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THE
PENTECOST OF
CALAMITY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO . DALLAS
ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
THE
PENTECOST OF
CALAMITY
_By_
OWEN WISTER
_Author of "The Virginian," etc._
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1915
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY.
COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published August, 1915.
Reprinted September, twice, October, twice, November,
three times; December, 1915
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
THE PENTECOST OF CALAMITY
Ever the fiery Pentecost
Girds with one flame the countless host.
--EMERSON.
I
By various influences and agents the Past is summoned before us, more
vivid than a dream. The process seems as magical as those whereof we
read in fairy legends, where circles are drawn, wands waved, mystic
syllables pronounced. Adjured by these rites, voices speak, or forms
and faces shape themselves from nothing. So, through certain
influences, not magical at all, our brains are made to flash with
visions of other days. Is there among us one to whom this experience
is unknown? For whom no particular strain of music, or no special
perfume, is linked with an inveterate association? Music and perfumes
are among the most potent of these evocatory agents; but many more
exist, such as words, sounds, handwriting. Thus almost always, at the
name of the town Cologne, the banks of the golden stream, the German
Rhine, sweep into my sight as first I saw them long ago; and from a
steamer's deck I watch again, and again count, a train composed of
twenty-one locomotives, moving ominous and sinister on their new
errand. That was July 19, 1870. France had declared war on Prussia
that day. Mobilization was beginning before my eyes. I was ten.
Dates and anniversaries also perform the same office as music and
perfumes. This is the ninth of June. This day, last year, I was in the
heart of Germany. The beautiful, peaceful scene is plain yet. It seems
as if I never could forget it or cease to love it. Often last June I
thought how different the sights I was then seeing were from those
twenty-one locomotives rolling their heavy threat along the banks of
the Rhine. And, for the mere curiosity of it, I looked in my German
diary to find if I had recorded anything on last June ninth that
should be worth repeating on this June ninth.
Well, at the end of the day's jotted routine were the following
sentences: "I am constantly more impressed with the Germans. They are
a massive, on-going, steady race. Some unifying slow fire is at work
in them. This can be felt, somehow." Such was my American impression,
innocent altogether, deeply innocent, and ignorant of what the slow
fire was going to become. So were the peasants and the other humbler
subjects of the Empire who gave me this daily impression; they were
innocent and ignorant too. Therefore is the German tragedy deeper even
than the Belgian.
On June twenty-eighth I was still in the heart of Germany, but at
another beautiful place, where further signs of Germany's great
thrift, order and competence had met me at every turn. It was a
Sunday, cloudless and hot, with the mountains full of odors from the
pines. After two hours of strolling I reentered our hotel to find a
group of travelers before the bulletin board. Here we read in silence
the news of a political assassination. The silence was prolonged, not
because this news touched any of us nationally but because any such
crime must touch and shock all thoughtful persons.
At last the silence was broken by an old German traveler, who said:
"That is the match which will set all Europe in a blaze." We did not
know who he was. None of our party ever knew. On the next morning this
party took its untroubled way toward France, a party of innocent,
ignorant Americans, in whose minds lingered no thought of the old
German's remark. That evening we slept in Rheims. Our windows opened
opposite the quiet cathedral. It towered far above them into the
night and sky, its presence filling our rooms with a serene and grave
benediction. Just to see it from one's pillow gave to one's thoughts
the quality of prayer.
Two days later I took my leave of it by sitting for a silent hour
alone beneath its solemn nave. I can never be too glad that I bade it
this good-by. Not long afterward--only thirty-two days--we recollected
the old German's remark, for suddenly it came true. He had known
whereof he spoke. On August 1, 1914, Europe fell to pieces; and during
August, 1915, in a few weeks from to-day, the anniversaries will
begin--public anniversaries and private. These, like perfumes, like
music, will waken legions of visions. The days of the calendar,
succeeding one another, will ring in the memories of hundreds and
thousands like bells. Each date will invest its day and the sun or the
rain thereof with special, pregnant relation to the bereft and the
mourning of many faiths and languages. Thus all Europe will be tolling
with memorial knells inaudible, yet which in those ears that hear them
will sound louder than any noise of shrapnel or calamity.