It will not be possible to estimate the injury suffered by the monuments
of art wherein Belgium was so rich till the war is ended and the ruins
examined. Much of the irreparable loss we know, as in the cases of
Louvain and Ypres. In general we may fairly conjecture that whatever is
portable behind the German lines is stolen, or will be, and the rest
destroyed. What is portable is stolen for its cash value, just as are
money, furniture, clothes, and watches. So much of respect for works of
art we may expect from the Prussians--the measure of respect for the
cash shewn by the Prussian general at Termonde who robbed a helpless
civilian of the 5,000 francs he had drawn to pay his workmen's wages,
and then called earth and heaven to witness his exalted virtue in not
also murdering his victim. But what cannot be carried--a cathedral, a
monument, an ancient window--that is destroyed with an apish zest. Even
a picture in time or place, inconvenient for removal, that also will be
defiled, slashed to rags, burnt. And indeed why not? For the best use of
a work of art as understood among the Prussian pundits is to make it the
peg whereon to hang some ridiculous breach of statistics, some monstrous
disquisition of bedevilled theory; and for such purposes a work no
longer existing so as good as any--even better.
And so the marvels of the centuries go up in dust and flames, and the
memorials of Memling and Matsijs, Van Eyck, and Rubens are treated as
the masters' own bodies would have been treated, had fate delayed their
time till the coming of the Boche.