INEngland, when war came, the confusion was unbelievable. All that Gard had seen, heard, gone through in Deutschland proved the awfulness of the Force flung against Europe which had stupidly considered itself civilized.
He was burning to enlist. But what a chagrin to find his services not wanted! The only satisfaction he could get lay in the suggestion to wait. The more he was put off, the more he was bent on reaching the firing line.
In his enforced and impatient idleness he took out his German note book and began writing letters to Rebner in America, thus giving partial vent to his own feelings. The following brief extracts were written first as he went about different camps, offering himself, then at the front:
England, October, 1914.... You know how I went to Germany at your urging, with every favorable impulse toward the Germans. But you had little idea what they are. If our fellow-Americans realized what was thought and said of them beyond the Rhine, they would be in battle now.As there is no prospect of our Government wanting fighting men, I am trying to get into the English service. No success yet....How could you, my good mentor, be so in error about the race from which you sprang? Had you been in Germany, the scales would have dropped from your eyes. You have never lived with the Germans there—only read the best about the "most advanced" of mankind. They are so different from our American-Germans. You did not know that the educated Teuton at home is apt to be dirty in his person and habits, eats with his knife, walks before women, kicks his children about, has coarse or vulgar ideas onfemale chastity, enjoys the obscene, has no good words to say of anyone beyond his boundaries.Pray do not fancy I am pretending to chideyou. Weren't we all like you in America, dazzled before what apparently we were humbly ready to admit as the super-race? And yet in a multitude of ways it is so obviously a people set off by itself in much barbarism. There is its Gothic script which offends the eye somewhat like outlandish runes. Its very language growls and snorts at you, sounds threatening as if angry—pardon me for these sentences! There are its mud-colored towns and architecture, its rude life, rough skinned, hairy, ferocious, with tastelessness prevailing.The German imagination is never shot through with clear, happy sunshine. The German emotions are distinctively expressed by thumpings in some form. The Teuton's inability to see himself as another sees him—is this not, above all, the stamp of an under-civilized people?...
England, October, 1914.
... You know how I went to Germany at your urging, with every favorable impulse toward the Germans. But you had little idea what they are. If our fellow-Americans realized what was thought and said of them beyond the Rhine, they would be in battle now.
As there is no prospect of our Government wanting fighting men, I am trying to get into the English service. No success yet....
How could you, my good mentor, be so in error about the race from which you sprang? Had you been in Germany, the scales would have dropped from your eyes. You have never lived with the Germans there—only read the best about the "most advanced" of mankind. They are so different from our American-Germans. You did not know that the educated Teuton at home is apt to be dirty in his person and habits, eats with his knife, walks before women, kicks his children about, has coarse or vulgar ideas onfemale chastity, enjoys the obscene, has no good words to say of anyone beyond his boundaries.
Pray do not fancy I am pretending to chideyou. Weren't we all like you in America, dazzled before what apparently we were humbly ready to admit as the super-race? And yet in a multitude of ways it is so obviously a people set off by itself in much barbarism. There is its Gothic script which offends the eye somewhat like outlandish runes. Its very language growls and snorts at you, sounds threatening as if angry—pardon me for these sentences! There are its mud-colored towns and architecture, its rude life, rough skinned, hairy, ferocious, with tastelessness prevailing.
The German imagination is never shot through with clear, happy sunshine. The German emotions are distinctively expressed by thumpings in some form. The Teuton's inability to see himself as another sees him—is this not, above all, the stamp of an under-civilized people?...
England, October, 1914.... Do not think I am unduly harsh, prejudiced, revengeful. I am trying to write in measured terms of what has been forced in upon me and my attention against my wish or expectations.I have met but one American who said that war was at hand and knew what the Germans really are at home. He was an elderly journalist in Dresden who was jeered at until he almost imagined himself mentally unbalanced. Others thought him so, at any rate.But Anderson was a true prophet. Dear isolated, desolated soul! I wonder where he is now. I wonder if he got out safely. How I wish I could grasp his hand and say, How wise were your convictions!Like myself he had gone to Deutschland to admire and love the Germans. But he found what I found—an astonishing amount of ruthlessness. How could one expect that the ultimate world-justice and world-humanity were to evolve out of a race to which the army,armed soldiers and statesmen clad in steel, stand for so much?How could anything of universal good come from a people who consider nothing from the viewpoint of a kindly common brotherhood? Contempt, intolerance, physical force, are what they gloat over in international relations. I discovered that when they must ask pardon or make amends, they do so with bad grace. They do not take a magnanimous and frank satisfaction or pleasure in righting a wrong.You would not believe how lacking their character is in the capacity for penitence, for atonement. We will never see them sorry for any of their present enormities. The still, small voice in them has not been allowed to develop. Their notion of ethics is so different that it is inadmissible from our standards.To be sensitive, grieve, suffer morally, is apart from their normal consciousness. For all this tender and beautiful side of human nature they substitute only the discomforted feelings of defeat. No matter how this present conflict ends, he wholooks for any sympathetic actions or noble regrets from them will be dumfounded....
