And what do the women say—the women who lose such men? Thus do they decline to attend at The Hague the Peace Congress of foolish women who have lost nobody:
"How would it be possible, in an hour like this, for us to meet women of the enemy's countries?... Have they disavowed the ... crimes of their government? Have they protested against the violation of Belgium's neutrality? Against offenses to the law of nations? Against the crimes of their army and navy? If their voices had been raised it was too feebly for the echo of theirprotest to reach us across our violated and devastated territories...."
And one celebrated lady writes to a delegate at The Hague:
"Madam, are you really English?... I confess I understand better Englishwomen who wish to fight.... To ask Frenchwomen in such an hour to come and talk of arbitration and mediation and discourse of an armistice is to ask them to deny their nation.... All that Frenchwomen could desire is to awake and acclaim in their children, their husbands and brothers, and in their very fathers, the conviction that defensive war is a thing so holy that all must be abandoned, forgotten, sacrificed, and death must be faced heroically to defend and save that which is most sacred ... our country.... It wouldbe to deny my dead to look for anything beside that which is and ought to be!—if the God of right and justice, the enemy of the devil and of force and crazy pride, is the true God."
Thus awakened and transfigured by Calamity do men and women rise in their full spiritual nature, efface themselves, and utter sacred words. Calamity, when the Lusitania went down, wrung from the lips of an awakened German, Kuno Francke, this noble burst of patriotism:
Ends Europe so? Then, in Thy mercy, God,Out of the foundering planet's gruesome nightPluck Thou my people's soul. From rage and crazeOf the staled Earth, O lift Thou it aloft,Re-youthed, and through transfiguration cleansed;So beaming shall it light the newer time,And heavenly, on a world refreshed, unfold.Soul of my race, thou sinkest not to dust.
Ends Europe so? Then, in Thy mercy, God,Out of the foundering planet's gruesome nightPluck Thou my people's soul. From rage and crazeOf the staled Earth, O lift Thou it aloft,Re-youthed, and through transfiguration cleansed;So beaming shall it light the newer time,And heavenly, on a world refreshed, unfold.Soul of my race, thou sinkest not to dust.
Ends Europe so? Then, in Thy mercy, God,
Out of the foundering planet's gruesome night
Pluck Thou my people's soul. From rage and craze
Of the staled Earth, O lift Thou it aloft,
Re-youthed, and through transfiguration cleansed;
So beaming shall it light the newer time,
And heavenly, on a world refreshed, unfold.
Soul of my race, thou sinkest not to dust.
If Germany's tragedy be, as I think, the deepest of all, the hope is that she, too, will be touched by the Pentecost of Calamity, and pluck her soul from Prussia, to whom she gave it in 1870. Thus shall the curse be lifted.
And what of ourselves in this well-nigh world-wide cloud-burst?
Every man has walked at night through gloom where objects were dim and hard to see, when suddenly a flash of lightning has struck the landscape livid. Trees close by, fences far off, houses, fields, animals and the faces of people—all things stand transfixed by a piercing distinctness. So now, in this thunderstorm of war, each nation and every man and woman is searchingly revealed by the perpetual lightnings. Whatever this American nation is, whatever aspect, noble or ignoble, our Democracyshows in the glare of this cataclysm, is even already engraved on the page of History, will be the portrait of the United States in 1914-15 for all time.
I want no better photograph of any individual than his opinion of this war. If he has none, that is a photograph of him. Last autumn there were Americans who wished the papers would stop printing war news and give their readers a change. So we have their photographs, as well as those of other Americans who merely calculated the extra dollars they could squeeze out of Europe's need and agony. But that—thank God!—is not what we look like as a whole. Our sympathy has poured out for Belgium a springtide of help and relief; it has flowed to the wounded and afflictedof Poland, Servia, France and England. A continuous publishing of books, magazine articles and editorials, full of justice and of anger at Prussia's long-prepared and malignant assault, should prove to Europe that American hearts and heads by the thousand and hundred thousand are in the right place. Merely the stand taken by theNew York Sun,New York Times,OutlookandPhiladelphia Public Ledger—to name no more—saves us from the reproach of moral neutrality: saves us as individuals.
