CHAPTER XXVIII
AMERICANISM TRIUMPHANT
HAT Americanism which to-day is a dominant world force is not alone of North or South or East or West. Out of the blended greatness of all the sections of the United States came the hope of peace and universal democracy in that dark hour when the allied armies of Europe were backing doggedly toward the tottering gates of Paris. That hope was born of the reunited blood of the gray and the blue armies.
As it was Americanism that tipped the doubtful scale of victory on the field of battle, so it was Americanism that inspired the war-sick world to seek the great League.
And now that all eyes are turned toward Geneva as the chosen capital of the earth, the fascinating history of that far corner of Switzerland will be lifted by a thousand pens from the dust of neglect. Poured into the stream of current literature, it will add mellowness and flavor, as if a flagon of old wine were resurrected from some long-deserted cellar and poured into the spiritless punch bowl of to-day.
This new seat of world deliberation has ever been a home of thought—a place of dreams.
From the brain of a dreamer who dreamed there more than a hundred years ago there issued a ghost—the most monstrous and terrifying that ever looked from the pages of fantastic literature—for a century considered only a gloomy fancy of a wonderful imagination, but now revealed in the light of the world revolution as a hideous prophecy of the terror and agony of the great war. Perchance the prophecy was an accident. It may be that there was nothing miraculous—no inspired vision back of the dream; and still it may be that some yet undiscovered force of mind and soul mirrored in the brain of that bright dreamer the troubled future of the world and caused its expression in the mental creation of a monster.
In reviewing this ghost of accidental or miraculous prophecy, as the case may be, it is well to remember that this country of landmarks and memories has ever held a charm for the restless spirits of genius. The hill of Geneva is cathedral-crowned. Its unique and historic river, born of snow and ice and reborn of a crystal lake, divides the city like a stream of blue and trembling light, and the lands that sustain its countryside are a succession of orchards, gardens, and vineyards.