this is not agreeable cable me. Your Liza."
While Platon was reading the letter Petka gazed dreamily out of the window and built, not an air castle, but a large grocery store, with showy windows. It seemed as if he saw his store already opened, the people going and coming, the shelves filled with cans and packages. The sign "Merchant Petka" hung in his eyes.
The letter was like a bomb in the idyllic village. Plans were made of the wedding date and elaborate ceremony. The village Luga had never witnessed yet a marriage ceremony of this magnitude. The American bride was like a fairy princess of some ancient times. Petka was like one in a trance. But Vasska, the blacksmith, opposed to the idea of such a strange marriage, pounded his hand against the bar, exclaiming:
"Liza may be all right, but Petka should not marry her. What do we know about an American woman? What do we know about her habits? I've been told funny stories about such strange women. I've heard that nearly every American woman paints her cheeks, dyes her hair, wears false teeth, puts up bluffs and does everything to deceive a man. Spit at her capital. Besides, this American Liza is a woman whom nobody here knows."
The blacksmith's arguments were taken seriously by the others and a gloom came over the gathered gossips. But the inn-keeper, who was always optimistic, replied:
"American Liza must be a refined girl, and she has the money. That's what Petka wants, and that's what he will get. So we better let the wedding take place and see what will happen. I've heard that an American woman looks at the marriage as a business proposition, so we let her do what she pleases."
"Business or no business, but we take the marriage seriously. If a man makes up his mind that he likes a woman, he must marry her, and once he has married her, no ax or pike shall separate them. No monkeying with married men or women thereafter," argued the serious blacksmith.
Petka turned the conversation to the subject of the wedding meals and music. The whole program of the ceremony was analyzed and discussed in detail, some maintaining that the American custom was to eat with forks and knives from the plates, others that only uncooked meat was eaten and frogs served as delicacies. Finally the entertainment was arranged and the blacksmith remarked:
"All city women like fun and don't care about serious affairs. They have the theaters and operas for amusements, so we better get a real amusement for American Liza. The best fun would be a huge hurdy-gurdy or something of that kind, an instrument with sensation. Our village violins and harps are too mild for women like that Liza."
After discussing the matter at length, the inn-keeper agreed to take care of the entertainment. A short cable was composed and sent to Liza and the wedding date clearly explained. All the village got alive with the news that Petka was to marry an American girl by mail.
The three weeks of preparation for the wedding festival passed like a dream. The Sunday, that was to be the final date, began bright and cheerful. Petka was hustling to and fro in his newly rented house, the front of which was to be arranged for the grocery store, strutted like a big rooster preparing the affairs of his flock. At the entrance of the house was hung a big flag. Long tables were arranged in all the rooms, covered with meats, drinks and delicacies, all prepared in the village. Women were still busy baking other foods, frying meats and boiling water for tea or drinks. Everybody was busy and everything looked most solemn and impressive. The host was dressed in a picturesque new suit of clothes with a silk scarf around his neck.
While the groom was busy with preparing his heart for joy, the inn-keeper was solving the problem of the entertainment. He had constructed, what he thought to be distinctly American, a huge music-box, which was to produce the most wonderful tones ever heard. This instrument had the appearance of a big wine-cask and yet a street-organ at the same time, and was an invention of the ingenious inn-keeper. It was practically a barrel, covered with illustrations of old Sunday newspapers and county-fair posters. To its side was fastened an improvised lever, made from a broken cart-wheel. Under this barrel, concealed so that no one could see within, were placed three most prominent musicians of the village, Ivan with his violin, Semen with his concertina and Nicholas with his drum. As soon as the conductor outside pulled a string, the lever began to turn around and the musicians in the barrel had to start to play. In the corner of the house this strange instrument looked like a mysterious engine, one knew not whether to expect it to develop into a flying or moving picture machine.
At last everything was ready. The guests began to arrive and the carriage was sent to the town to bring the bride. Everybody was in festival attire and all tuned to expect the utmost excitements the village had ever had. One could see the people in groups of three or four, discussing in a high pitch of voice the wonders of the wedding festival or venturing various guesses about the American bride. The village girls, who were not a little jealous, nudged each other and exchanged meaning glances, that Petka was to get in a fix he had never been before. All were anxious to see the arrival of the two thousand-ruble bride. The blacksmith and the inn-keeper were discussing something excitedly.
"Say what you want, but this kind of matrimonial affair is the limit," argued the blacksmith, pushing back his hat. "I can't see how a woman comes such a distance and so many weeks to marry Petka, whom she has never seen, and how Petka gets the crazy thought to marry a city woman whom he does not know. Something is wrong somewhere. This is going to bust sooner or later."