Yet, somehow, in Europe's eyes we fall short. The Allies, in spite of their recognition of our material generosity, find us spiritually wanting. In theLondon Punch, on the sinking of the Lusitania, Britannia stands perplexed and indignant behind the bowed figureof America, and, with a hand on her shoulder, addresses her thus:
In silence you have looked on felon blows,On butcher's work of which the waste lands reek;Now, in God's name, from Whom your greatness flows,Sister, will you not speak?
In silence you have looked on felon blows,On butcher's work of which the waste lands reek;Now, in God's name, from Whom your greatness flows,Sister, will you not speak?
In silence you have looked on felon blows,
On butcher's work of which the waste lands reek;
Now, in God's name, from Whom your greatness flows,
Sister, will you not speak?
This is asked of us not as individuals but as a nation; and as a nation our only spokesman is our Government: "Sister, will you not speak?" Well—we did speak; but after nine months of silence. This silence, in the opinion of French and Belgian emissaries who have talked to me with courteous frankness, constitutes our moral failure.
"When this war began"—they say—"we all looked to you. You were thegreat Democracy; you were not involved; you would speak the justifying word we longed for. We knew you must keep out politically; this was your true part and your great strength. We altogether agreed with your President there. But why did your universities remain dumb? The University of Chicago stopped the mouth of a Belgian professor who was going to present Belgium's case in public. Your press has been divided. The word we expected from you has never come. You sent us your charity; but what we wanted was justice, ratification of our cause."
To this I have answered:
"First—Our universities do not and cannot sit like yours in high seats, inspiring public opinion. I wish they did. Second—We are not yet melted intoone nationality; we are a mosaic of languages and bloods; yet, even so, never in my life have I seen the American press and people so united on any question. Third—Our charity is our very way—the only way we have—of telling you we are with you. I am glad you recognize the necessity of our political neutrality. Anything else would have been, both historically and as an act of folly, unprecedented. Fourth—Do not forget that George Washington advised us to mind our own business."
But they reply: "Isn't this your own business?" And there they touch the core of the matter.
Across the sea the deadliest assault ever made on Democracy has been going on, month after month. We send bread and bandages to thewounded; individually we denounce the assault. Columbia and Uncle Sam stand looking on. Is this quite enough? War being out of the question, was there nothing else? No protest to register? Did the wide ocean wholly let Columbia out? Europe, weltering in her own failure, had turned towards us a wistful look.
I cannot tell what George Washington would have thought; I only know that my answer to my European friends leaves them unconvinced—and therefore how can it quite satisfy me? Minds are exalted now, and white-hot. When they cool, what will our historic likeness be as revealed in the lightnings of this cosmic emergency? Will it be the portrait of a people who sold its birthright for a mess of pottage? Viewing howwe have given, and the tone of our press, perhaps this would hardly be just. Yet I can not but regret that we did not protest. What we lost in not doing so I see clearly; I can not see clearly what we gained. We may argue thus in our defense: If it is deemed that we missed a great opportunity in not protesting as signatories of the violated Hague conventions, are not our proofs of the violations more authentic now than at the time? What we heard was incredible to American minds. We had never made or known such war. By the time the truth was established a protest might have seemed somewhat belated. Well, this is all the explanation we can offer. Is it enough?
It is too early to answer; certain it is that not as we see ourselves but asothers see us, so shall we forever be. Certain it is also, and eternally, that through suffering alone men and nations find their greater selves. It is fifty years since we Americans knew the Pentecost of Calamity. These years have been too easy. We have not had to live dangerously enough. We have prospered, we have been immune, and our prosperity has proved somewhat a curse in disguise.
In these times that uncover men's souls and the souls of nations, has our soul come to light, or only our huge, lavish body? In 1865 we had found our soul indeed. Where is it gone? We have been witnessing many "scholarly retreats," and every day we have had to hear the "maxims of a low prudence." Have they sunk to the core and killed it? God forbid! But since August, 1914,we have stood listening to the cry of our European brothers-in-Liberty. They did not ask our feeble arm to strike in their cause, but they yearned for our voice and did not get it. Will History acquit us of this silence?
