humiliation to pass; like a fine family of stalwart sons, you have
formed a guard of honour round your Motherland, and defended her from
the hands of the spoilers. All honour to you! We want you to know and
to believe that we are grateful, and that we shall never forget your
dauntless daring and heroism! Ingratitude is the commonest and yet
the deadliest of sins--ingratitude to God in the first place, and,
in the second, ingratitude to the men whom God has given us to be
our saviours. The first part of the indictment is a matter for each
private and individual conscience; it is for every man and woman to try
and visualise the devastation and misery which have been mercifully
spared to the uninvaded British Isles, and to decide whether his or
her thanksgiving is real, and deeply felt. The second part concerns
the whole people of Great Britain and her Overseas Dominions--whether
they, in very truth and earnest, sufficiently realise what they owe
to the sorely-tried military and naval leaders upon whose shoulders
has fallen the gigantic responsibility of conducting the war to a
victorious issue. _Not_ to realise it is to be guilty of a mental
crime so monstrous as to be almost unimaginable. And yet, the moment
political pawns are set on the chess-broad, every claim to integrity
and patriotism is questioned and argued from the base point of view
of “personal interest.” Personal interest is a powerful motive force
with most men, but it does not count with heroes like Sir Douglas
Haig, Admiral Beatty, or Marshal Foch. Think of these men! for it is
_they_ who won the war--_they_, who through God, have given us the
victory! Not the talkers, but the doers; not the politicians, but the
fighters, among whom you, brave Canadians, held your part like the
heroes of an epic. You are rough, perchance, but you are ready! Some
there are who say you have not received half your rightful share of
honour in this country; if this _is_ so, then your Motherland is indeed
unworthy of your prowess! But I hardly think this is, or can be so.
You do not get the true voice of the British People in the British
Press--always remember that! The People know their best men, and honour
them accordingly. And if, by chance, they are misled occasionally, and
those leaders whom they have believed their “best” prove false to the
trust placed in them, none so swift, sure, and deadly as the British
People to rend them for their broken word. They know you, Canadians, as
their blood-brothers; and as such will resent any wrong inflicted on
your liberties and commerce. They applaud your patriotism and rejoice
in your courage; you are the younger sons of the Empire, and in the
name of one Throne, one Flag, we salute you and give you our heart’s
gratitude!
SHELLS; AND OTHER SHELLS
(_Written by request for the Magazine published on behalf of the
Munition Workers of Georgetown, Paisley_)
A THOUGHT
In one of the finest and tenderest poems ever written by our last great
Laureate, Alfred Tennyson, whose departure from this world closed, for
the time, the reign of true English lyrical melody, there occur these
delicately beautiful lines:--
“See what a lovely shell
Small and pure as a pearl
Lying close at my foot,
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairly well
With delicate spire and whorl
How exquisitely minute!
A miracle of design.
The tiny cell is forlorn,--
Void of the little living will
That made it stir on the shore.
Did he stand at the diamond door
Of his house, in a rainbow frill?
Did he push, when he was uncurl’d,
A golden foot or a fairy horn
Through his dim water-world?”
How often we have seen such shells as these!--and how little have we
associated the familiar name of “shell” with any thought of war or
“shock” or bloodshed! Holding a sea-shell close against our ears we
listen in fancy to the solemn music of the ocean surging through its
hollow cavity,--the ocean with its sweeping thunderous harmony,--though
all the time we know it is but the sound of our own life-blood pouring
through our veins and pulsing upon our senses. And now, when we talk
of “shells,” we mean something vastly different to the “small and pure
as a pearl” object which moved a great Poet to song--for the “pure”
thing was the work of God, and “a miracle of design” wrought to suit
the needs of the “little living will that made it stir on the shore”;
but the “shells” _we_ have to do with are man’s work, made to destroy
all living wills that come in contact with them! In their terrific
way they too are “miracles of design,” for their cavities hold death
and scatter it broadcast. Still more wonderful it is to realise the
fact that women’s hands have been taught and trained to prepare this
flying death--women’s hands, surely formed by nature for tenderness and
caressing, for soothing and consoling! How, then, has it chanced that
they should adapt themselves to such dire uses? Why do they labour so
strenuously and eagerly to make weapons for the armoury of the King of
Terrors? Women’s hands! What charming and poetic things have been said
and written about them! Think of the hands in Fra Angelico’s picture of
the “Angel of the Annunciation” where the dainty tapering fingers are
as exquisitely delicate as the buds of the lilies they hold! Or, recall
the subtle beauty of Heine’s description of the hand of an unknown
lady, resting white and beautiful on the carved edge of a confessional
in a dark cathedral aisle, the owner of the hand being too enshrouded
in shadows to be visible.