"My dear Vasska, it's the education, the refinement and all that which I and you can do without," grunted the inn-keeper.
Vasska rubbed his fists and spat vigorously. The inn-keeper tried to mollify him by saying that he should not take the matter so seriously.
Suddenly the dogs began to bark and the boys shouted:
"The American bride! Here comes the lady from abroad!"
All the guests rushed out to see her. And there she was, in a big flower-trimmed hat, with a silk parasol, and all the wonderful fineries. She looked so elegant, so superior that the village women, accustomed to their rural simplicity, felt overawed. The groom hurrying with throbbing heart to open the gates of the front-yard bowed almost to the ground to the dazzling reality of his romantic dreams. He was so confused by this apparition that he did not know whether to shout or cry.
"My gracious, how she is made up!" whispered the women.
"What a wonderful dress!" whispered the girls.
"Ain't you Petka? You deary!" exclaimed the bride, affecting a foreign accent.
"Yes, mademoiselle, gracious yes," stammered the groom nervously, wiping the tears of joy from his eyes.
"Gee, Petka, you are a nice boy!" gushed the bride, trying to show the quality of her refinement.
She took his both hands and whispered that he should kiss them gracefully in the American manner. Then she leaned her head on his shoulder and sighed. These American manners so embarrassed the groom that he blushed and dropped his eyes. But after all, was she not a highly educated American lady? And of course, she knew what was proper.
Though Liza looked ten years older than Petka, yet she had all the city air, the American manners and style, and most important of all, she had the capital. The first question Liza asked was whether they had a manicure, hair-dresser and boot-black in the village. No one had ever heard that such functionaries existed, so the groom explained excitedly that he would take her after the wedding to the town where she could get what she wanted. Petka carried the trunk and the five suit-cases into he house, implements which on one had ever seen. All the novelties and sensations were so great that the guests and the groom felt dazed for a moment.
"Have you got here champagne?" asked the bride, entering the house.
"We do not have such American drinks. We have kvas, beer, vodka and all the home-made cordials," stammered the groom.
"But you must have some high-balls or cocktails at least," went on the bride with an affected gesture.
"My gracious, there we are!" groaned the groom, and shrugged denyingly his shoulders. "We've never handled those things here, so you must forgive us."
"Mademoiselle Liza, I beg your pardon," interrupted the inn-keeper seriously. "We can arrange the balls and the tails, but you see we are simply country people and keep our bowels in order. City amusements put our stomachs in a bad fix and don't agree with us."
The groom felt embarrassed and did not know what to do. He bowed apologetically before his bride and tried to please her in every possible way. He imitated her gestures and manners, her shrugs and voice. He even kept his hands on his breast, as was Liza's manner. Finally the bride asked whether there was any entertainment prepared as she had asked. The groom gave the inn-keeper a hint and the latter said that he would do his best. The three musicians were already concealed with their instruments in a big barrel and the imposing organist began his function. Strains of an unique music issued from the decorated music-box. Everybody at once rushed into the room. All stared amazed at the strange contrivance which played at one and the same time concertina, violin and drum. It was like a miracle, gripping and inspiring.
"I bet you this would interest your American audiences," remarked the inn-keeper to the bride.
"It beats the Coney Island noise," stammered Liza, and took up the conversation with a village woman.
All the house now was jollity. The room was bursting of the powerful music, the laughter and the loud conversation of the guests. How it happened no one knows, but one of the women had placed a bowl with hot punch on the music box. Whether through an accident, or the excitement of the organist, the vessel broke, and the punch leaked through the cracks and holes into the instrument. Suddenly the music stopped, although the conductor was still industriously turning the lever. Then were heard mysterious voices and sounds as if of muffled exclamations. Everybody looked at the music-box, which began to quake and tremble as if a ghost were within. Then arose fierce yells and agonizing cries, mixed with loud curses. Before anybody could realize what had happened, three angry musicians leaped from the music instrument, the steaming punch dropping from their heads.
"Good Lord, what's this?" gasped the men while the women shrieked and fled. One of the musicians put his fist under the frightened organist and shouted:
"I'll pay for this joke, you scoundrel!"
"Semen, don't be a fool. I didn't do it. By Jove, I didn't do it," exclaimed apologetically the organist, trembling.
"Damn, who did it?" asked the groom excited.
