Imagine the feelings of the hindlegs of a stage elephant on being told
that the performance is to be a continuous one and you will have some
inkling of the dismay of the Kaiser and his henchman, concealed in the
plumage of the War Eagle and the Dove of Peace respectively. The one
bird is as useless as the other in bringing the war to the end desired
in Berlin. The stage eagle is daily losing its plumage, and is rapidly
becoming but a moulty apology for the king of birds. As for the dove,
it has been used so often, with constantly changing olive branch in
its beak, that it now makes its appearance shamefacedly and absolutely
without heart.
Imperial eagle mask with half-mad military quasi-deity inside and
dove of peace, on the German model, with calculating miscalculating
statesman, you rang the curtain up, you cannot ring it down, either
to the music of the Hymn of Hate or the Te Deum for peace--the eagle
can no longer look boldly straight into the sun, looking for his place
in it; the dove has taken permanent quarters in the German ark as
it whirls round and round in the whirlpool of impotent effort, ever
drawing nearer to the final crash. When the Dove of Peace does come,
it will be a real bird of good omen, not a German reserve officer
masquerading as one.