And indeed why not? For the best use of
a work of art as understood among the Prussian pundits is to make it the
peg whereon to hang some ridiculous breach of statistics, some monstrous
disquisition of bedevilled theory; and for such purposes a work no
longer existing so as good as any--even better.
And so the marvels of the centuries go up in dust and flames, and the
memorials of Memling and Matsijs, Van Eyck, and Rubens are treated as
the masters' own bodies would have been treated, had fate delayed their
time till the coming of the Boche.
ARTHUR MORRISON.
[Illustration: THE FATE OF FLEMISH ART AT THE HANDS OF KULTUR]
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THE GRAVES OF ALL HIS HOPES
"Look at the map," says the German Chancellor. Look at the map, and mark
with a cross every German disappointment and you will have a history of
the war more illuminating than many books on the subject. The Marne,
Ypres, South Africa, West Africa, Egypt, Bagdad, India, Tripoli, Verdun.
Look at the map indeed. The map of the world that Germany set out to
conquer. Consider the vapouring and vainglory that marked each of these
"successes" in political or military trickery and the fact that of the
military crosses each upbears above a mountain of losses the refrain of
the old German song Verdorben--Gestorben--Ruined--Dead.
It is a wonderful map to consider, this map of the world in 1916.
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