Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-05-10
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for their lives? There are many ehans,
many idols Of peace that will come down
! before I am through" So spoke this
| grim old pagan god, come back to build
pagan world And cropping long for an
answer, at last saw ray of light.
War was youth, and II was youth that
had thrilled me here. Not murder, nor
machine guns nor trenches, nor bleak,
ruined houses; but youth. the very finest
| OF all the youth OF Europe. War had
suddenly brought them here and had
made the glory Of youth its own, and
so had clothed its ugliness.
FROM GooPs TO TRAGEDY
Gelett Burgess, famous for his
"Goops and Nonsense Rhymes
writes in very different vein in Col
lier's tS). He tells the stories Of five
women, particularly tragic and help
less victims of war:
1t was Pelagle Uwaerts who told me
this story, and how beautifully she told
IT, so that no one. am sure, could hear II
without a gulp in the throat, OF a young
Belgian girl in the Seminary Of St Sui
piCe. can no more than sketch II for
YOU, with not half her delicacy "One
day she came into my room." said Pela-
gle. "a forlorn little thing che is only 1s
and she asked II she might sit and sew
with me. She speaks no French, only
Flemish. and she said: T've noticed that
you don't talk much to the other women
In the corridor and / thought you might
be like n mother to me here OF course
I said che could, every day she came
with her sewing. But as I worked and
watched her I couldn't understand why
she was so sad Is II because you have
no mother? | asked her. No, II didn't
seem to he that, although she had no
relatives at all In the world. Well, knew
that we had all suffered terribly in this
cruel war, every one, but she was so
young. and it's natural for youth to get
over this sooner than we who are older.
Il wasn't like youth to droop as this
young girl did. oh, you'll get over II
after awhile, said to her. 1t will come
out all right in the end
"She burst out crying. oh, It will
never come out right for me. It can only
be worse and worse every day said,
why, my dear, what has happened to
you?' Then l looked at her face and
knew 1 said. oh, my poor child, tell mo
II you can. You can trust me, and you
have no mother She just began to
moan, oh, what shall do? What shall
I do?' and then at last she told me.
Monsieur, you know what has hap
pened to so many, many girls in Bel
Eum. When the foreman of her farm
paid her off and told her the Germans
were coming she set out for her uncle's
house She found the village full OF
Prussians Three of them caught her
and took her into n house. You will cook
for u.s. they said and you will be our
wife while we are here Monsieur, she
was kept there three days!'
Edith Wharton, the novelist. has a
vivid description of time Paris in
Scribner's (4. She mentions that
look in the eyes of French women
which Ernest Poole saw in the eyes
of the German soldiers in the
trenches:
1t Is a good sign to see the crowds pour
ing into the shops again, even though the
sight is less interesting than that of the
other crowds streaming daily across the
Pent Alexandra III to the great court of
the Invalides. where the German trophies
are displayed. Here the heart of France
beats with a richer blood. and something
of its glow passes into foreign veins as
one watches the perpetually renewed
throngs face to face with the long triple
rows of German guns. There are few In
those throngs to whom one OF the deadly
pack has not dealt a blow; there are per-
sonal losses, lacerating memories bound
up with the sight of all those evil en-
Eines. But personal sorrow is the sem
tment least visible in the look of Paris.
1t is not fancfu to say that the Paris
ian's face, after SIX months of trial. has
acquired a new character. The change
seems to have affected the very stun It
is nodded of, as though the long ordeal
had hardened the poor human clay into
some dense commemorative substances
I often pass in the street women whose
faces look like memorial medals-ideal-
lied images of what they were in the
flesh. And the masks of some of the men
those queer tormented Gallo masks,
crushed in and squat and a little satyr-
like-look like the bronzes of the Naples
Museum. burnt and twisted from their
baptism of fire But none of these faces
reveals personal preoccupation; they are
looking one and all at France erect on
her borders Even the women who are
comparing different widths of VaIen-
ciennes at the lace counter all have some
thing of that vision In their eyes-or else
one does not see the ones who haven't