No one replied. And when the people realized what had happened, everybody roared. No one who glanced at the overturned music instrument and at the musicians, with their punch-dropping heads could restrain their laughter. Even the pompous bride found it so funny that she laughed with the rest.
When the excitement was over and the dessert was ready the wedding guests once more took their seats at the table. The inn-keeper, thinking that this was the moment to settle the matter of dowry, before the actual marriage act could be performed by the priest, knocked on the table for quiet. Then he arose, wiped his beard and began:
"Friends, this is a very unusual ceremony, our best known citizen and friend Petka, marrying a girl from America. Petka loves Liza, it is all right. But I know and so all our guests know, that Petka expected the bride to bring a fat dowry. Now we all would like to see the bride place her dowry upon the table before she is declared the wife of our friend, Petka. We think that in justice to the guests she ought to do that, because it was understood that she bring the money and we give her the husband. Don't you think, friends and guests, that I am right?"
Everybody shouted "Bravo, inn-keeper," only the groom and the bride sat silent with downcast eyes. Finally the bride glanced at Petka, pulled a bag from her dress, opened it and laid a bunch of green bills on the table. All eyes stared in awe at the money, and the guests were so silent that one could hear the beating of their hearts. Only the purring of the cats, looking curiously down from the big stove, was to be heard.
"Here is the dowry, right here. It is in American money, one thousand dollars, which is equal to two thousand rubles in your money. It's all in cash," exclaimed the bride proudly.
The inn-keeper took the bills, looked at them curiously, turned them over and over and shook his head. The blacksmith took one bill after the other, and did the same. For several minutes everybody was quiet. The "organist" who sat next to the inn-keeper, took the money, looked at it still more closely and then smelled it. Taking one of the bills in his hand, he rose and showed it to all the guests and asked:
"Friends, have you ever seen this kind of money?"
"No," was the unanimous reply of the guests.
"Can any one here read American?" asked the blacksmith.
No one replied.
"The money is all right. I rushed to reach the train so I had no time to exchange it into your rubles," replied the bride.
"It might be all right," replied the inn-keeper, "but what do we know about the American money and its value? I've been told many stories of American girls boasting they have money enough to buy their husband, but heaven knows. It's a country too far away and a language too complicated for us to understand. We like to have our stuff on the table before everything is all right."
The bride glanced at the groom. The groom took silently her hand, assuring her that he cared nothing for what her dowry was worth, if he had only her as his wife.
"What nonsense! I came on Petka's invitation, and I'll stay with him, do you let the priest marry us or not. We can go both to America and marry there, but never here," exclaimed the bride, tossing her head and snorting her indignation. As she rose, she took Petka by his hand and gave this parting thrust:
"Do you want or not, but I'll stay with Petka here. We don't care for your priest. I keep the American law and know what's what."
"Liza, Liza, listen. Don't make a scandal like that here. Let's better harness our horses and get to the priest as fast as we can," shouted the excited guests, all following the couple.
[signed]Ivan Narodny
The Insane Priest
A priest insane went many days without repose or sleep,"My visions are a shadow world but love is real and deep."He, like a prophet, staff in hand, sought out a distant shrine."As sacred ash are all my dreams, and fateful love is mine."Long, long he knelt and prayed alone, his tears fell unrestrained."My visions are the snow-crowned heights, my love the flood unchained."A sacrifice he laid upon that altar far away."My visions are a dream of dawn, my love the radiant day."A knife he thrust into his heart, to seal the holy rite."My visions all resplendent glow, my love is like the night."And on the altar falling prone, he then gave up his soul."My visions are the lightning's flash, my love the thunder's roll."Upon the altar poured his blood, it formed a crimson pall."As his deliriums are my dreams, as death my love my all."
Sergey MakowskyTranslation by Constance Purdy
Note: To this poem Mr. Reinhold Gliere has composed a magnificent musical setting with piano and orchestra accompaniment and dedicated it to a prominent Russian revolutionist.
Without a Country
One thought awakes us early in the morning,One thought follows us the whole day long,One thought stabs at night our breast:Is my father suffering?
One sorrow awakes us at dawn like an executioner,One sorrow is persecuting us ceaselessly,One sorrow is swelling our breast the whole night long:Is my mother alive?
A longing awakes us at daybreak,A longing is continually hidden in our heart,A longing is burning at night in our breast;What of my wife?
A fear awakes us early like a funeral mass,A fear persecutes us and darkens our eyes,A fear fills at night our breast with hatred:Our sisters are threatened with shame.
A pain awakens us in the morning like a trumpet,With pain is filled every glass we drinkWith pain is secretly weeping our breast:Where are our children?