Meanwhile, the maxims of a low prudence, masquerading as Christianity, daily counsel us to keep our arm feeble. It was not so that Washington survived Valley Forge, or Lincoln won through to Appomattox. If the Fourth of July and the Declaration it celebrates still mean anything to us, let our arm be strong.
This for our own sake. For the sake of mankind, if this war brings home to us that we now sit in the council of nations and share directly in the general responsibility for the world's well-being,we shall have taken a great stride in national and spiritual maturity, and our talk about the brotherhood of man may progress from rhetoric towards realization.
We have yet to find our greater selves. We have also yet to realize that Europe, since the Spanish War, has counted us in the concert of great nations far more than we have counted ourselves.
Somebody wrote in the New York Sun:
We are not English, German, Swede,Or Austrian, Russian, French or Pole;But we have made a separate breedAnd gained a separate soul.
We are not English, German, Swede,Or Austrian, Russian, French or Pole;But we have made a separate breedAnd gained a separate soul.
We are not English, German, Swede,
Or Austrian, Russian, French or Pole;
But we have made a separate breed
And gained a separate soul.
It sounds well; it means nothing; its sum total is zero. America asserts thebrotherhood of man and then talks about a separate soul!
To speak of the Old World and the New World is to speak in a dead language. The world is one. All humanity is in the same boat. The passengers multiply, but the boat remains the same size. And people who rock the boat must be stopped by force. America can no more separate itself from the destiny of Europe than it can escape the natural laws of the universe.
Because we declared political independence, does any one still harbor the delusion that we are independent of the acts and fortunes of monarchs? If so, let him consider only these four events: In 1492 a Spanish Queen financed a sailor named Columbus—and Europe reached out and laid a hand on thishemisphere. In 1685 a French King revoked an edict—and thousands of Huguenots enriched our stock. In 1803 a French consul, to spite Britain, sold us some land—it was pretty much everything west of the Mississippi. One might well have supposed we were independent of the heir of Austria. In 1914 they killed him, and Europe fell to pieces—and that fall is shaking our ship of state from stem to stern. There may be some citizens down in the hold who do not know it—among a hundred million people you cannot expect to have no imbeciles.
Thus, from Palos, in 1492, to Sarajevo, in 1914, the hand of Europe has drawn us ever and ever closer.
Yes, indeed; we are all in the same boat. Europe has never forgotten somewords spoken here once: "That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." She waited to hear us repeat that in some form when The Hague conventions we signed were torn to scraps of paper. Perhaps nothing save calamity will teach us what Europe is thankful to have learned again—that some things are worse than war, and that you can pay too high a price for peace; but that you cannot pay too high for the finding and keeping of your own soul.
The following pages contain advertisementsof Macmillan books by the same author
The Virginian
A Horseman of the Plains
With Eight Full-page IllustrationsBy Arthur I. Keller
Cloth, 12mo, $1.50
"There is not a page in Mr. Wister's new book which is not interesting. This is its first great merit, that it arouses the sympathy of the reader and holds him absorbed and amused to the end. It does a great deal more for him. 'Whoever reads the first page will find it next to impossible to put the book down until he has read every one of the five hundred and four in the book, and then he will wish there were more of them.'"—New York Tribune."Mr. Wister has drawn real men and real women.... In 'The Virginian' he has put forth a book that will be remembered and read with interest many years hence."—Chicago American."The story is human and alive. It has the 'touch and go' of the vibrating life of the expansive American West and puts the country and the people vividly before the reader."—Philadelphia Times-Saturday Review.
"There is not a page in Mr. Wister's new book which is not interesting. This is its first great merit, that it arouses the sympathy of the reader and holds him absorbed and amused to the end. It does a great deal more for him. 'Whoever reads the first page will find it next to impossible to put the book down until he has read every one of the five hundred and four in the book, and then he will wish there were more of them.'"—New York Tribune.
"Mr. Wister has drawn real men and real women.... In 'The Virginian' he has put forth a book that will be remembered and read with interest many years hence."—Chicago American.
