"'No,' thundered the farmer, 'to Seville or back to the frog pond!'"
In the main, however, American officers and soldiers were not very successful in expressing their feelings and ideals in regard to the war. One of the Y. M. C. A. huts carried on an anonymous symposium on the subject "Why I joined the army." Only a few of the answers came from the heart. Most of the rest were of two types. One sort was swanking and swaggering, in which the writer unconsciously melodramatized himself, and the other was cynical, in which the writer betrayed the fact that he was afraid of being melodramatic. Thus there was one man who answered, "To fight for my country, the good old United States, the land of the free and the starry flag that I love so well." "Because I was crazy," wrote another and it is probable that neither reason really represented the exact feeling of the man in question.
Some were distinctly utilitarian such as that of the soldier who wrote "To improve my mind by visiting the famous churches and art galleries of the old world." There was also a simplicity and directness in "to put Malden on the map." But the two which seemed to be the truest of all were, "Because they said I wasn't game and I am too" and "Because she'll be sorry when she sees my name in the list of the fellows that got killed."
For a time I was all muddled up about the American reaction to the war. Sometimes we seemed helplessly provincial and then along would come some glorious unhelpless assertiveness. This would probably be in something to do with plumbing or doctoring. Even our friends in Europe are inclined to put us down as materialists. They think we love money more than anything else in the world. I don't believe this is true. I think we use money only as a symbol and that even if we don't express them, or if we express them badly, the American who fights has not forgotten to pack his ideals. A young American officer brought that home to me one day in Paris. He was a doctor from a thriving factory town upstate.
"You know," he began, "this war is costing me thousands of dollars. I was getting along great back home. A lot of factories had me for their doctor. My practice was worth $15,000 a year. It was all paid up, too, you know, workman's compensation stuff. I'll bet it won't be worth a nickel when I get back."
He sat and drummed on the table and looked out on the street and a couple of Portuguese went by in their slate gray uniforms and then some Russians, with their marvelous tunics, which Bakst might have designed; there were French aviators in black and red, and rollicking Australians, an Italian, looking glum, and a Roumanian with a girl on his arm.
"Did you ever read 'Ivanhoe'?" said the man with the $15,000 practice, fiercely and suddenly.
I nodded.
"Well," he said, "when I was a boy I read that book five times. I thought it was the greatest book in the world, and I guess it is, and all this reminds me of 'Ivanhoe.'"
"Of 'Ivanhoe'?" I said.