…Only one way will give an answer:Through a river of blood and over a bridge of dead!Woe! you will reach your home where the mother, who died of sorrow,Does not wait for her son any more.
M. Boich
Note: M. Boich is a young Serbian poet, now about twenty-six years old, who already has a recognized place in modern Serbian Literature. The poem "Without a Country" was written after the well-known Serbian tragedy of 1915, and was published last year (March 28) in the official Serbian journal "Srpske Novine," which now appears at Corfu.
Indian Prayer to the Mountain Spirit
Lord of the Mountain,Reared within the MountainYoung Man, Chieftain,Hear a young man's prayer!
Hear a prayer for cleanness.Keeper of the strong rain,Drumming on the mountain;Lord of the small rainThat restores the earth in newness;Keeper of the clean rain,Hear a prayer for wholeness.
Young Man, Chieftain.Hear a prayer for fleetness.Keeper of the deer's way,Reared among the eagles,Clear my feet of slothness.Keeper of the paths of men,Hear a prayer for straightness.
Hear a prayer for braveness.Lord of the thin peaks,Reared amid the thunders;Keeper of the headlandsHolding up the harvest,Keeper of the strong rocksHear a prayer for staunchness.
Young Man, Chieftain,Spirit of the Mountain!
Interpreted by [signed] Mary Austin
To America—4 July, 1776
When England's king put English to the horn[1],To England thus spake England over sea,"In peace be friend, in war my enemy";Then countering pride with pride, and lies with scorn,Broke with the man[2] whose ancestor had borneA sharper pain for no more injury.How otherwise should free men deal and be,With patience frayed and loyalty outworn?No act of England's shone more generous gulesThan that which sever'd once for all the strandsWhich bound you English. You may search the landsIn vain, and vainly rummage in the schools,To find a deed more English, or a shameOn England with more honor to her name.
[written] Respectfully submitted to the Defenders of Democracy
[signed] M. Hewlett
(Westluilaruig[illegible, this is a guess], Chichester, England)
[1] To "put to the horn" was to declare an outlawry. [2] The "man" is George III, his "ancestor," Charles I.
The Need of Force to Win and Maintain Peace
Must, then, gentle and reasonable men and women give over their sons to the National Government to be trained for the devilish work of war? Must civilized society continue to fight war with war? Is not the process a complete failure? Shall we not henceforth contend against evil-doing by good-doing, against brutality by gentleness, against vice in others solely by virtue in ourselves?
There are many sound answers to these insistent queries. One is the policeman, usually a protective and adjusting force, but armed and trained to hurt and kill in defense of society against criminals and lunatics. Another is the mother who blazes into violence, with all her might, in defense of her child. Even the little birds do that. Another is the instinctive forcible resistance of any natural man to insult or injury committed or threatened against his mother, wife, or daughter. The lions and tigers do as much. A moving answer of a different sort is found in words written by Mme. le Verrier to the parents of Victor Chapman on her return from his funeral in the American Church in Paris—"It…has brought home to me the beauty of heroic death and the meaning of life."
The answer from history is that primitive Governments were despotic, and in barbarous societies might makes right; but that liberty under law has been wrung from authority and might by strenuous resistance, physical as well as moral, and not by yielding to injustice and practising non-resistance. The Dutch Republic, the British Commonwealth, the French Republic, the Italian and Scandinavian constitutional monarchies, and the American republics have all been developed by generations of men ready to fight and fighting.
So long as there are wolves, sheep cannot form a safe community. The precious liberties which a few more fortunate or more vigorous nations have won by fighting for them generation after generation, those nations will have to preserve by keeping ready to fight in their defense.
The only complete answer to these arguments in favor of using force in defense of liberty is that liberty is not worth the cost. In free countries to-day very few persons hold that opinion.
[signed] Charles W. Eliot
Woman and Mercy
Woman and Mercy—to think of one is to think of the other, and yet the suggestion of ideas is purely Christian. The ancient world knew of a few great women who transcended the conditions of society in those days and helped, each one her country, in some extraordinary way. Thus Deborah helped the people of God in a time of terrible difficulty. And even the Pagan world was not without its Semiramis and its Portia. When mercy came into the world with Christianity the dispensation of it was largely committed to the gentle hands of women, for since men have believed that God has taken a woman to be His human mother, the position of every woman has been that of a mother and of a queen. The wife has become the guardian of the internal affairs of the home as the husband is of its external affairs.
