It is simply to out-do the prophets of ill at their own game.
The result is that they seek you out to tell you that an enemy submarine
has been sunk off the Scillies or that the Crown Prince is in the Tower. It
is the old story that optimists are those who have been associating with
pessimists and _vice versa_. But seriousness is spreading. We are told
that even actresses are now being photographed with their mouths shut,
though one would have thought that at such a time all British
subjects--especially the "Odolisques" of the variety stage--ought to show
their teeth.
_August_, 1915.
Ordinary anniversaries lead to retrospect: after a year of the greatest of
all wars it is natural to indulge in a stock-taking of the national spirit,
and comforting to find that, in spite of disillusions and disappointments,
the alternation of exultations and agonies, the soul of the fighting men of
England remains unshaken and unconquerable. Three of the Great Powers of
Europe espoused the cause of Liberty a year ago; now there are four, and
the aid of Italy in engaging and detaching large Austrian forces enables us
to contemplate with greater equanimity a month of continuous Russian
withdrawal, and the tragic loss of Warsaw and the great fortresses of
Novo-Georgievsk and Brest-Litovsk. And if there is no outward sign of the
awakening of Germany, no slackening in frightfulness, no abatement in the
blasphemous and overweening confidence of her Ruler and his War-lords who
can tell whether they have not moments of self-distrust?
* * * * *
THE WAYSIDE CALVARY.
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