the work of blind chance, but not the wise way; for at the end of such
atheism only madness lies. The truer counsel is in that humility which
faces the facts, yet acknowledges the impotence of man’s reason to act
as judge in these high matters. Christianity and paganism come close
together in the lesson taught by Euripides:
O daughter, God is strange and all his ways
Past finding out. So for his own good will
He turns the fortunes of mankind about,
And hither thither moves.
That is the element of religious purgation which Euripides brought to
the people of Athens when their whole horizon was darkened by war. But
this is not all. Indeed, were this all, we should reject such
consolation indignantly, as being akin to that form of humanitarianism
which has been disintegrating modern society by throwing the
responsibility for crime anywhere except on the individual delinquent.
Euripides may have found alleviation in the universal mystery of evil,
but neither he, in his better moments, nor any other of the true Greeks
turned consolation into license, or doubted that a sure nemesis followed
the infractions of justice, or the insolence of pride, or the errors of
guilty ignorance:
Strong are the gods, and stronger yet the law
That sways them; even as by the law we know
The gods exist, and in our life divide
The bounds of right and wrong.
The madness of Troy and the Achaean army may have been the work of
heaven, but no small part of Greek tragedy, from the _Agamemnon_ of
Aeschylus to the _Hecuba_ of Euripides, is taken up with the tale of
retribution that came to this man and that for his arrogance or folly.
So are consolation and admonition bound together. If their union in
ancient ethics seems paradoxical, or even contradictory, it is
nevertheless confirmed by the teaching of Christianity: For evil must
come into the world, but woe unto him through whom it comes.
It is a curious and disquieting fact that the poet who was able to
compress the moral of Greek tragedy into a single memorable stanza,
belongs to the people who, if there is any truth in that moral, must
shortly reckon with the nemesis appointed for sins of presumption and
cruelty.
Ihr zieht ins Leben uns hinein;
Ihr lasst den armen schuldig werden;
Dann überlasst ihr ihn der Pein;
Denn alle Schuld rächt sich auf Erden.
PAUL ELMER MORE
[Illustration: _JACQUES-ÉMILE BLANCHE_
PORTRAIT OF GEORGE MOORE
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING]
_AGNES REPPLIER_
THE RUSSIAN BOGYMAN
The devastating war in Europe has robbed the United States of one
familiar figure, of one cherished illusion. In the stage setting of the
nations, we have long expected Russia to play the villain’s rôle. We
have depended on her for dark deeds, we have owed to her our finest
thrills of virtuous indignation. From the days when Mr. George Kennan
worked the prolific Siberian prison vein (our own prison system was not
then calculated to make us unduly proud), down to the summer of 1914, we
have never failed to respond to any outcry against a nation about which
we were reliably misinformed. It was quite the fashion, when I was
young, for some thousands, or perhaps some millions of modest American
citizens to sign a protest to the Czar, whenever we disapproved of the
imperial policy. What became of these protests, nobody knew; the chance
of the Czar’s reading the millions of names seemed, even to us,
unlikely; but it was our nearest approach to intimacy with the great and
wicked ones of earth, and we felt we were doing our best to stem the
tide of tyranny.
A great deal of this popular sentiment came to us from England, where
hostility to Russia was bred of national fear. A great deal of it was
fostered by Jewish immigrants in the United States. But the dislike of
democracy for autocracy was responsible for our most cherished
illusions.
Some god this severance rules.
A well-told story like Mr. Kipling’s “The Man Who Was” seemed to us an
indictment of a nation. Popular magazines cultivated a school of fiction
in which Russian nobles were portrayed as living the unfettered lives,
and enjoying the unfettered pastimes, of Dahomey chiefs. Popular
melodrama showed us the heads of the Russian police department devoting
themselves unreservedly to the persecution of innocent maidenhood. The
only good Russian ever presented to us was the nihilist, some one who,
like Mademoiselle Ixe, spent her time in pursuit of a nameless official,
and shot him for a nameless crime. Even our admiration for Count Tolstoy
was founded on his revolt from the established order of things in his
own country. It seldom occurred to us that the established order of
things in any other country would have been equally obnoxious to this
thorough-paced reformer. New York would have been as little to his taste
as was St. Petersburg.
The exigencies of a political alliance have impelled England to lay
aside her former animosities, and bury them in oblivion. For many months
she has tried hard to reinstate Russia in popular opinion, chiefly by
means of serious papers in serious periodicals, which the populace never
reads. Mr. Bernard Shaw is perhaps the only man left in the United
Kingdom who clings desperately to the good old Russian bogyman, as we
cling to the ogre of our infancy, and the pirate of our tender youth.
