Mr. Maeterlinck has lately propounded the theory {*} that what we call
the war is neither more nor less than the visible expression of a vast
invisible conflict. The unseen forces of good and evil in the universe
are using man as a means of contention. On the result of the struggle
the destiny of humanity on this planet depends. Is the Angel to prevail?
Or is the Beast to prolong his malignant existence? The issue hangs on
Fate, which does not, however, deny the exercise of the will of man.
Mystical and even fantastic as the theory may seem to be, there is no
resisting its appeal. A glance back over the events of the past year
leaves us again and again without clue to cause and effect. It is
impossible to account for so many things that have happened. We cannot
always say, “We did this because of that,” or “Our enemies did that
because of the other.” Time after time we can find no reason why things
happened as they have--so unaccountable and so contradictory have they
seemed to be. The dark work wrought by Death during the past year has
been done in the blackness of a night in which none can read. Hence
some of us are forced to yield to Mr. Maeterlinck’s theory, which is, I
think, the theory of the ancients--the theory on which the Greeks
built their plays--that invisible powers of good and evil, operating
in regions that are above and beyond man’s control, are working out his
destiny in this monstrous drama of the war.
* The Daily Chronicle.
And what a drama it has been already! We had witnessed only 365 days of
it down to August 4, 1915, corresponding at the utmost to perhaps three
of its tragic acts, but what scenes, what emotions! Mr. Lowell used
to say that to read Carlyle’s book on the French Revolution was to
see history as by flashes of lightning. It is only as by flashes of
lightning that we can yet hope to see the world-drama of 1914-15.
Figures, groups, incidents, episodes, without the connecting links
of plots, and just as they have been thrown off by Time, the
master-producer--what a spectacle they make, what a medley of motives,
what a confused jumble of sincerities and hypocrisies, heroisms and
brutalities, villainies and virtues!
As happens in every drama, a great deal of the tragic mischief had
occurred before the curtain rose. Always before the passage of war over
the world there comes the far-off murmur of its approaching wings. Each
of us in this case had heard it, distinctly or indistinctly, according
to the accidents of personal experience. I think I myself heard it for
the first time dearly when in the closing year of King Edward’s reign I
came to know (it is unnecessary to say how) what our Sovereign’s feeling
had been about his last visit to Berlin. It can do no harm now to
say that it had been a feeling of intense anxiety. The visit seemed
necessary, even imperative, there-fore the King would not shirk his
duty. But for his country, as well as for himself, he had feared for his
reception in Germany, and on his arrival in Berlin, and during his drive
from the railway station with the Kaiser, he had watched and listened
to the demonstrations in the streets with an emotion which very nearly
amounted to dread.
The result had brought a certain relief. With the best of all possible
intentions, the newspapers in both capitals had reported that King
Edward’s reception had been enthusiastic. It hadn’t been that--at least,
it hadn’t seemed to be that to the persons chiefly concerned. But it had
been just cordial enough not to be chilling, just warm enough to carry
things off, to drown that far-off murmur of war which was like the
approach of a mighty wind. Then, during the next days, there had been
the usual banqueting, with the customary toasting to the amity of the
two great nations, whose interests were so closely united by bonds of
peace! And then the return drive to the railway station, the clatter of
horsemen in shining armour, the adieux, the throbbing of the engine,
the starting of the train, and then.... “Thank God, it’s over!” If the
invisible powers had really been struggling over the destiny of men, how
the evil half of them must have shrieked with delight that day as the
Kaiser rode back to Potsdam and our King returned to London!