England, October, 1914.
... Do not think I am unduly harsh, prejudiced, revengeful. I am trying to write in measured terms of what has been forced in upon me and my attention against my wish or expectations.
I have met but one American who said that war was at hand and knew what the Germans really are at home. He was an elderly journalist in Dresden who was jeered at until he almost imagined himself mentally unbalanced. Others thought him so, at any rate.
But Anderson was a true prophet. Dear isolated, desolated soul! I wonder where he is now. I wonder if he got out safely. How I wish I could grasp his hand and say, How wise were your convictions!
Like myself he had gone to Deutschland to admire and love the Germans. But he found what I found—an astonishing amount of ruthlessness. How could one expect that the ultimate world-justice and world-humanity were to evolve out of a race to which the army,armed soldiers and statesmen clad in steel, stand for so much?
How could anything of universal good come from a people who consider nothing from the viewpoint of a kindly common brotherhood? Contempt, intolerance, physical force, are what they gloat over in international relations. I discovered that when they must ask pardon or make amends, they do so with bad grace. They do not take a magnanimous and frank satisfaction or pleasure in righting a wrong.
You would not believe how lacking their character is in the capacity for penitence, for atonement. We will never see them sorry for any of their present enormities. The still, small voice in them has not been allowed to develop. Their notion of ethics is so different that it is inadmissible from our standards.
To be sensitive, grieve, suffer morally, is apart from their normal consciousness. For all this tender and beautiful side of human nature they substitute only the discomforted feelings of defeat. No matter how this present conflict ends, he wholooks for any sympathetic actions or noble regrets from them will be dumfounded....
England, November, 1914.Hurrah! I am at last, after disappointments and frettings, under way for Flanders. Lo, I am become, as it were, an Englishman! The British now see the full peril and are taking almost any kind of men, and I'm going along. I suppose it is because I am so keyed up that I feel so well. I'm surprised at myself. I guess I must have, after all, a little good Anglo-Saxon grit in me.I am trying to write this scrawl to you on a round milk container in a camp near London. We are not permitted to tell where....As I was on the point of saying in my last letter, Jesus is never a watchword in Germany. The Nazarene meekness makes small appeal there. All is Gott. The Teuton regards Christ as too much of a weakling. Had He an army? Could He shoot, as all Germans can?He would not fight and therefore was properly destroyed. If His foolish ideas were followed, the weak would eventually rule the earth whereas, to the German mind, the strong should manifestly rule the earth. The strongest are the fittest, and the fittest should alone survive.To the Goth the Christian religion and philosophy are baneful, baleful. As the result of their feeble policy was not Christ followed—the Germans claim—by the Dark Ages when mankind was obsessed by His superstitious worship? Lifting men out of this morass, the proper practical, scientific and warlike forces came at length into play and we have the magnificent modern régime whose basis is armed strength.Hence—it is argued—Germany came into her own and inevitably leads the world. She represents the perfection of organized physical and mental powers which are the antitheses of the Christ ideal.And so you never hear much in Deutschland about Peace and Good Will, Do as You would be Done by, Faith,Hope and Charity and the greatest of these is Charity. Such Christian texts and mottoes, which fill our American homes, churches and public places, are little in evidence in Germany because they do not enter into the life. The popular nomenclature is pagan rather than Biblical. Already in this war we behold the Kaiser drawing his names for forts and trenches from his wild pagan mythology, not from Christian sources. And in Deutschland, acts in the field count for so much more than words in the pulpit.If the Huns win, Teuton hate will, of course, succeed Christian love as the human creed. Friendship, as we know it, will largely cease to exist. Friends will be those who can be cowed into truculence or bought. There will be no truth, justice, equity, in our meaning. Only the will or whim of the Emperor. His State Church, with its worship of Him, will grow asthechurch.Everything that southern and western Europe stands for, from ancient Greece to the northern points of Scotland and Ireland (with America in addition)—beauty, loveableness, the brightness of life with its joyousness, gayety, grace, charm—will be stamped down under the metallic heels of the Kaiser's battalions and bureaucrats....