"The story is human and alive. It has the 'touch and go' of the vibrating life of the expansive American West and puts the country and the people vividly before the reader."—Philadelphia Times-Saturday Review.
Members of the Family
Vivid Sketches of Life on the Western Plains
Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.25
"Highly finished and serves to mirror the West of thirty years ago, when the picturesque cowboy was the dominant figure in every Western settlement."—San Francisco Chronicle."A legitimate successor to 'The Virginian,' a story of Western tales, full of color and outdoors, and a shrewd relish of humor."—Albany Argus."It is a book that one may pick up for a few moments and be transported back to the days which are no more, when the Indian and the ranchman, the soldier and the gambler and the adventurer, thrown together, created a society that was never dull. In these stories Mr. Wister has reproduced this life in fine fashion. The atmosphere of the book is buoyant. The spirit of the wild is in it. It is a delineation of life and society made familiar to an earlier generation by the nickel library, but very much truer to life and expressed by a literary artist."—Boston Herald."It is a pleasant hour with the world's great minds and a strong man's belief in the greatness of his native land."—Lexington Herald."The stories show Mr. Wister at his best. It would be a difficult task to give the stories a rating as to value. All are good. Admirers of Wister will find in this book one that they will read several times."—Detroit News.
"Highly finished and serves to mirror the West of thirty years ago, when the picturesque cowboy was the dominant figure in every Western settlement."—San Francisco Chronicle.
"A legitimate successor to 'The Virginian,' a story of Western tales, full of color and outdoors, and a shrewd relish of humor."—Albany Argus.
"It is a book that one may pick up for a few moments and be transported back to the days which are no more, when the Indian and the ranchman, the soldier and the gambler and the adventurer, thrown together, created a society that was never dull. In these stories Mr. Wister has reproduced this life in fine fashion. The atmosphere of the book is buoyant. The spirit of the wild is in it. It is a delineation of life and society made familiar to an earlier generation by the nickel library, but very much truer to life and expressed by a literary artist."—Boston Herald.
"It is a pleasant hour with the world's great minds and a strong man's belief in the greatness of his native land."—Lexington Herald.
"The stories show Mr. Wister at his best. It would be a difficult task to give the stories a rating as to value. All are good. Admirers of Wister will find in this book one that they will read several times."—Detroit News.
Lady Baltimore
Illustrated, cloth, 12mo $1.50
"It is pleasant to be able to say that ... his reputation will be more than merely maintained by his new venture ... It would be difficult to speak too highly of this delightful volume ... 'Lady Baltimore,' as may be gathered from what we have said above, is a many-sided book.... In fine, here is an author of whom America may well be proud, not only for his literary accomplishments, but for his generous, yet discriminating, love of his country."—The Spectator, London."Full of the tenderest human interest, sufficiently dramatic, with a decided touch of originality."—Daily News, Chicago."A delightful story; the reader is captivated from the start."—New York Globe."As a picture it is charming; as a story it has genuine strength."—New York Mail."Wholly charming from end to end."—Toronto Globe."The story maintains a rare quality of sincerity and indefinable charm."—North American, Philadelphia."A most charming story ... one of the most exquisite done in years."—Citizen, Brooklyn."A love story that even excels that between Molly Wood and 'The Virginian.'"—The Advance, Chicago."We have been wholly charmed with 'Lady Baltimore' and wish sincerely that it was our luck to read books like it every day,"—-Richmond Times-Dispatch.
"It is pleasant to be able to say that ... his reputation will be more than merely maintained by his new venture ... It would be difficult to speak too highly of this delightful volume ... 'Lady Baltimore,' as may be gathered from what we have said above, is a many-sided book.... In fine, here is an author of whom America may well be proud, not only for his literary accomplishments, but for his generous, yet discriminating, love of his country."—The Spectator, London.
"Full of the tenderest human interest, sufficiently dramatic, with a decided touch of originality."—Daily News, Chicago.
"A delightful story; the reader is captivated from the start."—New York Globe.
"As a picture it is charming; as a story it has genuine strength."—New York Mail.
"Wholly charming from end to end."—Toronto Globe.
