It is a comforting thought, also, that the Hun, after this war, will be ill provided with what schoolboys call—“journey-money.” In the pleasant land of France, sur les côtes d’azur et éméraude, our ears will not be split by their raucous, spluttering accents; our eyes will not be offended by their obese, ridiculous persons. We shall, I hope, wander in peace through the Eternal City. I remember a young Hun at Wengen who barged into every skater on the rink not adroit enough to avoid him. I do not expect to meet him again.
For this alone may the Lord be praised!
HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL
THE GERMAN SPY
The Spy: “Military secrets behind? Eh?”
Policeman: “Much more dangerous things for Germany—Raemaekers’ cartoons.”
Belgium in Holland
In the present crisis of Belgian affairs there is much to remind the historical student of the events which led to the fall of Antwerp in 1585, and the outrageous invasion of the Southern Netherlands by the army of Parma. Then, as now, Holland opened her arms to her wounded and captive sister. The best Flemish scholars and men of letters emigrated to the land where Cornheert and Spieghel welcomed them.
Merchants and artisans flocked to a new sphere of energy in Amsterdam. Several of the professorial chairs in that city, and in the great universities of Leyden and Harderwijk, were filled by learned Flemings, and the arts, that had long been flourishing in Brussels, fled northward to escape from the desolating Spanish scourge. The grim pencil of Raemaekers becomes tender whenever he touches upon the relation of the tortured Belgium to her sister, Holland, his own beloved fatherland.