The Wrack of the Storm | Page 4

heroism is straight and clearly
defined and splendid as that of Thermopylæ indefinitely extended.
2
But what he has suffered, what he suffers day by day only those can
understand who have had the privilege of access to this hero: the most
sensitive and the gentlest of men, silent and reserved; a man of
controlled emotions, modest with a timidity that is at once baffling and
delightful; loving his people less as a father loves his children than as a
son loves his adoring mother. Of all that cherished kingdom, his pride
and his joy, the seat of his happiness, the centre of his love and his
security, there is left intact but a handful of cities, which are threatened
at every moment by the foulest invader that the world has ever borne.
All the others--so quaint or so beautiful, so bright, so serene, happy to
be there, so inoffensive--jewels in the crown of Peace, models of pure
and upright family life, homes of loyal and dutiful industry, of ready,
ever-smiling geniality, with the natural welcome, the ever-proffered
hand and the ever-open heart: all the others are dead cities, of which
not one stone is left upon another; and the very country-side, one of the
fairest in this world, with its gentle pastures, is now no more than one
vast field of horror.
Treasures have perished that were numbered among the noblest and
dearest possessions of mankind; monuments have disappeared which
nothing can replace; and the half of a nation, among all nations the
most attached to its old simple habits, its humble homes, is at present
wandering along the roads of Europe. Thousands of innocent people
have been massacred; and of those who remain nearly all are doomed
to poverty and hunger.
But that remainder has but one soul, which has taken refuge in the
spacious soul of its king. Not a murmur, not a word of reproach! But
yesterday a town of thirty thousand inhabitants received the order to

forsake its white houses, its churches, its ancient streets and squares,
the scene of a light-hearted and industrious life. The thirty thousand
inhabitants, women and children and old men, set forth to seek an
uncertain refuge in a neighbouring city, which is threatened almost as
directly as their own and which to-morrow, it may be, must in its turn
set forth, but whither none can say, for the country is so small that its
boundaries are quickly reached, its shelter soon exhausted.
No matter: they obey in silence and one and all approve and bless their
sovereign. He did what had to be done, what every one in his place
would have done; and, though they are all suffering as no people has
suffered since the barbarous invasions of the earliest ages, they know
that he suffers more than any of them, for in him all their sorrows find a
goal; in him they are reflected and enhanced. They do not even harbour
the idea that they might have been saved by a sacrifice of honour. They
draw no distinction between duty and destiny. To them that duty, with
its frightful consequences, seems as inevitable as a natural force against
which we cannot even dream of struggling, so great is it and so
invincible.
3
Here is an example of the collective bravery of nameless heroes, an
ingenuous and almost unconscious courage, which rivals and at times
exceeds the most exalted deeds in legend and history, for since the days
of the great martyrs men have never suffered death more simply for a
simple idea.
And, if amid the anguish of our struggle it were seemly to speak of
aught but tears and lamentations, we should find a magnificent
consolation in the spectacle of the unexpected heroism that suddenly
surrounds us on every side. It may well be said that never in the
memory of mankind have men sacrificed their lives with such zest,
such self-abnegation, such enthusiasm; and that the immortal virtues
which to this day have uplifted and preserved the flower of the human
race have never shone more brilliantly, never manifested greater power,
energy or youth.

* * * * *

THE HOSTAGE CITIES

III
THE HOSTAGE CITIES
1
Thanks to the heroism of the Allies, the hour is approaching when the
hordes of William the Madman will quit the soil of afflicted Belgium.
After what they have done in cold blood, what excesses, what disasters
must we not expect of the last convulsions of their rage? Our anguish is
all the more poignant in that they are at this moment fighting in the
most ancient and most precious portion of Flanders. Above all
countries, this is historic and hallowed land. They have destroyed
Termonde, Roulers, Charleroi, Mons, Namur, Thielt and more besides;
happy, charming little