The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-07-04
WAR.
The Intellectual Charm 1t Has for Guilt
waited Mankind.

The Intellectual Charm 1t Has for Guilt
waited Mankind.
1t must, we fear. be admitted that, eX-
eept with very few men, war, as such,
has for cultivated mankind distinct in
fellectual charm. 1t attracts them as
1othing else does, until in its presence
Shey can not turn their eyes away, and
every other object of thought becomes
comparatively insipid, and this even if
he war is not one in which they are
concerned. OF course if
hey are their absorption is easily ex-
blamed. The results of war are so
tremendous and far reaching, they al
Feet all interests so deeply, and they
nay involve the future Of country so
neXtricably, that it is impossible for
men who have any patriotic or political
Imagination at all not to study its pro-
gress, and even its minute details, with
concentrated attention. One big blum
Ter in war may PROSTATE a nation.
Even when, as is rarely the case, in
gasion is out of the question, the Incl
dents OF a campaign, the conduct of the
Troops, the capacity or imbecility of the
Generals, become matters of per-
smal and vital intcrest-a victory
SENS pleasure beyond all others,
defeat cruel and individual
catastrophe. Mems interests, their
hopes, their virtues their foibles, and
their fears are so involved in war in
which the nation is engaged, that every
turn OF fortune is an event of personal
moment, and the excitement becomes
as intense as if the onlooker were him.
self engaged. Men have been known
to go mad with JOY after a great vic
tory, and to sicken mortally of the
grief produced by a great defeat, and
this in cases when. as it turned out,
neither victory nor defeat fingered long
in the general memory. There is
nothing to be explained in that kind of
interest, but the intellectual charm of
war extends much further than this.
Wars which are not ours interest Us
nearly as much as wars which are.
Scores of thousands of Englishmen
followed the great American civil war
with an attention which missed no de-
tail, and the European world watched
the duel between France and Germany
with a gaze which was almost painful
in its intensity of watchfulness. The
journals, which always reflect the popu-
lar curiosity better than the popular
thought, were full of nothing else. and
the excitement was felt as keenlv by
men ordinarily devoted to study
as by men who had been soldiers
ora curiously common case in a
nation so devoted to civil pur-
suits-were soldiers by inner pre-
possession. 1t is usual to ascribe
this attraction to unconscious self-in-
terest, desire that one or the other
side should win; but we do not think
that has very much to do with the mat
ter. The onlOokers in war take sides,
no doubt, often enthusiastically, and
with a persistence which it. is not easy
to explain; but it is not because of their
hopes or fears that they become so alb
sorbed. They are hardly less attracted
by the wars of history, which they
ought to regard without passion; and
these may be keen excitement, though
they fail to decide which side they wish
to win. The English people in the
Franco-German war swerved distinctly
from one side to the other; but they
watched Gambetta and Chanzv with as
much interest as they had watched Bis
marck and Won Moltke. Moreover, in
visible wars, though they may strongly
affect the interests of men, do not exer-
else this attraction. The war waged by
France in Tonquin has hardly been
watched at all, while the two great
Chinese wars of our day have hardly re-
ceived anything beyond a casual men
ton, and never, even when in progress,
excited the slightest possible attention.
Yet the war in Tonquin was in many re-
spects the most important colonial war
of our time; and the two Chinese wars
were, in the strangeness of their Incl
dents and their awful consumption of
human life, among the phenomenal oc-
currences of the century. spectator.