England, November, 1914.
Hurrah! I am at last, after disappointments and frettings, under way for Flanders. Lo, I am become, as it were, an Englishman! The British now see the full peril and are taking almost any kind of men, and I'm going along. I suppose it is because I am so keyed up that I feel so well. I'm surprised at myself. I guess I must have, after all, a little good Anglo-Saxon grit in me.
I am trying to write this scrawl to you on a round milk container in a camp near London. We are not permitted to tell where....
As I was on the point of saying in my last letter, Jesus is never a watchword in Germany. The Nazarene meekness makes small appeal there. All is Gott. The Teuton regards Christ as too much of a weakling. Had He an army? Could He shoot, as all Germans can?He would not fight and therefore was properly destroyed. If His foolish ideas were followed, the weak would eventually rule the earth whereas, to the German mind, the strong should manifestly rule the earth. The strongest are the fittest, and the fittest should alone survive.
To the Goth the Christian religion and philosophy are baneful, baleful. As the result of their feeble policy was not Christ followed—the Germans claim—by the Dark Ages when mankind was obsessed by His superstitious worship? Lifting men out of this morass, the proper practical, scientific and warlike forces came at length into play and we have the magnificent modern régime whose basis is armed strength.
Hence—it is argued—Germany came into her own and inevitably leads the world. She represents the perfection of organized physical and mental powers which are the antitheses of the Christ ideal.
And so you never hear much in Deutschland about Peace and Good Will, Do as You would be Done by, Faith,Hope and Charity and the greatest of these is Charity. Such Christian texts and mottoes, which fill our American homes, churches and public places, are little in evidence in Germany because they do not enter into the life. The popular nomenclature is pagan rather than Biblical. Already in this war we behold the Kaiser drawing his names for forts and trenches from his wild pagan mythology, not from Christian sources. And in Deutschland, acts in the field count for so much more than words in the pulpit.
If the Huns win, Teuton hate will, of course, succeed Christian love as the human creed. Friendship, as we know it, will largely cease to exist. Friends will be those who can be cowed into truculence or bought. There will be no truth, justice, equity, in our meaning. Only the will or whim of the Emperor. His State Church, with its worship of Him, will grow asthechurch.
Everything that southern and western Europe stands for, from ancient Greece to the northern points of Scotland and Ireland (with America in addition)—beauty, loveableness, the brightness of life with its joyousness, gayety, grace, charm—will be stamped down under the metallic heels of the Kaiser's battalions and bureaucrats....
Boulogne, January, 1915.After what I have written you from Germany, and since, about my unexpected disillusionment, you will ask me:"Well, enough of this. What ought to be done or can be done about it?"I am thinking about a solution. Not original, for its framework was suggested by my old journalistic friend. I will send you an outline of his idea as he gave it to me one day. All that he said and prophesied has come so direfully true that I have now full faith and confidence in his vision and practical sense on the subject of the Goth race. For helivedand observed among them seven years.That's the great point—living together. And I do not mean living together when people are mature or old but whenyoung—when minds, sympathies, etc., are plastic and pliable. As long as the young Germans are kept home—never sent abroad unless as spies in some form—the Teutons will remain Huns.Granted that they can't help it if they are born with the Hun strain in their blood which their education or instruction not only preserves but enrages. Admit that they want any barbarism eliminated from their veins. That would be an important point over which our world should hold out to them the glad hand....Don't be offended, but the best thing that I learned in college was to throw well from left field. At any rate it saved my life, I suppose, at Aix. And I've grown wonderfully fond of pepper. It braces a chap for this Iceland wind that howls down upon us at times. We call baseball and football a part of education. Good, brave things. The Germans don't have them because they have only "instruction."From what I observed beyond the Rhine, education is a growth in free and liberal countries. As we are seeing in the war, German instruction turns out experts, but also intellectual monsters and scientific fiends—instructed heathens....Strange to say, I don't believe I could have stood this existence here if my system had not got a good cleansing out when I was sick. I am all the time thinking about the Huns. And it is strictly necessary hereabouts.
