Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-10-25

l v
perate and bewildered when they
had to endeavor to counteract their
| own documents at the beginning of
the war, by asking their professors
to contradict these documents during
the middle of the war. 1t makes
every university professor almost
ashamed of his calling. Think of
Harnack and Eucken, with their
moral cowardice and their intellec-
tual impotency! Plainly that is what
! Nietzsche meant when he said (page
134 Ecco Homo) every crime
against culture that has been COM
mitted for hundred years rests
upon Germany
The Frenchmen's Love.
"All men love their native land,
but the Frenchman's love has n
unique quality. The patriotism of
the Englishman- undemonstrative.
The Britisher surrounds his nome
and his garden with a high brick
wall, conceals his finer feelings from
his closest friends and when he en-
ters his club on Pail Mall and disap-
pears behind the threshold the door
is closed upon tomb. The Ameri-
cans patriotism is largely academic;
national safety through isolation
breeds contempt for danger. The
time was when his love of country
was vociferous on the Fourth of
July, but the enthusiasm has died
down, until he is now ready to cx-
tinguish even a firecracker. The oc-
casional speaker deals in historical
statements about the four wars
fought by our country. But the
4 Frenchman's love of country has a
! tender, gentle, wooing note. lie
speaks of La Belle France as Dante
spoke of Beatrice, as Petrarch spoke
of Laura, and the name of France
fingers upon his lips as music trem-
bles in the air after the song is sung.
The reascn, Couhtless is found in the
fact that the French people have
carved the hillsides and smoothed
the valleys and adorned the ridges
and mountains with vineyards until
the whole land is a thing of radiant
| beauty. 1t is love that has made
France beautiful just as the lark,
after completing the nest, makes il
! soft and warm by pulling the down
I out of her own bosom. The French
people love France as an artist loves
! his own canvas, as Bellini loved
the missal he had illuminated, and
as that young architect loved the
little Roslyn chapel. upon whose DEL
cate capitals he had lavished his
| very soul. Would you have an en-
blem of France in the month of
June, with her wide, fat valleys, her
biOOh pe9luiCS anu lIle DlllSluHS uD
which the pines climbed in serried
regiments? IF SO. take great rohe
or green velvet lying loosely on the
floor, the creases and velvet ridges
answering to the rivers and the val
leys and the hills, and then fling a
handful of rubies, pearls and sap
phires down, so that these gems will
lie within the creases as the lovely
| French cities at the foot of the hills,
fhn r.txF l.,
j France, the beautiful; France, the
mother of the modern arts and sci
ences; France, full of sweetness and
light; that France concerning which
Heinrich Heine exclaimed, oh
France, thou daughter of beauty!
Thy name is culture!'
Tho Devastated Regions.
For forty years the two great
! enemies of farms and towns and
cities have been fire, flood and
i earthquake. Witness the CITY of St.
Pierre. An interior explosion blew
off the cap of the mountain, and a
HOOD of gas poured down upon the
lovely city, asphyXiated the citizens
and left not one house standing
Witness that mighty convulsion in
san Francisco that brought thous-
ands OF bricks crashing down in
ruins. Witness the fire in Chicago
that turned the great city into twist
ed iron and ashes. Ia New Zealand
there is a lake called Avernus, the
p1rdless lake. Poisonous gases rise
from the black flood of water, and
soon the lark with it's song, and the
eagle with its flight fall into the
4 poisonous flood. But all these inn
ages are quite inadequate to explain
the desolation, the devastation OF
France upon the retreat of the Ger
mans. About forty miles north of
Paris, one strikes the ruined region
Then hour after hour passes, while
with slow movement and breaking
heart one journeys 100 miles to the
north and ZigZags 125 miles south
again, through that black region
The time was when it was a wild
land, rough, with forests filled with
wolves. Then the Frenchman ems
tered the scene. He subdued all the
wild grasses to which julius Caesar
referred in his story of his war in
Il France; he drained the valleys, and
widened the streams into canals. He
enriched the fields, and made them
wave with gold. He surrounded the
meadows with odorous hedges, and
banked where there had been a
swamp with perfumed shrubs. Slow
ly he threw arches of stone across
4 the streams and carved the bridges
until they were rich in art, while
everything made for use was carried
up to outbreaking beauty. The root
of the barn had lovely lines; the APP
proach to the house was upon q
curved road, the highways were
shaded by two rows of noble trees
The stony hillside was terraced. and
there the vines grew purple in the
sun. How simple was his life! What
sanctuary his little home! With
what rich embroidery of wheat and
corn he covered all the hills! He was
prudent without being stingy, thrifty
without being mean. He saves
4 against old age with one hand and
distributes to his children with the
other.
What Hate Can Do.
And having lavished all their love
upon the little farm house, the gran
ary and the barn; having prunet
these grape vines with their clusters
: of white and nurple, until each
seemed like friend, dear as that
miraculous picture was to Bauci:
and Philemon, having at last made
every tree to be shapely, their little
world was invested with affection
and beauty. Do you remember how
that Florentine artist after his days
stint was done, toiled upon his stu.
dio, slowly carving the capitals, col
lecting little terre Gotta from Cy-
prus, an old manuscript from
Athens, a lovely head of Apollo from
Fphesus and iridescept glass from
Persia. with a bit of old Tyrian pur.
pie lending a spot of flame in one
corner, and little mosaic from
Thebes colored another, when hc
saw the end was aDproaching while