The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1916-01-01

The brilliant editor of Rome" the
Catholic weekly published in English
in the Eternal City, has returned to
his post after a somewhat extended
sojourn in Ireland. His impressions
of the journey from Ireland, via Lon
don and Paris, make deeply interest !
ing reading. He writes:
It does not take week these times
to travel from London to Rome "a
little less than two days is enough),
but week may be spent very profit
ably on the enterprise. It is even
more profitable if you begin your
Journey four hundred miles farther
back; if you wake up from a long,
short dream of summer, lovely, leafy,
peaceful summer, when the early dawn
and the late dark left only time
enough between to feel how fair and
serene God made this part of Ireland
If you wake up with shiver and
find that you have already said good
bye" and with "Vo! Vol" echoing
in your heart have left home behind
you. But yesterday the sycamores
were waving their green arms in well
come and a thousand birds were sing
ing welcome from the fragrant bush
es; now the sycamores are sere and
shrunken; the breath of winter is in
the wind; lonely robin near the
gate shows you the red stain on his
breast and sets his goodby to plain
tive music; a little way down the
road you pull up for moment to say
goodbye to neighbor; before you
reach the cross neighbor calls good
bye after you from the field.
Is it over? 1t is only beginning
after that short eight miles to the
nearest railway station, for gathered
before you are a whole multitude of
mothers and sisters and wives, whis'
pering, sobbing, shouting "goodbye!"
as the train bearing their loved ones
moves swiftly out, and if you listen
with your mind you will hear the same
"goodbye!" resounding through the
heart, for the whole world is full Of
blood and tears as never before since
it was created.
Hiding London!
So towards the close of this fata
year of "goodbyes" you are on YOU
way to the three foci of the modern
world, London, Paris and Rome. You
have read something of how Londor
is darkened at night these times tt
hide it from the enemy. Hiding Lon
don! That sounds grotesque, and YET
tonight it is doubly hidden, for moi
only are the lamps purposely sub
dued, but the immense human hive
is wrapped in its first November fog
and you are borne silently from Eus
ton to Victoria through Cimmeriar
spaces which you take on faith to be
the streets of London, until you are
set down, almost miraculously, 1
seems to you, blinking in the light o
your hotel. The following afternoon
not before, for the fog lasts all thu
night and morning, you see a Londo1
that is new and strange-a Londo1
where every second man you see is :
soldier, where thousand printed in
vitations call, implore, shout at 20,
from every side to become soldier
too, in this hour of peril, where every
body seems to read and think ant
talk only of war. And as you visi
the ruins made by Zeppelins in Chan
Gerry lane and find yourself standin,
side by side with tall man in KHAKI
from South Africa on a similar mis-
sion, you are reminded startlingly Q
that famous glimpse into futurit
where Macaulay saw the New Zea
lander sketching the ruins of 81
Paul's from broken arch of London
Bridge. But that was to have bee
some ten thousand years hence, an
it was only last week that the Zeppe
Inns missed their targets Of st. Paul
and the bridge and wrought thei
havoc on the neighboring lane! Blu
you have work to do besides SUI
veying ruins. Your passport is al
right, but you must waste some wear.
hours in showing it to various func
tionaries, who write various thing
on the back of it, and give you ,
limited time to resume your journey
Paris at Night Like City OF tn
Dead.
At FolkestOne you are subjected t,
the same ordeal; you have to wal
for hours in an interminable queue
to show your passport again, to an
swer the same futile questions, ant
when you reach Dieppe after five
hours the process is gone through I
third time, only more tediously, be
fore you are at last free to take you
place in the Paris train. And Pari
by night is hardly more cheerful thar
London-the Vile Lumiere is lit onl.
here and there by dim lamps tina
hardly pierce the gloom for a few
yards around them, the streets ar
empty and silent, the shops close,
and dark. It is like a city of tn
dead, but perhaps it will be bette
in the morning.