Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-08-07
ENGLAND IN NEED
OF A LINCOLN
Nation Hides Its Misery, While
No One Has the Right Word
for Mrs. Bixby
BY GILBERT VIVIAN SELDES
Special Corrsspordent Evening Ledger

LONDON, July 20.
ONE Of the hardest things to write home
" about is the suffering of civilians. 1t
is hard. naturally. because 1t has TO 90
with death. and that is a subject hardly
nt for foreign correspondence or for week.
ly reports. Yet It has to be written about
or an impression may gain ground which
will be dishonoring and unfair to the
people Of England, who are so strange In
the expression Of their emotions and so
careless Of the impression they give-so
long as It is not tho impression Of hysteria
In France have seen every variety Of
mourning and by far the least Of these
was the chic and fashionable mourning
costume which 80 strikes n foreigner. We
are further from understanding the French
spirit than from understanding the spirit
Of England. and that is far enough. The
French soldier who wears his uniform as II
It were a sacred and heraldic costume Is
brother to the Frenchwoman who dresses
in black as IL she were assisting at a sacred
and hlerarchic festival Of the Church. The
gesture of sorrow Is extraordinary In
France II strikes home, even II we cannot
understand how and why the gesture Is
made. But here In England no gesture Is
made. Even when such a tragic muddle
as the Mesopotamia affair is made public,
no outbreak occurs. The private sorrows do
not add up TO make a public demonstration.
And the outsider looks at these people and
marvels.
have known families intimately for
months before discovering that they had
lost sons and brothers In the earliest days
Of the war. have been compelled to see
people within day or two Of the death Of
a near relative or a dear friend, and have
found that my delicacy and embarrass-
ment were more than misplaced. 1t was al
most cruelty to them. They either said
nothing or said everything. There was
nothing for any one else to say or to re-
frain from saying.
And then, once In a long, long tme the
storm breaks, and you are cast helpless
against the eternal rocks of despair.
will not pretend that the story which fol-
lows was in my own experience; the friends
and acquaintances whom have lost in the
ft sharer in the misery Of this episode. 1t
was told me by a man who had suffered
enough to understand It, and I am simply
retelling 1t. / should not even do that II
we were not In the war ourselves.
Wanted to Do His Bit
The man in this story was one Of hum
dreds of thousands who had lived life Of
comparative uselessness; he was rich. he
had tho tradition of idleness. and the total
excuse he had for existence was in his being
a fne and rather decorative fellow. who en-
joyed and repaid tho love Of his wife and
Of their children. 1t is rather hard to speak
Of their happiness They had been mar
ried twenty years. and were still happy,
still madly devoted to each other.
The war came and the man. over forty.
was out Of 1t. But ho could not stay out
Of It. He declared that he did not want to
be killed, but he'd be dashed II he let other
chaps get killed for him. He was no use.
but he had been keen on motoring before
the war and at least he could drive an am
munitlon transport. So he did.
He wrote letters to his wife all through
the first year out there, complaining about
his uselessness. He told her that It wasn't
fair for him to be in a soft and safe Job
while those other chaps had to stick in the
fighting line And then, one day. the Ger
mans spotted his ammunition column and
he was blown to bits.
His wife took IL, on, splendidlyi Her life
was broken UP and she did not know In
the least why. For all the time he had
been giving his life to his country and to
a cause he understood. she had been think
ing of him and Of him alone. So when no
was gone she had nothing to think about,
and in the end she stopped thinking quietly
and terribly mad, with only one idea, that
she must md the awful fragments Of her
husbands body and collect them for a
decent grave.
The man who told me this knew her
well. He was in the house when the mad
ness first appeared and he sat up all night
telling stories to the frightened children.
while doctors struggled with the woman.
It was quite hopeless. This 10 what he
said to me, asterward:
"It Ia an appalling thing, and only one
thing could have saved her. Don't you see
that II she had been in his place. or II she
had felt as keenly and as deeply as he did.
she could have borne the agony of losing
q
sorrows are all SO private and 30 hidden |;
we haven't had the one great word which
would dissolve all our personal miseries
and our losses In a great sense Of the loss
which all the world Is bearing and In q
sense of the great sacrifce which We are
all making. We are as We always were
an intensely private people. And probably
that Is why no statesman. no leader OF
the people, has been able to say the great
world. It's not in Asauith and it's not
In Lloyd George; we want neither Balliol
nor the Welsh Chapel. And l know what
we do want We want Lincoln's letter to
Mrs. Bixby
England's Hidden Misery
Perhaps It 10 too late for us now. But I
should think 1t was not too late for you. 30
far II doesn't seem to me as II Wilson had
even tried II. He has spoken of our ideals
In this war. and must say he has expressed
them better than any statesman Of ours
could. He has been clear and convincing.
h,t ha ha n m rdlv been moving except IN tha