Boulogne, January, 1915.
After what I have written you from Germany, and since, about my unexpected disillusionment, you will ask me:
"Well, enough of this. What ought to be done or can be done about it?"
I am thinking about a solution. Not original, for its framework was suggested by my old journalistic friend. I will send you an outline of his idea as he gave it to me one day. All that he said and prophesied has come so direfully true that I have now full faith and confidence in his vision and practical sense on the subject of the Goth race. For helivedand observed among them seven years.
That's the great point—living together. And I do not mean living together when people are mature or old but whenyoung—when minds, sympathies, etc., are plastic and pliable. As long as the young Germans are kept home—never sent abroad unless as spies in some form—the Teutons will remain Huns.
Granted that they can't help it if they are born with the Hun strain in their blood which their education or instruction not only preserves but enrages. Admit that they want any barbarism eliminated from their veins. That would be an important point over which our world should hold out to them the glad hand....
Don't be offended, but the best thing that I learned in college was to throw well from left field. At any rate it saved my life, I suppose, at Aix. And I've grown wonderfully fond of pepper. It braces a chap for this Iceland wind that howls down upon us at times. We call baseball and football a part of education. Good, brave things. The Germans don't have them because they have only "instruction."
From what I observed beyond the Rhine, education is a growth in free and liberal countries. As we are seeing in the war, German instruction turns out experts, but also intellectual monsters and scientific fiends—instructed heathens....
Strange to say, I don't believe I could have stood this existence here if my system had not got a good cleansing out when I was sick. I am all the time thinking about the Huns. And it is strictly necessary hereabouts.
Flanders, a Mudhole, February, 1915.... Is not my old friend Anderson's plan the only natural, practical, efficient method by which to humanize their barbarous instincts? Assuming that they will be defeated, as theymustbe, the Anderson project, as you see, is that a permanent arrangement must be offered them, and if necessary enforced upon them, whereby a multitude of young German men and women shall be sent yearly to foreign democratic lands toliveand be educated there for a period. By attractive scholarships, by pecuniary inducements or by any of a number of programmes, young Germans can be tempted to this step. In living and studying, before middle age, under free and liberal conditions, they will begin looking at foreigners in a friendly, or what we should call a Christian, manner. After awhile, after generations perhaps, this leaven will work in the thick, tough, sour Teuton dough. It will transform the people. They will gradually become allies at heart instead of remaining hostiles.As it is now, the German eats, drinks, bathes, and nauseatingly does other elemental things much as he did a hundred years ago, because he receives his instruction in his homeland with the idea, not only complacent but aggressive, that his habits are the best. And this is for the reason that he has seen no other kind when young. Do you think, for instance, that a youthful German, after living in the freedom of our young sexes, would return to the Rhine and long be content with the iron-like Teuton customs in love, courtship and marriage?A youthful person is apt to admire the people among whom he is staying a long while for the reason that, under such circumstances, aliens are kind. He will always take pride in these foreign connections, pride in what he has learned abroad. He will think himself more fortunate and more advanced than his fellow stay-at-homes. The young German, becoming used to more amiable modes of existence, would naturally become more or less fond of them. A broader, more human social spirit—the true social spirit—would get a hold in him.I would go further than my friend Anderson. I would haveallcivilized countries adopt this plan with one another as well as with Germany. The trouble with civilization, as seen in this war, is that no people understands or truly sympathizes with any foreign nation—not even among the Allies. They are strangers because they have been kept strangers. This creates suspicion, envy, enmity, for they have not in any noticeable degree lived together. They do not know one another's customs, habits, perspectives. As a result, armies, navies, tariffs, treaties backed by force, are necessary to hold civilization precariously inshape—and at what colossal effort, anxiety, expense? The different languages, literatures, arts, educations, religions, should become familiar to large numbers in each race and be the open, peaceful highways back and forth instead of, as now, barriers.
Flanders, a Mudhole, February, 1915.