Mr. Shaw’s Russia is not merely a land where pure-minded, noble-hearted
disturbers of the peace are subject to shameful captivity. It is a land
where “people whose worst crime is to find the Daily News a congenial
newspaper are hanged, flogged, or sent to Siberia, as a matter of daily
routine.” This is worse than Dahomey, where the perils of the press are
happily unknown. Most of us would change our morning paper rather than
be hanged. Few of us would find any journal “congenial,” which paved the
long way to Siberia.
England sympathized with Japan in the Japanese-Russian war from
interested motives. We did the same out of pure unadulterated sentiment.
Japan was an unfriendly power, given to hostile mutterings. Russia was a
friendly power, which had done us more than one good turn. But Japan was
little, and Russia was big. “How,” asks the experienced Mr. Vincent
Crummles, “are you to get up the sympathies of an audience in a
legitimate manner, if there isn’t a little man contending against a big
one?” Japan, moreover, was the innocent land of cherry blossoms, and
Russia was the land of knouts, and spies, and Cossacks. Russia
worshipped God with rites and ceremonies, displeasing to pious
Americans. Japan belonged to Heathendom, and merited enlightened
tolerance.
A fresh deal in international policy may at any time sever and re-unite
the troubled powers of Europe. Their boundary lines are hostages to
fortune. But we, with two oceans sweeping our shores, have lost our
bogyman beyond all hope of recovery. It is not with us a question of
altered interests, but of altered values. Germany’s campaign in Belgium
has changed forever our standards of perfidy and of frightfulness. We
can never go back to the old ones. Once we spoke of Russia as a nation
Which to the good old maxim clings,
That treaties are the pawns of Kings.
Now we know that Germany outstrips her far in faithlessness. Once we
called Russia oppressive, cruel, unjust. Now the devastated homes of
Flanders teach us the meaning of those words. Once we reproached Russia
for being the least civilized of Christian nations. Now we have seen a
potent civilization crash down into pure savagery, its flimsy restraints
of no avail before the loosened passions of men.
And for our own share of injury and insult? Is it possible that a few
years ago we deeply resented Russia’s disrespect for American passports;
that we abrogated a treaty because she dared to turn back from her
frontiers American citizens armed with these sacred guarantees? To-day
our dead lie under the ocean; and Germany, who sent them there, sings
comic songs in her music halls to celebrate the rare jest of their
drowning. Our sensitive pride which could brook no slight from the
friendly hand of Russia, is now humbled to the dust by Germany’s mailed
fist. She has spared us no hurt, and she has spared us no jibe. Bleeding
and bewildered, we have come to a realization of things as they are, we
have seen the naked truth, and we can never go back to our illusions. We
enjoyed our old bogyman, our shivers of horror, our exalted sentiments,
our comfortable conviction of superiority. Now nothing is left but
sorrow for our dead, and shame for the wrongs which have been done us.
As long as history is taught, the tale of this terrible year will
silence all other tales of horror. Not for us only, but for the
listening world, the standard of uttermost evil has been forever
changed.
AGNES REPPLIER
[Illustration: _EDWIN HOWLAND BLASHFIELD_
A WOMAN’S HEAD
FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWING]
_ANDRÉ SUARÈS_
CHANT DES GALLOISES
I
Voici que le soir tombe, avec l’orage. Et le soleil passionné descend,
comme un blessé se traîne avec lenteur sur la colline: il descend sur la
mer, avec un sourire, tout en sang. Et tout à l’heure, le divin Héros
sera couché sur le lit qu’il préfère.
Voici que le soir tombe. Les jeunes filles de l’Ouest viennent sur la
prairie; et viennent aussi les jeunes femmes de la douce terre. Elles
sont deux chœurs qui se rencontrent dans l’herbe fleurie et l’odeur du
blé noir, qui sont le miel et la vanille.
Elles s’avancent les unes vers les autres, les vierges et celles qui le
furent, les nids à baisers et celles qui voudraient l’avoir été. Elles
désireraient de danser: mais ni les amants, ni les fiancés ne sont plus
là. Est-ce qu’ils sont tous morts? Ils sont tous partis pour l’œuvre
dure et pour la guerre. Elles ne pourront plus fouler le raisin de la
joie dans la danse. Et elles ne veulent pas danser aux bras l’une de
l’autre. Il ne leur reste qu’à lancer leur âme dans le chant.
Chantez, les belles! L’heure du chant sonne pour vous, sur la prairie
brûlante, entre le mur des chênes et les lèvres de l’océan. Allez, mes
belles! Mettez-vous, les libres jeunes filles, au bord de la vague
verte. Et vous, les jeunes femmes, contre la haie des feuilles au cœur
déchiqueté, qui vous sépare de l’Orient.
