And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake
Of the brave hearts that never more shall beat,
The eyes that smile no more, the unreturning feet.
Whittier.
You will remember I told you that long before this great war Belgium had already been called for hundreds of years “the Cockpit of Europe.” This vivid phrase comes down to us from the time when cock-fighting was a favourite sport among Englishmen.
Belgium was indeed the pit in which the gamecocks of many nations—the Flemings, the Dutch, the Spanish, the English, and the French—battled furiously. There is no town, and there is scarcely a village, the name of which is not proudly borne by some regiment among its battle honours. From the British point of view the most memorable of these are Quatre Bras, Ramillies, and Waterloo.
The most famous, I need hardly tell you, is the Battle of Waterloo, which was fought within a few miles of Brussels, the capital of Belgium. That was one reason why a great many English-speaking and English-reading people all over the world felt very sad when they heard that the German Army was in Brussels. But there is another reason why many men and women who have never been there feel a familiar and affectionate interest in the town. That is because three of our greatest writers and romancers have chosen to lay scenes of their stories in Brussels.
The first of these was Laurence Sterne, of whose most famous character, Uncle Toby, I have told you.
The second was William Makepeace Thackeray. He showed an intimate knowledge of the Brussels of a hundred years ago in his account in “Vanity Fair” of what took place there before, during, and after the Battle of Waterloo. But those who claim to be true Thackerayans will tell you that even finer, even more firmly fixed on their minds, is the account of Esmond’s visit to his mother’s grave in the Brussels of the eighteenth century.
It was, however, a lady, Miss Charlotte Brontë, who, in “Villette,” which good judges consider the best of her stories, has made many of us feel really intimate with the highways and byways of Brussels. In fact, it is not too much to say that there are many people (the writer among them) who, when before the War they heard the name of Brussels suddenly pronounced, immediately thought of “Villette.”