... Is not my old friend Anderson's plan the only natural, practical, efficient method by which to humanize their barbarous instincts? Assuming that they will be defeated, as theymustbe, the Anderson project, as you see, is that a permanent arrangement must be offered them, and if necessary enforced upon them, whereby a multitude of young German men and women shall be sent yearly to foreign democratic lands toliveand be educated there for a period. By attractive scholarships, by pecuniary inducements or by any of a number of programmes, young Germans can be tempted to this step. In living and studying, before middle age, under free and liberal conditions, they will begin looking at foreigners in a friendly, or what we should call a Christian, manner. After awhile, after generations perhaps, this leaven will work in the thick, tough, sour Teuton dough. It will transform the people. They will gradually become allies at heart instead of remaining hostiles.
As it is now, the German eats, drinks, bathes, and nauseatingly does other elemental things much as he did a hundred years ago, because he receives his instruction in his homeland with the idea, not only complacent but aggressive, that his habits are the best. And this is for the reason that he has seen no other kind when young. Do you think, for instance, that a youthful German, after living in the freedom of our young sexes, would return to the Rhine and long be content with the iron-like Teuton customs in love, courtship and marriage?
A youthful person is apt to admire the people among whom he is staying a long while for the reason that, under such circumstances, aliens are kind. He will always take pride in these foreign connections, pride in what he has learned abroad. He will think himself more fortunate and more advanced than his fellow stay-at-homes. The young German, becoming used to more amiable modes of existence, would naturally become more or less fond of them. A broader, more human social spirit—the true social spirit—would get a hold in him.
I would go further than my friend Anderson. I would haveallcivilized countries adopt this plan with one another as well as with Germany. The trouble with civilization, as seen in this war, is that no people understands or truly sympathizes with any foreign nation—not even among the Allies. They are strangers because they have been kept strangers. This creates suspicion, envy, enmity, for they have not in any noticeable degree lived together. They do not know one another's customs, habits, perspectives. As a result, armies, navies, tariffs, treaties backed by force, are necessary to hold civilization precariously inshape—and at what colossal effort, anxiety, expense? The different languages, literatures, arts, educations, religions, should become familiar to large numbers in each race and be the open, peaceful highways back and forth instead of, as now, barriers.
Flanders, another Mudhole, February, 1915.... I see the woeful, tragic need for this international co-education all around us here at the front. The Canadians, Australians, English, French, all quarreling back and forth and pulling against one another as unfriendly strangers.Germany is giving—has given—one great lesson to them all and to us Americans at home. And that is, IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH.After this war the tremendous question before the world will be:How are we going to live with the Germans?—how get on with them?The only true and gracious solution I can see is—To associate and study together when young! Would not you—would not everyone—agree that this interchange in education, which would not be very troublesome or expensive, is a true manner in which to remove from the German make-up its savage, destructive animus toward mankind? In order really to change a race, the work must be done from the inside outward. And this meanssomeform of education, not merely victories, edicts, Leagues.Let or make the Teutons be associated with gentler cultures than their own. What if it does take a hundred, two hundred, years! What is that compared with having the German problem and menace unsolved in the future as in the past?Such young German missionaries year after year, as I have indicated, would be bringing back something of sweetness and light to their stubborn, irascible folk. The powerful and exacerbated bias of this folk toward theecht Deutschwould be neutralized and mollified under the contact of its youths with dispositions making for kindliness and courtesy. Confessedly the stoutest race prejudices lie with those whohave never stepped outside their own boundaries.It is true this plan, in a small way, was tried under the exchange of professors scheme. But the Kaiser won out in that because his professors were too old and, it develops, were simply his emissaries with hostile inclinations and intent. It would appear that most of the young Americans who are partly educated in Germany are pro-German. Had they gone to England or France, they would be pro-British or pro-French.It is now being shown that the German's education or instruction does not do away with the Hun element in him. The logical thing, then, is to try foreign education on him. He needs to learn in other countries, and tolive out, their meanings of good faith and a give-and-take, manly spirit. For he at present considers it right to have no respect for his own spoken word to foreigners, or even his written word.This is his old habit of the tribal fanatic. To lie to, to cheat, to steal from, to kill, aliens is no admitted sin in themoral decalogue of the Germans when an advantage can be derived. Murder, senseless destruction, violation of women, obscenity, do not therefore horrify them. If you as a foreigner strike the metallic shield of their character, no resounding ringing of what we know as conscience is heard, because extreme erudition in Germany largely takes the place of moral feelings. "Science without conscienceis the death of man." And the women and State religion are as Hunnish as the males. All these influences make for war.This conscienceless dullness, or immense hollowness, in the Teuton people always suggests to me an eggshell encased in the pomp of steel. Should they be defeated, I feel that the nation may cave in tremendously, horribly. How can it be otherwise with a race that never sees anything foolish in itself, and exaggerates the core of its costly army and bureaucracy at the expense of the kernel?By living abroad a part of their study years the young Germans would little by little come to prefer to substitute amityfor armaments, confident trust for suspicion, love as a motto instead of hate. For they would see that other peoples are worthy to live. They would learn more chivalry toward women and children, the beautiful significance of humanity and of universal brotherhood. They would learn that what they call weakness desirably lends delicacy, tenderness, spiritual and moral loveliness to existence which the coarse bigness and bow-wowness of the German ideal itself will never attain....