II
LA JEUNE FILLE
Amour! un an de guerre! et les treize mois sont révolus! O fiancées que
nous sommes! Douloureuses, pleines de sourires, avides de danser et tant
déçues, où êtes-vous, nos fiancés?
Notre voix est toute chaude. Notre voix vient du feu, pour vous
appeler. Beaux fiancés, où êtes-vous, si doux, si chers à celles qui
vous attendent?
Nous ne danserons plus. Nous chanterons notre peine.
Une sœur, hier, a frappé dans la nuit, toc toc, sur nos portes, à la
chambre des vierges.
Et vierge comme nous, elle est entrée tout en pleurs et nous a dit: “Je
suis Poleska, la jeune fille de Pologne. Sœurs de Bretagne, sœurs
galloises, savez-vous la danse et le chant, cet été, de vos sœurs
polonaises? Elles sont la couronne et le tombeau. Elles vont,
coquelicots de deuil et bleuets, par la plaine; et la bêche à la main,
du matin au soir, elles creusent des fosses. Elles mettent dans la terre
leurs fiancés et leurs amants. Voilà l’été de la Pologne, et nos couches
nuptiales, ô sœurs de l’Occident.”
Ayant dit son message, elle a pâli, la brune jeune fille de l’Orient,
aux yeux si bleus, au visage si blanc; et baissant son col souple sur sa
gorge, elle est morte en pleurant.
Et vous, qui êtes contre la haie, après ce long hiver dans la brume, ô
tendres veuves du baiser, quel fut votre printemps? et quel est votre
été? Vers nous levez les yeux, belles émeraudes mouillées. Répondez,
blondes orphelines du soleil, chères sœurs galloises.
III
LA JEUNE FEMME
Nous sommes les amantes et les jeunes femmes. Petites sœurs, vous n’êtes
que les fiancées.
Un an de dévorante amour et de regret! Une année dans le gouffre de
l’ombre sèche! Un an de solitude et de douleur.
O petites sœurs, vous espérez la vie, même quand vous la pleurez. Mais
nous, elle nous dévore.
Nous voici prêtes à mourir d’amour. Et vainement. Et nul ne veut notre
don. Et notre cœur est inutile. Ah! C’est bien là le pis. Nous mourons
de nous-mêmes et de tout.
Au plus tendre de nous, le désespoir ronge ce que le souvenir déchire.
Fiancées, fiancées, vous ne savez pas les ardeurs des amantes, et que
leurs larmes sont du sang.
* * * * *
Vous ne savez pas non plus, tu l’ignores encore, toi qui chantes, suave
jeune fille, quelle moisson nous avons faite, et quel est ce cortège,
là-bas, ouvrant la haie, qui s’avance sur la prairie, portant un trésor
caché, comme une châsse dans les blés.
O ma sœur, toi qui es si chaude et la plus pâle, viens dans mes bras, si
tu ne veux tomber.
Celui que ces jeunes femmes promènent sur leurs épaules, parmi les
fleurs, c’est ton beau fiancé.
Il est mort d’amour pour Notre Dame, entre la mer et la Marne.
Il aimait.
IV
Comme le soleil rougit, d’une dernière effusion, toute la mer verte, on
couche le beau jeune homme dans les seigles.
Il est mort. Il est nu, il est blanc dans les épis. Blanche est sa
bouche, et ses yeux sont clos comme les portes du jour: silence éternel
sur le rire, la lumière et le bruit.
Ses lèvres sont de cendres. La double flamme est morte. Plus de tison.
Et la fleur virile est à jamais fauchée. Qu’il est beau, le jeune corps
de l’homme! Et le héros est toujours pur.
Elles le baisent toutes, cent fois, suavement, comme on mange le raisin
à la grappe; et les unes pleurent; les autres sourient, telles de
tendres folles.
C’est moi, l’amant! C’est moi le fiancé, que vous portez ainsi, mes
belles. C’est moi, le soc de la terre et le coutre d’amour que vous
allez ensevelir dans l’herbe.
Et celle qui eût été mon champ, mourra sans fleurs et sans épis.
Du moins, sauvez-moi de la mort froide et de l’oubli.
Prenez moi dans votre paradis de femmes, entre vos lèvres.
Une heure encore, tenez moi et me serrez dans votre doux giron qui sent
la menthe fraîche, le miel, le romarin et la brûlante giroflée.
Gardez moi, je vous prie, dans la chambre des baisers. Je me suis séparé
de mes autres armes: immortelles, elles n’ont pas besoin de moi.
