[Illustration: BERNHARDIISM
“It’s all right. If I hadn’t done it someone else might.”]
“Moreover, by the means of Wisdom I shall obtain immortality, and leave
behind me an everlasting memorial to them that come after me.
“I shall set the people in order, and the nations shall be subject unto
me.
“Horrible tyrants shall be afraid, when they do but hear of me; I shall
be found good among the multitude, and valiant in war.” (Wisdom viii.
13, 14, 15.)
* * * * *
Wisdom and Wisdom alone could have painted this terrible picture--the
most terrible perhaps which Raemaekers has ever done and yet the
simplest. That he should have dared to leave almost everything to the
imagination of the beholder is evidence of the wonderful power which
he exercises over the mind of the people. Each of us knows what is in
that goods-van and we shudder at its hideous hidden freight, fearing
lest it may be disclosed before our eyes. Wisdom is but another name
for supreme genius. So apposite are the verses which are quoted here
from “The Wisdom of Solomon” in the “Apocrypha” that they seem almost
to have been written on Louis Raemaekers.
Moreover, this picture brings home to all of us in the most forcible
manner possible the full reality of the horror of war.