In Mr. Chesnutt's novel the psychologism is of that universal
implication which will distinguish itself to the observer from the
psychologism of that more personal sort--the words are not as apt as I
should like--evident in some of the interesting books under notice
here. I have tried to say that it is none the less a work of art for
that reason, and I can praise the art of another novel, in which the
same sort of psychologism prevails, though I must confess it a fiction
of the rankest tendenciousness. "Lay Down Your Arms" is the name of
the English version of the Baroness von Suttner's story, "Die Waffen
Nieder," which has become a watchword with the peacemakers on the
continent of Europe. Its success there has been very great, and I wish
its success on the continent of America could be so great that it might
replace in the hands of our millions the baleful books which have
lately been glorifying bloodshed in the private and public wars of the
past, if not present. The wars which "Lay Down Your Arms" deals with
are not quite immediate, and yet they are not so far off historically,
either. They are the Franco-Austrian war of 1859, the Austro-Prussian
war of 1866, and the Franco-German war of 1870; and the heroine whose
personal relation makes them live so cruelly again is a young Austrian
lady of high birth. She is the daughter and the sister of soldiers,
and when the handsome young officer, of equal rank with her own, whom
she first marries, makes love to her just before the outbreak of the
war first named, she is as much in love with his soldiership as with
himself. But when the call to arms comes, it strikes to her heart such
a sense of war as she has never known before. He is killed in one of
the battles of Italy, and after a time she marries another soldier, not
such a beau sabreur as the first, but a mature and thoughtful man, who
fights through that second war from a sense of duty rather than from
love of fighting, and comes out of it with such abhorrence that he
quits the army and goes with his family to live in Paris. There the
third war overtakes him, and in the siege, this Austrian, who has
fought the Prussians to the death, is arrested by the communards as a
Prussian spy and shot.
The bare outline of the story gives, of course, no just notion of the
intense passion of grief which fills it. Neither does it convey a due
impression of the character in the different persons which, amidst the
heartbreak, is ascertained with some such truth and impartiality as
pervade the effects of "War and Peace." I do not rank it with that
work, but in its sincerity and veracity it easily ranks above any other
novel treating of war which I know, and it ought to do for the German
peoples what the novels of Erckmann-Chatrian did for the French, in at
least one generation. Will it do anything for the Anglo-Saxon peoples?
Probably not till we have pacified the Philippines and South Africa.
We Americans are still apparently in love with fighting, though the
English are apparently not so much so; and as it is always well to face
the facts, I will transfer to my page some facts of fighting from this
graphic book, which the read may apply to the actualities in the
Philippines, with a little imagination. They are taken from a letter
written to the heroine by her second husband after one of the Austrian
defeats. "The people poured boiling water and oil on the Prussians
from the windows of the houses at ----.... The village is ours--no, it
is the enemy's, now ours again--and yet once more the enemy's; but it
is no longer a village, but a smoking mass of ruins of houses....One
family has remained behind...an old married couple and their daughter,
the latter in childbed. The husband is serving in our regiment....
Poor devil! he got there just in time to see the mother and child die;
a shell had exploded under their bed.... I saw a breastwork there
which was formed of corpses. The defenders had heaped all the slain
who were lying near, in order, from that rampart, to fire over at their
assailants. I shall surely never forget that wall in my life. A man
who formed one of its bricks was still alive, and was waving his
arm.... What is happening there? The execution party is drawn out.
Has a spy been caught? Seventeen this time. There they come, in four
ranks, each one of four men, surrounded by a square of soldiers. The
condemned men step out, with their heads down. Behind comes a cart
with a corpse in it, and bound to the corpse the dead man's son, a boy
of twelve, also condemned.... Steep, rocky heights; Jaegers, nimble as
cats, climbing up them.... Some of them, who are hit by the enemy's
shot, suddenly stretch out both their arms, let their muskets fall,
and, with their heads falling backwards, drop off the height, step by
step, from one rocky point to another, smashing their limbs to pieces.
I saw a horseman at some distance, obliquely behind me, at whose side a
shell burst. His horse swerved aside and came against the tail of
mind, then shot past me. The man sat still in the saddle, but a
fragment of the shell had ripped his belly open and torn out all the
intestines. The upper part of his body was held to the lower only by
the spine. From the ribs to the thighs nothing but one great, bleeding
cavity. A short distance farther he fell to the ground, one foot still
clinging in the stirrup, and the galloping horse dragging him on over
the stony soil.... Another street fight in the little town of Saar....
In the middle of the square stands a high pillar of the Virgin. The
mother of God holds her child in one arm, and stretches the other out
in blessing.... Here the fight was prolonged, man to man. They were
hacking at me, I laying about me on all sides.... A Prussian dragoon,
strong as Goliath, tore one of our officers (a pretty, dandified
lieutenant--how many girls are, perhaps, mad after him?) out of his
saddle and split his skull at the feet of the Virgin's pillar. The
gentle saint looked on unmoved. Another of the enemy's dragoons--a
Goliath, too--seized, just before me almost, my right-hand man, and
bent him backwards in his saddle so powerfully that he broke his
back--I myself heard it crack. To this the Madonna gave her blessing
also."