Et puisqu’il faut un linceul, cousez moi dans vos cheveux avec vos
larmes. Cousez moi, à longues aiguillées de pleurs, dans vos ardents
cheveux.
V
Si nous ne sommes amour, que sommes nous? Toutes, ici, nous voici
vouées, adieu semailles! au soleil qui s’en va chaque soir et aux
cruelles pluies.
Amants, nos bien aimés, tel est donc l’amour pour qui nous sommes nées?
Mères, pourquoi fîtes-vous ces filles malheureuses? Nos âmes bondissent
en révolte. Et tous nos cœurs qui veulent sortir de nous!
Baisons nous, sœurs chéries, au nom de l’amour et de la mort: et du
Seigneur qui aime, qui ouvre au ciel les sources, et les parcs d’amour,
pour tous les Aimés, au paradis.
--O belles, ô douloureuses, chantent les jeunes filles, vous qui êtes
séparées de votre chair et de vos baisers, venez.
--Et vous, petites filles, disent les jeunes femmes, ô délicieuses,
divisées de vos désirs, privées de votre attente et des caresses, venez.
--Chers cœurs!
--Chères femmes!
* * * * *
Elles pleurent, et se baisent doucement aux lèvres, avec un sourire.
Puis elles se sont saluées, en chantant, sous le portique de la nuit,
tandis que l’océan dévorait les derniers tisons et les œillets suprêmes
du couchant.
ANDRÉ SUARÈS
_ANDRÉ SUARÈS_
SONG OF THE WELSH WOMEN
[TRANSLATION]
Here comes the night, with the storm. Slowly the passionate sun goes
down; like a wounded man he drags himself over the hill; swimming in
blood he sinks toward the sea. Soon the divine Hero will be laid on the
bed of his choice.
Here comes the night. The maidens of the West come out across the
meadows, and the young women of the land come out to meet them. Two
singing choirs, they mingle in the flowered grass, and in the smell of
the black wheat that is like the smell of honey and vanilla.
Forward they go to meet each other, maids and they that once were
maids--nests of kisses, and those that willingly would be so. They long
to dance, but lovers and bridegrooms are far away: all have gone out to
the stern work of war. No more can the women tread the red wine of joy
in the dance; they have no mind to dance with one another, and so they
sing instead.
Begin, fair women! The hour of your song has come, in the hot meadows
between the dark wall of oaks and the pale lips of ocean. Come! Take
your places, you free-limbed maidens, by the green wave, and you, young
women, by the hedge-rows with fretted leaves that stand between you and
the east.
II
THE YOUNG GIRL SPEAKS
Love!--and a year of war! The twelvemonth has fulfilled itself, and one
month more! Sorrowful and full of smiles, eager to dance and pale with
waiting--tell us, our lovers, where you linger!
Our voices are warm, our voices come from the fire to call you. Where
are you, our lovers, you that are so dear to those who wait?
We have forsworn the dance, and grief shall be the burden of our song.
Yesterday, in the night, a sister came knock-knocking at our door, the
door of the virgins. A maid as we are maids, she came in to us, all
weeping, and said:
“I am the daughter of Poland. Sisters of Britain, sisters of Wales, do
you know the dance that your Polish sisters dance, and the songs they
sing? The grave and the funeral garland are their song. Like black
poppies and dark corn-flowers sprinkled on the plain, they move in sad
lines, from night to morning digging graves; and in those graves they
lay their bridegrooms and their lovers. This, my sisters, has the summer
brought to Poland, and these have been our bridal beds.”
And having spoken, the daughter of the East grew pale, and drooped her
dark head upon her neck and died.
And you who stand beside the hedge-rows, what was your spring-time, what
your heavy summer? Turn toward us the wet emeralds of your eyes: answer,
golden daughters of the sun--our sisters of Wales!
III
THE YOUNG WOMAN SPEAKS
We are the young women and the beloved. Little sisters, what are you but
the betrothed?
A year of devouring love, a year of longing; long year in the valley of
parched shadow--year of loneliness and grief!
See, we are dying of love, and none to slake us. Worst waste of all, our
hearts are useless; we are dying of ourselves and of all life. O young
girls, little do you know of the hearts of women beloved, and lovers’
tears like blood!
Little do you know of the harvest we have reaped, or of the meaning of
that funeral train that comes across the meadows, parting the hedges to
right and left and bearing a hidden treasure like a monstrance born
across the wheat.
O my sister, burning hot and palest, come to me lest you fall, and let
me hold you.
He whom the young women carry on their shoulders, knee-deep in flowers,
was your once lover.