“So still and pure was that lovely hand,” wrote the poet, “that
whatever sins its mistress might be admitting to her confessor, it was
evident that of itself it had nothing to do with sin or folly. It was a
stainless sweetness alone and apart, and shone in the gloom of the vast
cathedral like a sculptured ivory emblem of innocence.”
Nevertheless!--women’s hands that are, or that might be, as delicate
and caressable as those of Fra Angelico’s model, or Heine’s unseen
lady, are now at work in the strangest kind of “annunciation”!--the
most amazing form of “confession”! Why do they toil in such a contrary
fashion to their natural bent and inclination? The answer is swift and
conclusive. Because Evil is let loose on the earth, and because Good
must use all force to overcome it. And, out of sternest necessity, Good
must arm itself with weapons that shall not only match but surpass
those employed by Evil. In a fight against devils, angels must join
battle. In some of the most magnificent scenes of Milton’s “Paradise
Lost” when war rages between the warriors of God and the followers
of Satan, the good are described as fighting against the bad with
terrific weapons of attack, and the outbursts of fire hurled against
the devilish foe were none the less potent because wrought by the
angelic hosts. Our women workers who prepare the munitions of war are
one and all inspired by the same fixed motive and desire--namely, to
end the sorrows and suspense of the suffering nations who are involved
in the disastrous upheaval which is the result of a people’s pitiful
belief in the “divine right,” of a crowned madman. And as they turn
out “shells” and yet more “shells,” we know that they hope and believe
that for every one completed, at least one of the fiendish murderers
of the innocent may be dismissed from a world which his presence has
darkened. Perchance they may, as they press on with their work, hear
more mystic sounds than are conveyed in the cavity of an empty shell
“void of a living will” on the sea-shore--for their filled shell speaks
of their own blood, burning with grief and indignation at the slaughter
of their kindred--and of the roar and thunder of the guns instead of
the crashing billows of the sea. Who shall count the throbbing thoughts
of the women who fill these “shells”?--women who look calm enough and
resolute enough, and who work on tirelessly and almost wordlessly, as
though moved by a single heart, beating through each one’s separate
labour! A visitor to a shell factory in the Midlands said to me,--“They
work quite mechanically; I think they hardly know what they are about.”
_Don’t_ they know what they are about? Indeed they do! They know they
are making weapons of destruction that shall bring reprisals for the
deaths of brave men--they know that they are helping to save the lives
of their own kinsmen, and with all their strength they “speed up,”
because they feel that by so doing they are pushing on the end of the
war. We shall never be able to realise how much they have done for us,
and alas!--the ingratitude of nations to its workers is proverbial.
It takes a woman to understand woman’s enforced labour, and to enter
with sympathy into all she loses by taking the place of man in hard
and difficult times--what sacrifices in health and vitality she makes
by long hours of steady application to monotonous factory work--what
temptations she has to resist--what bribes--yes!--bribes of cash and
comfort she has to forgo. For the enemy is busy elsewhere than on
the field--insidious and indefatigable in stirring up strife in this
country and sowing the seeds of disloyalty and discontent, and it says
much for our women that they are awake and alert to the fact. Of the
contemptible few who “make love” to “Fritz” in his prison camp, one
can only be sorry that they are so “weak in the upper story!” The real
women of the Empire--the women who, in the after-war days that are
coming, will have so much of the country’s destiny in their guidance,
are in the majority sound, sane, and loyal--we can trust them with work
even more momentous than the making of shells! Meanwhile, we can try to
be grateful to them for their steadiness and perserverance, their pluck
and patience, and let us not forget at any time what we owe to them.
It should be graven deep on the records of the nation that--_Without
Women’s Work the War Could Not Be Won!_ And in the hour of victory let
us not fail to pay them our debt of Honour!
DARKNESS AND LIGHT
(_Written at the request of Sir Arthur Pearson as the Prologue to
an Entertainment on behalf of St. Dunstan’s Hostel for Soldiers and
Sailors Blinded in the War_)
“Oh, dark, dark, dark amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark! Total eclipse
Without all hope of day!”
Samson Agonistes.