"The story maintains a rare quality of sincerity and indefinable charm."—North American, Philadelphia.
"A most charming story ... one of the most exquisite done in years."—Citizen, Brooklyn.
"A love story that even excels that between Molly Wood and 'The Virginian.'"—The Advance, Chicago.
"We have been wholly charmed with 'Lady Baltimore' and wish sincerely that it was our luck to read books like it every day,"—-Richmond Times-Dispatch.
How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee
Illustrated, decorated cloth, 16mo, $0.50
"Mr. Wister's humor is always genuine and racy, and in this little burlesque he fairly riots in absurd specimens of supersimplified spelling. This fantastic skit is intensely amusing."—Outlook."It is a clever extravaganza, and points a moral without possibility of mistake."—Louisville Post."Its spirit is the spirit of pure farce, and the vein of satire that runs through it only adds to the hilarity of the tale."—Critic.
"Mr. Wister's humor is always genuine and racy, and in this little burlesque he fairly riots in absurd specimens of supersimplified spelling. This fantastic skit is intensely amusing."—Outlook.
"It is a clever extravaganza, and points a moral without possibility of mistake."—Louisville Post.
"Its spirit is the spirit of pure farce, and the vein of satire that runs through it only adds to the hilarity of the tale."—Critic.
Philosophy Four
Illustrated, decorated cloth, 16mo, $0.50
"Told well and with a reserve which betokens a ripe literary craft."—Daily Chronicle."Owen Wister is a born story-teller. If you have ever read any of his books you have doubtless discovered this for yourself. In this charming story of undergraduate life at Harvard, Mr. Wister has shown that he has great skill in character delineation."—The Boston Globe.
"Told well and with a reserve which betokens a ripe literary craft."—Daily Chronicle.
"Owen Wister is a born story-teller. If you have ever read any of his books you have doubtless discovered this for yourself. In this charming story of undergraduate life at Harvard, Mr. Wister has shown that he has great skill in character delineation."—The Boston Globe.
The Seven Ages of Washington
Cloth, gilt top, 12mo, $2.00
CRITICAL COMMENDATION
"It is a curious fact that the life of Washington has never been really easy to write.... But in these matters the character of the historian means everything. If we have the right man we may be sure of a good book. As regards the true Washington we have in Mr. Wister the right man."'The Seven Ages of Washington' ... gives a remarkable interpretation of its subject.... It is plain that the author has been moved to the depths of him by his hero's worth, finding in the traditionally 'cold' figure of Washington a type to touch the emotions as vividly as Napoleon touches them in even his most dramatic moments. He passes on his impression in a few chapters which gather up everyday traits as they come out in letters and other records. The salient events in Washington's career, military and political, are indicated rather than dwelt upon. The object of interest is always his character; the things placed in the foreground are the episodes, great or small, which show us that character in action or point to the sources of its development...."The background is handled with perfect discretion. The reader who is searching for an authoritative biography of Washington, brief, and made humanly interesting from the first page to the last, will find it here."—From a column review of the book inThe New York Tribune, Nov. 23, 1907.
"It is a curious fact that the life of Washington has never been really easy to write.... But in these matters the character of the historian means everything. If we have the right man we may be sure of a good book. As regards the true Washington we have in Mr. Wister the right man.
"'The Seven Ages of Washington' ... gives a remarkable interpretation of its subject.... It is plain that the author has been moved to the depths of him by his hero's worth, finding in the traditionally 'cold' figure of Washington a type to touch the emotions as vividly as Napoleon touches them in even his most dramatic moments. He passes on his impression in a few chapters which gather up everyday traits as they come out in letters and other records. The salient events in Washington's career, military and political, are indicated rather than dwelt upon. The object of interest is always his character; the things placed in the foreground are the episodes, great or small, which show us that character in action or point to the sources of its development....
"The background is handled with perfect discretion. The reader who is searching for an authoritative biography of Washington, brief, and made humanly interesting from the first page to the last, will find it here."—From a column review of the book inThe New York Tribune, Nov. 23, 1907.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANYPublishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
Transcriber's Note:Replicated chapter titles removed.