Flanders, another Mudhole, February, 1915.
... I see the woeful, tragic need for this international co-education all around us here at the front. The Canadians, Australians, English, French, all quarreling back and forth and pulling against one another as unfriendly strangers.
Germany is giving—has given—one great lesson to them all and to us Americans at home. And that is, IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH.
After this war the tremendous question before the world will be:
How are we going to live with the Germans?—how get on with them?
The only true and gracious solution I can see is—To associate and study together when young! Would not you—would not everyone—agree that this interchange in education, which would not be very troublesome or expensive, is a true manner in which to remove from the German make-up its savage, destructive animus toward mankind? In order really to change a race, the work must be done from the inside outward. And this meanssomeform of education, not merely victories, edicts, Leagues.
Let or make the Teutons be associated with gentler cultures than their own. What if it does take a hundred, two hundred, years! What is that compared with having the German problem and menace unsolved in the future as in the past?
Such young German missionaries year after year, as I have indicated, would be bringing back something of sweetness and light to their stubborn, irascible folk. The powerful and exacerbated bias of this folk toward theecht Deutschwould be neutralized and mollified under the contact of its youths with dispositions making for kindliness and courtesy. Confessedly the stoutest race prejudices lie with those whohave never stepped outside their own boundaries.
It is true this plan, in a small way, was tried under the exchange of professors scheme. But the Kaiser won out in that because his professors were too old and, it develops, were simply his emissaries with hostile inclinations and intent. It would appear that most of the young Americans who are partly educated in Germany are pro-German. Had they gone to England or France, they would be pro-British or pro-French.
It is now being shown that the German's education or instruction does not do away with the Hun element in him. The logical thing, then, is to try foreign education on him. He needs to learn in other countries, and tolive out, their meanings of good faith and a give-and-take, manly spirit. For he at present considers it right to have no respect for his own spoken word to foreigners, or even his written word.
This is his old habit of the tribal fanatic. To lie to, to cheat, to steal from, to kill, aliens is no admitted sin in themoral decalogue of the Germans when an advantage can be derived. Murder, senseless destruction, violation of women, obscenity, do not therefore horrify them. If you as a foreigner strike the metallic shield of their character, no resounding ringing of what we know as conscience is heard, because extreme erudition in Germany largely takes the place of moral feelings. "Science without conscienceis the death of man." And the women and State religion are as Hunnish as the males. All these influences make for war.
This conscienceless dullness, or immense hollowness, in the Teuton people always suggests to me an eggshell encased in the pomp of steel. Should they be defeated, I feel that the nation may cave in tremendously, horribly. How can it be otherwise with a race that never sees anything foolish in itself, and exaggerates the core of its costly army and bureaucracy at the expense of the kernel?
By living abroad a part of their study years the young Germans would little by little come to prefer to substitute amityfor armaments, confident trust for suspicion, love as a motto instead of hate. For they would see that other peoples are worthy to live. They would learn more chivalry toward women and children, the beautiful significance of humanity and of universal brotherhood. They would learn that what they call weakness desirably lends delicacy, tenderness, spiritual and moral loveliness to existence which the coarse bigness and bow-wowness of the German ideal itself will never attain....
When March came, and the birds flew back to find no trees, no grass, no flowers, Gard Kirtley, in his spring-time of life, stepped out from his dugout in Flanders with a gun, and faced the Huns of the northeast. He was prepared to greet Death which is the fruit of old age but which in youth appears as with a crown of laurel.
THE END