You, whose eyes are able to read these tragic lines of blind John
Milton, can you realise what they mean? Do you feel to the innermost
core of your heart the blackness of that “eclipse without all hope of
day,” which like a never-lifting cloud envelopes those from whom the
blessing of sight has been taken for ever! Can you, even by the utmost
exertion of your imagination, truly grasp what it would mean to you
if all light and colour were blotted out from your consciousness, and
you had to rely on a merciful guiding hand to lead you to and fro, to
hold you lest you stumbled, and conduct you from places of business
or pleasure safely back to your home? If you could not see beloved
faces?--if the sunlight could never again reach those poor closed
channels of the vision you once enjoyed?--if the skies, the lovely
country, the woods and the ocean were all glories that should never
again gladden your sight?--if this were so, would you not pray to God
that being thus handicapped He would at least give you _friends_?
Friends who would be eyes to you, hands to you--who would cheer you in
dreadful moments of depression blacker than blindness, and who would
help you to find occupation and train you to do useful work, although
sightless, so that the days and years should not be so fraught with
monotony and dull regret; and that life, after all, should not seem a
barren and empty thing?
You have heard of St. Dunstan’s Hostel for soldiers and sailors blinded
in the war? It is now one of earth’s “Holy Places”--holy because
the benediction of heaven has made it a sanctuary--a sanctuary of
love, patience, self-sacrifice and untiring devotion--holy, because
the patiently endured martyrdom of a brave man has been and is its
spiritual foundation. Sir Arthur Pearson--(some of you do not know it
or think of it)--is himself blind. And what makes his sorrow darker for
him, is that he has known all the blessings of perfect sight--he has
enjoyed all the activities of an eager and vigorous life, and is still
in the prime of manhood. “How sad for him!” murmurs the conventional
Society voice--“Such a drawback!” Yes, how sad!--but what gladness for
others he gathers from his own handicap!--what splendid results have
sprung from his “drawback!”--what sunshine pours from the cloud of his
night! The American essayist, Emerson, in advising one stricken with
adversity, writes, “Be like the wounded oyster, _mend your shell with
a pearl_!” With what a pearl of great price has Arthur Pearson mended
his life’s wound! Knowing the bitterness of blindness, he has devoted
all his energies to the care of the blind and to the lightening of
their darkness, especially to those heroes who, in the very hey-day
of their youth and manliness have gone unhesitatingly forth to face
the foe in this wickedest of wars, and have been blinded by shot and
shell explosions, losing all sense of vision in one cruel moment--a
moment that rings down the curtain on all scenes and faces for ever!
Shall we not, with all our hearts, help the sublime cause of “love to
our neighbours,” and consolation to our self-sacrificing soldiers and
sailors, taught to us by the example of this Englishman who does not
protest, but _lives_ his Christian faith in a manner that Christ must
surely approve? It would be trespassing on sacred ground to presume
to guess how much heavenly light has been mystically shed on his own
darkness by this noble dedication of his sorrow to noblest ends. But
it may be reverently said that he has followed as far as is humanly
possible the Divine Teacher who, in healing a blind man, “put His hands
upon his eyes and _made him look up_.” In this we can all help. We
can make our brave, blind friends, the soldiers and sailors, rendered
sightless for our sakes, “look up!” We can make them feel they are not
alone and helpless in a dark world; we can convince them that their
welfare is dear to us, and that we are fully conscious of the immense
sacrifices they have made for us and for the country. Let us all then
do our utmost and best for St. Dunstan’s and strengthen the hands
of its Founder, and let it never be said that we were guilty of the
meanest vice known to humanity--Ingratitude!
SWEEPING THE COUNTRY
They say it does; and I hardly wonder! The broom is so long and
searchful; it goes into so many holes and corners that surely not a
single spider’s web is left unvisited. It gathers up the pale dust
of British gullability with an admirable adroitness, and what is
perhaps the best thing about it is that it pays for its sweepings. Not
every broom does that! But I am told--I do not assert it or vouch for
it--that it is a German broom; and no make of broom in all the world is
more capable of industry or more resistless to wear and tear. Opposed
as we are, and as we must be, to German militarism, German labour
will, I fear, be always ahead of us, especially if the German worker
puts in eight or ten hours where the British decides to give only four
or six. This is a matter for future testing; in the meanwhile let us
consider with attention, in capital letters “THIS MORNING’S NEWS ABOUT
PELMANISM,” as it appears in that esteemed journal _The Sunday Times_,
to which I have had the honour to contribute. It is but the other day
that I was assured “on the highest authority” (as the bewildered press
reporters at the Peace Conference have expressed it) that “Pelman”
was originally spelt “_Poehlmann_,” and that at discreet intervals
his “Magic Card” would be followed by another, inscribed “_Roth_.”