Whenever women have acted up to the noble ideals of womanhood preached by the Christian religion, they have received honor, respect, deference and almost worship from the ruder sex.
It gives me great pleasure to think that in our own country so many women have banded themselves together for such a noble ideal as that embodied in the very name of "The Militia of Mercy." Here in her true sphere, as nurse, woman will shed the gentle light of mercy over the gory battle field and amid the pain and wounds of the hospital wards; or, if she is not called to such active participation she will find means to hold up the hands of those more actively engaged, and in countless ways will she be able to mitigate the evils of this most terrible of all wars, and not least of all because of the gift of piety with which Almighty God has so generously endowed her. Her unceasing prayers will ascend to the throne of God for those engaged in this terrible struggle, and mercies and blessings will be drawn down upon multitudes of people whom she has never seen.
I bid Godspeed to The Militia of Mercy, and I hope that every American woman who can will take part in this most womanly and most patriotic work.
[signed] J. Cardinal Gibbons
Joan of Arc—Her Heritage
I saw in Orleans three years ago the celebration of the 487thAnniversary of the deliverance of the ancient city by Joan of Arc.
The flower of the French army passed before me, the glorious sunlight touching sword and lance and bayonet tip until they formed a shimmering fretwork of steel. Then came the City Fathers in democratic dress—and following them, the dignitaries of the Church, in purple and crimson and old lace, and a host of choir boys singing Glory to God in the Highest, and finally in his splendid scarlet robe, a cardinal symbolical of power and majesty and dominion.
In whose honor was all this gorgeous pageantry? In honor of a simple peasant girl, who saw or thought she saw visions—it is perfectly immaterial whether she did or not—and who heard or fancied she heard—it matters not—voices calling to her out of the silences of the night to go forth and save France. Soldiers and clergy and populace, Catholics and Protestants and pagans united in paying homage to the courage of a woman. And I thought as I watched the brilliant spectacle in the shadow of the old cathedral, that thousands of women in the twentieth century in England and America, and France and Germany and all the Nations are serving in a different way, it is true, from the way in which Joan of Arc served France, but none the less effectively. Aye, even more so, as they go forth clad not in mail, but in Christian love to help mankind. In the very forefront of this shining host are the trained nurses, following the standard uplifted by Florence Nightingale.
When I see a trained nurse in her attractive cap and gown I always feel that a richer memory, a finer intention has been read into life. Wherever they go they carry healing with them.
To maintain this army of militant good will and helpfulness, and to increase it as occasion requires is an obligation so imperative that it cannot be evaded.
Never was it as urgent as it is to-day, that there should be generous response to the appeal for nurses.
If we are often discouraged in our philanthropic work, it is not because we consider what we are doing in a detached way, independent of its world relationships. If we could only realize that we are part of the mighty army composed of all nationalities and races and creeds, an army of life, not of death, marching past disease and suffering and misery and sin, we would be inspired to wage the conflict with greater vigor, until our vision of the world freed from suffering, was realized.
When the realization comes, it will not come with shouting and tumult, but will come quietly and beautifully as the sun makes its triumphant progress through the heavens, gradually conquering the night until at last the earth is flooded with glorious warmth and light and all the formless shapes that loved darkness rather than light silently steal away and are forgotten.
John Lewis Griffiths
Note: Although the above selection was part of an address delivered inLondon in 1911, its truth is more apparent today than ever before.
Things Which Cannot Be Shaken
There are season in life when everything seems to be shaking. Old landmarks are crumbling. Venerable foundations are upheaved in a night, and are scattered abroad as dust. Guiding buoys snap their moorings, and go drifting down the channel. Institutions which promised to outlast the hills collapse like a stricken tent. Assumptions in which everybody trusted burst like air-balloons. Everything seems to lose its base, and trembles in uncertainty and confusion.
Such seasons are known in our personal life. One day our circumstances appear to share the unshaken solidity of the planet, and our security is complete. And then some undreamed-of antagonism assaults our life. We speak of it as a bolt from the blue! Perhaps it is some stunning disaster in business. Or perhaps death has leaped into our quiet meadows. Or perhaps some presumptuous sin has suddenly revealed its foul face in the life of one of our children. And we are "all at sea!" Our little, neat hypotheses crumple like withered leaves. Our accustomed roads are all broken up, our conventional ways of thinking and feeling, and the sure sequences on which we have depended vanish in a night. It is experiences like these which make the soul cry out with the psalmist, in bewilderment and fear,—"My foot slippeth!" His customary foothold had given way. The ground was shaking beneath him. The foundations trembled.