Between the sea and the Marne he died for love of our Lady, the Blessed
Virgin. He loved....
IV
As the last flush of sunset suffuses the green ocean the young man is
laid amid the wheat.
He is dead. White and naked he lies among the wheat-ears. White are his
lips, and his eyes are closed like the eyes of the day. His laughter,
the light and sound of him, are gone.
His mouth is ashes. The double flame of his lips is dead. In its flower
his manhood is cut down. How beautiful is the young man’s body! And
stainless is the body of the hero.
The women bend to kiss him one by one, slowly, lingeringly, as grapes
are eaten from the vine; and some weep, and others laugh, beside
themselves for grieving.
I am the lover, whom you thus bear upon your shoulders; young maidens, I
am the betrothed. I am the ploughshare in the wheatfield, whom thus you
lay down for burial. And she who should have been my field and my
harvest shall die without flower and without ripening.
Save me at least, O pitying women, from the cold earth and from
oblivion. Keep me warm in the paradise of your lips, an hour longer keep
me among you, in the sweet air that smells of honey and rosemary, of
clove-pinks and the flowering mint.
Build about me the warm chamber of your kisses. My sword and my shield
are gone from me; deathless, they have no need of the dead.
And for my shrouding, women, wind me about with your long hair, and sew
my shroud with your tears. With the long needles of your tears sew me
fast into your burning hair.
V
If we are not Love and the food of Love, what are we? Our blossoming cut
down, we follow the setting sun into darkness and the night of rain.
Lovers, our beloved, is this the love for which our mothers bore us? O
mothers, why bring us forth to such grieving? Our souls leap up against
our fate, and our hearts break from our bosoms.
Kiss us, young sisters, in the name of Love and Death; and of the Lord
of Love, who is King of its fountains and gardens, and opens their gates
to the Beloved in Paradise.
O fair and stricken and undone--the young maids answer--come to us, you
who are parted from the lips that cherished you and the flesh of your
flesh.
And you, young maidens--the mourning women reply to them--you, who have
missed your dream and your fruition, come to us, dear hearts.
Poor wives.... Poor maids!
They weep, and kiss each other, and clasp each other smiling through
their sorrow.
Then, singing, they part beneath the roof of night, while Ocean consumes
the last embers of day, and darkens under the sky incarnadine.
ANDRÉ SUARÈS
[Illustration: _ÉMILE-RENÉ MÉNARD_
FIGURE
FROM A SKETCH IN COLOURED CRAYON]
_MRS. HUMPHRY WARD_
WORDSWORTH’S VALLEY IN WAR-TIME
August 8ᵗʰ, 1915. It is now four days since, in this village of
Grasmere, at my feet, we attended one of those anniversary meetings,
marking the first completed year of this appalling war, which were being
called on that night over the length and breadth of England. Our meeting
was held in the village schoolroom; the farmers, tradesmen, innkeeper
and summer visitors of Grasmere were present, and we passed the
resolution which all England was passing at the same moment, pledging
ourselves, separately and collectively, to help the war and continue the
war, till the purposes of England were attained, by the liberation of
Belgium and northern France, and the chastisement of Germany.
A year and four days, then, since the war began, and in a remote garden
on the banks of the Forth, my husband and I passed, breathless, to each
other, the sheets of the evening paper brought from Edinburgh by the
last train, containing the greater part of Sir Edward Grey’s speech
delivered in the House of Commons that afternoon--War for Belgium--for
national honour--and, in the long run, for national existence!
War!--after these long years of peace; war, with its dimly foreseen
horrors, and its unfathomed possibilities:--England paused and shivered
as the grim spectre stepped across her path.
And I stand to-night on this lovely mountain-side, looking out upon the
harvest fields of another August, and soon another evening newspaper
sent up from the village below will bring the latest list of our dead
and our maimed, for which English mothers and wives have looked in
terror, day after day, through this twelve months.
And yet, but for the brooding care in every English mind, how could one
dream of war in this peaceful Grasmere?
Is it really true that somewhere in this summer world, beyond those
furthest fells, and the Yorkshire moors behind them, beyond the silver
sea dashing its waves upon our Eastern coasts, there is still going on
the ruin, the agony, the fury, of this hideous struggle into which
Germany plunged the world, a year ago? It is past eight o’clock; but the
sun which is just dipping behind Silver How is still full on Loughrigg,
the beautiful fell which closes in the southern end of the lake. Between
me and these illumined slopes lies the lake--shadowed and still, broken
by its one green island. I can just see the white cups of the
water-lilies floating above the mirrored woods and rocks that plunge so
deep into the infinity below.