The Wheeling intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1903-1961, 1915-11-27
By G. K. Chesterton
The Noted English Essayist.


r is very p%uzzling to find people still talking
about optimism and "p,ssimism" in con.
- neetion with the war. You cannot be an
optimist or n pessimist about whether a gun
Is loaded. II is or it isn't. II it is. IL may
shoot you in the most Joyous and buoyant
attitude. II it isn't it will not shoot you after
the most lusubrious funeral preparations and
family farewells. SO il Is with a certain great
gun We know which is pointed towards the
Rhine.
Most OF those who know most about
these things have practically seen 1t loaded.
Those OF them who. in such a case. say 1t
has no charge are not pessimists but liars.
Others seem TO want TO have 1t prematurely
bred on to prove that 1t is loaded. They
are not optimists but ~lunatics. Now the
complaint l make about the panic Press.
in its on such things as the
Russian retreat or the grapple in Gallipoli. is
not in the least a complaint against pessi.
mism My objection is not even that these
journalists give the news in needlessly sombre
style. though anyO-e can see that a more
confident tone would be - appropriate and
much acre patriotic. The objection is that
these Writers, not in the loose. but in the
literal sense OF the word, DO not know what
they are talking about They do not really
know that the Russian retreat is a retreat.
because they do not know what a retreat is.
They constantly use the word as Interchange
able with the word "rout." which Is very
nearly the opposite. A retreat Is that military
relation between two coherent armies in
when q ~ the object OF the oncoming
forr~ tr 81 = b1'j!y. as mech as % is the object
OF a foX.hunter 10 get the brush. The fox.
hunter does not consider himself a ConquerOr
as soon as the fox has begun to run, but only
when the fox has stopped running. II the
FOX gets away altogether. the hunters regard
the fox as the conqueror. Some Prussian
iuoiations remind NE Of an absurd uiolet
written by a friend Of mine. which ran:
When / 90 for the trout
II Is perfectly glorious,
/ give one hearty shout
When | go for the trout;
And they scatter In rout
and they leave me victorious
When ! go for the trout
II is perfectly glorious,
This does not in the least mean that a re-
treat is not a regrettabie thing. and IL nigh,
we'll be maintained that the chances
generally against both the fox and he ,rout
II does not mean that the pursuer will po,
get his battle. IL does mean that until he
has got ii he has got nothing. Il means. In
short. that what these journalists fail 10 see
IS not the hopefuluess or the hopelessness -,
the operation, but simply the operation Itself
VI course We must always allow for the
different forms which patriotic feeling may
taxi" There may be people who cannot de
for their country. and think Il the next hest
thing 20 despair for II. But they themselves
n the journalists are OF this kind. have no
such liberation for our rreater faith in the
future energies Of the nation. found one OF
them IN a paper the other day r-oaning agains,
f-. critic OF Land and
Wafer twho had audaciously ventured m bs
satisfied with something somewhere. or 20
suggest that there were some Russian soldiers
LETT. and bitterly declaring that none OF MA
prophecies had been fulfilled. This Is ouita
true since he never made any prophecies.