We English have a singular degree of respect for the dead. It has
no doubt expressed itself in some slight follies and vulgarities, such
as certain funeral customs, not long gone by; but such respect is a
national virtue and emotion. No nation loving war harbours that virtue.
And in nothing do the kinsmen with whom we have much language in common
differ from us more than in the policy that brought this Prussian host
to cumber the stagnant waters of the Marshes of Pinsk.
The love of war has cast them there, displayed, profaned, in the "cold
obstruction" of their dissolution. Corruption is not sensible corruption
when it is a secret in earth where no eye, no hand, no breathing can be
aware of it. There is no offence in the grave. But the lover of war, the
Power that loved war so much as to break its oath for the love of war,
and for the love of war to strike aside the hand of the peace-maker,
Arbitration, that Power has chosen thus to expose and to betray the
multitude of the dead.
ALICE MEYNELL.
[Illustration: THE MARSHES OF PINSK, NOVEMBER, 1915.
The Kaiser said last spring: "When the leaves fall you'll have peace."
They have!]
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GOD WITH US
Three _apaches_ sit crouched in shelter waiting the moment to strike.
One is old and _gaga_, his ancient fingers splayed on the ground to
support him and his face puckered with the petulance of age.
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