The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1915-08-12
France.


personify a nation, to speak of it as
it were a man, to give it man at
tributes, define its character, and pre-
dict it's actions from that character,
as if it were man. But a nation is
not a man, it is made up Of many
men, all different, and in one genera
ton the men are not all mere copies
of those in another.
The folly of generalization must
strike those who few years ago were
talking of light-headed, unstable, SUI
perficial France. 1t must strike them
as they see the grim, tactiturn, un-
shakable nation that goes so lmper-
turbably and almost silently about its
work, such work as few ever had
laid on head and heart and hand.
They must see it as they note the
transference to the French OF the
characteristics that in their generall-
cations they called Teutonic. They
see a nation going to war with no
parade, with no noise, with no vain
glory or boasting, but with set and
indomitable purpose and a silent un-
animity. There is loyalty in all the
warning nations, but nowhere does a
nation move as one man, nowhere
does each lact seem the act not of a
nation but Of single colossal indl-
yidual, as in France. There is self
ishness and callousness in some parts
of English life, even in Germany
there are divided counsels, but Ill
France a whole nation is nation of
self-surrender. France consecrates
itself 20 the end in view.
Its heroism is not the heroism OF
individuals, but the heroism OF a ma
) ton, and that nation fills the heart
of every man in it to the exclusion
of everything else. Its remorseless
reconstruction of itself, its cold and
steady decapitation of every weak or
stupid leader, its subordination OF all
the things in life to one aim, and the
steady and fateful way it has gone
about the achievement Of that aim,
are not the acts of volatile and IT.
responsible people. We are govern
ed too much by phrases. Carlyle in
Huenced us too far with his Gallo
fire, comparable to the burning OF
"dry Jungle and grass, most sudden,
high-blazing, and his Teutonlc fre,
like that of anthracite coal, difficult
to kindle, but then which no known
thing will put OUT" one fire for
roasting eggs," the other for "smelt-
ing metals" How utterly false that
contrast seems, as we look at the
methodical, inveterate, imperturba-
Bile. understandable people that is fight
ing today!
The losses of France have been
more frightful than those of other
countries, but no groan escapes her.
( She entered the struggle to give all
she had to it, and not a murmur will
escape her if all is taken. And this
spirit animates not her governors
alone. but the unknown men and
women who are France, down to the
least. She is unrecognizable by her
portraits. They were painted by men
who had 1870 in mind, and 1870 is
dead; 1870, boastful. degenerate
vain and careless. Or they had lIs3
in mind: determined enough, but pas
sionate. headlong, empirical and Wis
ionarv: and 1893 is dead. Long af-
ter 1870 they looked back at the story
Of the nineteenth century. with its
frequent revolutions and its kaleido-
scope of fads, and predicted the fall
ure of the third republic, because an
incurably restless, frivolous man
easily tired of every new fad ne mas
taken up, will surely tire of the next
one: it is his character. But a nation
is not a man, and the headlons Vls-
1OndrleS OI 1870 anu |iAO
cvnics of 1870: who lived in time
when faith and works were dead
have passed away. The tired repuo-
lie has lasted nearly half a century
and grown stronger year by year,
and under it there has grown up a
great new people, for a new people
can grow up in an old land. The
drunken France of the nineteenth
century is gone for good. and there
rises where it lived and died
A people. sane and great.
Forged in strong fires, by equal
war made one.
New York Times.