Both names have the euphonious Teuton ring about them, and they both
imply Money--money spent lavishly and magnificently on the “flowing
tide of Pelmanism” by way of opulent and ceaseless advertisement in
all the newspapers which joyously yield their columns to cash rather
than to intelligent information, and give up whole pages to “Pelman”
or “Roth” indiscriminately, in competition with a kindly Swedish
masseur or exercise-man, who in equally lavish announcements and
large type, promises health to the healthless even as “Pelman” and
“Roth” promise brain to the brainless. Of “Roth” I know little except
that according to advertisement “he is a remarkable man” (of which I
am entirely convinced), but of “Pelman” I have learned something at
first hand. I have learned, for instance, how it is that the spacious,
tremendous, profuse, and overpowering advertisements of this system of
brain-forcing flood every corner of the press, squeezing out by their
size and the space they occupy legitimate news of interest to the
public; of course, the first and chief reason is that they are paid
for. Everything in every line of business, pleasure or social position,
is paid for; even the clergyman who professes to show you the way to
heaven is paid for. Then surely it follows that Pelman or Poehlmann
must be a multi-millionaire? No! he need not be. As the controller of
the “flowing tide” he may make others pay, and so may command cash
without being personally wealthy. He no doubt realises the truth of
what a certain frank proprietor of pickles assured me--“If advertising
is done well and continuously it brings in double and treble the
money it costs.” And the channels in which the “flowing tide” is set
to run are cleverly prepared and delved out in the shifting sands of
British innocence and credulity--two admirable traits of our national
character. It is a touching thing to realise that the guileless
Briton should so simply confess himself to “Pelman” as mindless and
memory-less--and it is equally pathetic to discover in the “Census” of
“Pelmanists” there can be counted one barmaid, one bacon-curer, and
one “corporation official”! “Art and music and literature are being
re-born,” says Pelman--and no doubt the Pelmanists are already in
travail. It is all very clever and amusing; a little comedy in which
the guileless Briton is the bear that dances to the Pelman pipings.
I admire cleverness wherever I find it; it is a star in the general
murk of stupidity, and I am the last person in the world to depreciate
the brilliancy of its glitter. But it has interested me to study the
movements of this particular scheme, and chance or fortune placed one
or two threads in my hands which seemed to suggest a clue. Briefly
then, I was offered Fifty Guineas to “write up” Pelmanism. The offer
came through a very agreeable and enterprising journalist, employed,
I presume, to secure fresh supplies for the “flowing tide,” and he
added to his own personal and friendly entreaties a considerable
quantity of literary matter setting forth the miraculous improvement
in heretofore dull brains under the influence of Pelman or Poehlmann.
I made a careful study of these documents, and the first thing that
dawned on my own dim intelligence was that every would-be student of
the “course” would be called upon to pay six guineas, either in one
sum or by “easy instalments,” though one _can_ have a copy of the book
entitled _Mind and Memory_ (which tell “all about” Pelmanism but does
not instruct) _gratis_, and in that book are “particulars” showing how
one can obtain the “course” at a reduced fee. Thanks to my journalist
friend I had the _gratis_ book (in its forty-fourth edition, and for
this reason called “The World’s Most Widely Read Book”--well! with
all diffidence allow me to hint that this is incorrect, as I myself
am the author of one or two books in their fifty-first editions),
but the “Course” did not tempt me to disburse guineas, not even had
I accepted the Fifty offered. (I may say here that I never accept
“tips.”) But I could not, and cannot refrain from considering how,
if the scheme works successfully, as of course it must, the British
public are paying for these splendid advertisements! Paying so well
that it is easy to understand how the Pelman promoters can afford to
pay Fifty Guineas, more or less, to the obliging individuals who are
ready and willing to praise the “system.” Canon Hannay (“George A.
