If in this war the figures of cruelty and death have surpassed themselves in darkness, the figure of Humanity has never been so radiant and so lovely. Perhaps we do not know enough what man was really like in past ages to compare him with man to-day. But it does seem as if he had grown in power for evil, and even more in power for good. Or perhaps it is only that, being more sensitive and highly strung, the story of his doings is altogether more poignant.
From the letters of a young French painter, who, after months in the trenches, disappeared in an engagement on April 7th, 1915, I quote these sayings:
“You know what I call religion—that which binds together in man all his thoughts of the universal and of the eternal, those two forms of God! . . . Don’t let’s lose hope; the trials of hope are many, but all beauty lives for ever. . . . The dead won’t hurt the Spring! . . . Did you see yesterday’s sun? How noble the country is, and how good Nature! She seems to say to him who listens that nothing will be lost. . . . We know not whether all this violence and disorder may not be leading us toward a crowning good. . . . Out of this torment we shall be left with one great aspiration toward pity, fraternity, and goodness. . . . Never has life brought me such abundance of noble feelings;—never, perhaps, have I had such freshness of sensibility for their recording; such a sensation of safety in my spirit. . . . We spend the days like children. . . . And the good from this war will be the making young again the hearts of those who have been through it.”
And his last written words: “Beloved mother, I send you all my love. Whatever happens, life will have been beautiful.”
Not to many is given so clear a soul as this, so fine a spirit. Peace and loveliness be with him, and with all who die like him before their time, following the light within them. And with all who live on in this world of beauty, where the Dead harm not the Spring, may there be—in his words—the longing for pity, fraternity, and goodness!
TOTALLY DISABLED
(From The Observer, 1916.)
If I were that! Not as one getting into the yellow leaf, but with all the Spring-running in me. If I lay, just turning my eyes here and there! How should I feel?
How do they feel—those helpless soldiers and sailors already lying in the old ball-room of the “Star and Garter”?
In that hospital ward, a ghostly officer is ever crying: