The Republican., 1919-07-24

| uoWIl, anu even tne log anu CHe QrlZ-
zle gone in the happiness and hopeful
ness that has come with the conquest
and that is with her now when
spring brings back blue days and
fair" How wonderful is England
now in the pursuit of peace. How
amazing her capital, her countrysides
her whole area one matchless pic
ture in which Nature has painted per-
fection. In the Louvre in Paris where
France has gathered the art achieve
ments of the world, there are marvels
of magniience on canvass, in sculp-
ture, in every conceivable form. In
the Vatican at Rome it is likewise so
where the ages of human progress
| in the avenues of art have adorned
the interior. But when one looks up
on the great canvass of Nature as so
well represented now in England in
| the height of summer, of France, of
Scotland, how poor and pale and pit
iful these painted daubs of Paris, and
Milan, and Rome, and Venice, and
/ Florence and elsewhere appear. All
seem to silently speak of a past
glory that is gone, while the whole of
France now, of England, of Scotland,
of Italy, speak of a glory that is
present today.
One visits Venice and reflects upon
her illustrious past, sits profound in
her gondolas gliding in the Grand
/ Canal under the charm of soft, string
ed music by night, looks upon her
| great square of St. Marks, becomes
enraptured under the spell of her
grand fetes by moonlight The great,
grey mother of Republics is bending
under burden of glorious years, and
her venerable walls weigh down upon
one with the hoardings of history.
Dead Empires.
And Rome? You have a feeling of
awe as you approach the city of the
Caesars-the Eternal City-amid the
rich rural environs of gorgeous green.
gem in the midst, sitting stately up
on her seven hills. There is st. Pc
ter's, massive, monumental, majestic
IN her towering beauty; there the
broken remnant of the Coliseum,
where the lizard lords it in place of
the gladiators and the games of old;
there are all the other tumbled tenn
pies and traces that tell of triumphs
away back in her glorious, golden age,
when 'the pale mother of dead En-
pires" was mistress of the world.
Needless to repeat her we'll known
story. Futile, indeed, to follow Glib
bon. There is feeling that here is
great fountain from which flows the
history of humanity out of the dim.
dead days, and the mind has a tenden-
cy to dream itself out of the beauty
of the Italian capital of today, and
rove back through the years to catch
| the phantom forms of the Caesars
and their legions returning trium-
phant from the wars. And then there
is a fiutter and flash of color and we
salute the heroic emblem of modern
ltaly-modern Rome-victorious once
again, and after the tempest of war,
as she was so wonderfully in her OIL
den, golden days of greatest glory.
The thought of empire carries us
to Sedan and the scenes about that
forty-odd years ago made it "the
tomb of an empire" There in deadly
struggle, swiftly descended and set
the last Napoleonic star after blazing
so briefly and brilliantly, and thus
was the grim Iron Chancellor given
opportunity to gather the scattered
Germanic states for the formation of
the fragments into new empire that
cast its dark, ominous shadow of am
bltion over France during all these
two-score years and more until so
recently dissipated by the success of
the Allied arms
Shrines of Sacrifice.
We visit Verdun, the undying; Cha
teau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, st. Mi
hiel, the Vesle the Meuse, the Marne
the forest of the Argonne! ALWAYS
the flowers, so pretty, so plentiful, so
peaceful in the profusion ALWAYS the
crimson red of the soft, silken poppies
as a mute reminder of the great. su-
preme sacrifice; always the spotless
white of the marguerites, so beauti-
fully emblematic of a purity of pur-
pose; always the blue and purple of
the violets and bleuees, speaking for
the firm fidelity of the fallen. As we
visit these shrines, these heroic mile
stones of American endeavor to keen
flaming the faith of the founders. to
keep fresh the fervor of the fathers
IN a contemplation of the MANY
mounds so fragrant with flowers and
so fraught with memorable meaning
we silently renew the covenant with
nIIrcpIVac at1d t1-itb ill.,.