Birmingham”) for instance--does _he_ get Fifty Guineas? Or Mr. Spencer
Leigh Hughes, M.P.? Or dear George R. Sims? Or Mr. Gilbert Frankau? Or
do they send in their testimonials _gratis_? I feel that I cannot be
the _only_ “eminent” (to quote advertisement) person who has received
the munificent offer of Fifty Guineas, and _refused the same_! In the
Pelman “Census” I note there are 339 accountants, 8 actresses, 490
clergymen, and--one archbishop! Whereby it would seem that accountants
and clergymen need more brain-prodding than others. And if the “one
Archbishop” should consent to “write up” the advantages of the “course”
(like Mr. Will Owen, who declares that, artist though he professes
to be, he had “hardly begun the first lesson in Pelmanism before he
discovered something he had been drawing incorrectly all his life),
sure His Grace would merit a Hundred Guineas for his good work at the
very least? Anyhow his fee should be more than that of a “bacon-curer”
or a novelist! In openly confessing the offer to myself of Fifty
Guineas which I refused without a moment’s hesitation, I do so that I
may call the attention and admiration of the public to the clever way
certain people manage to make money through human gullability. The
brain-prodders and memory-pushers are almost as astute as Government
officials. The mass of people who never stop to think, still less to
calculate, are their happy hunting-ground. Personally I think Pelman
and Roth too “sharp” to be of the Anglo-Saxon race, though I do not
assert them to be Germans, naturalised or _de_-naturalised. But they
have the Teuton line of intelligence; that is, wherever they find a
good thick soil of stupidity, they plant seed therein, fertilise it and
make it grow. These special people who feed the coffers of journalism
by purchasing whole pages of space for their advertisements, are so
convinced of the thickness and richness of Anglo-American stupidity
that they boldly offer to transmute it, like alchemists, into the
gold of intellectual ability, and if this could be done ’twere a
worthy thing. But one must pause at the idea they put forward--“If
only we had 1,000,000 clever thinkers!” It is _too_ terrific! This
poor earth of ours could not survive! Its rolling ball like a bomb
would burst in space, overburdened by the sheer weight of brain! Be
merciful, therefore, O munificent Pelman! spare us, gentle Roth! Do
not instruct the bacon-curer or train the Archbishop beyond what we
have the strength to endure! Do not compel us to bow the knee to the
“barmaid” as another De Stael!--to the “corporation official” as a new
Admirable Crichton! It is the American philosopher Emerson who writes,
“Let the world beware when a Thinker comes into it!” But “1,000,000
thinkers!” The prospect is horrible--spare us, good Lord! We have much
to be thankful for in Carlyle’s famous assertion “most fools,” for if
our population were all wise, life would be dull indeed! Fools make the
gaiety of nations--they are the staple support of all governments--the
foundation of the press and the drama--the stock-in-trade of all
authors, philosophers, and wits whatsoever, and Heaven forbid we should
ever be deprived of their existence! We are always more or less in the
position of Shakespeare’s “melancholy Jacques” and ready to say, “A
fool, a fool, I met a fool i’ the forest! as I do live by food I met a
fool!” and when we chance on company with this simple friend of all men
should we “Pelmanise” or “Roth” him? Never! He is too valuable an asset
to the world!
TO SAVE LIFE OR DESTROY IT?
A CHALLENGE TO CERTAIN CLERGY
(_Published in the “Pall-Mall Gazette”_)
Does the Christian Church profess to follow the teaching of Christ? Or
the Law of Moses? That is to say: Is it Christian or Jewish? If Jewish,
its “sabbath” should be kept on Saturday, in conformance with the rest
of the Jewish world; if Christian, then, according to Christ, we may,
if necessity compels, do imperative work on Sunday. But a section of
our clergy are up in arms at the idea of “profaning the Lord’s Day” by
allowing labour of tillage and planting the land on Sundays, for the
necessities of the nation’s food. Where do these contentious persons
get their authority? Not from their divine Master! Their spirit is that
of the Scribes and Pharisees who “watched” Our Lord--“whether he would
heal on the sabbath day, that they might find an accusation against
Him.” The world has not outgrown that contemptible spirit. “That
they might find an accusation” is often everybody’s aim and clearest
business! “Then said Jesus unto them--I will ask you one thing: Is it
lawful on the sabbath days to do good or to do evil?--to save life
or destroy it?” And when the hypocrites could not answer Him, He
healed the afflicted man who had sought His aid, whereat those who had
“watched” Him, so says the Gospel narrative, “were filled with madness
and communed one with another what they might do to Him.” But, despite
His scorn of their narrow sectarianism, “He went out into a mountain to
pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”