The New York herald., 1921-08-14

balance Of reciprocal suggestions.
|. War, a balance of suggestion.
Peace as we'll"
Amiable Dhuys represents the soul
of the generation in which the war
terminated. He is the conflict be-
tween the French soul and the Ger
man, which first dominates and then
is overcome. He is the battle in which
France triumphs the day she under
stands that the power of Germany
consists in the conception others hold
of her. France wins the day she casts
out that conception from her mind.
ITO be defeated -. an accident
But to be penetrated with her own
failure, to indulge in weakness, to per-
init her vital essence to be attacked,
that is the worst They have Graded
our childhood with a lamentable song,
with mourning over vanquishment."
In one man we feel the experience
of nation during those tragic years,
with its crises of doubt and blasphemy
when the adverse will was dominant;
then it's remorse, it's hope returning,
its calm, clear faith unto the end.
We find Dhuys stationed at lis
tening post. Undiscouraged, he waited
for one voice. In the words of Zara-
thu-tra, He seeks his enemy to make
war, war in his thoughts" Blotted
against the maternal earth, like faun
in his cave, he gathers all his forces.
concentrates himself and realizes
ccldly the nature of his adversary.
For days and nights the suspense
is prolonged In the depth of the dug
out, before the electric apparatus, re-
ceiver at ear. Dhuys listens for Gott-
fried's voice in the confusion of sounds
that come through the air. Science
has opened world of new sensations.
His ground wire plunged into the old
earth draws from her life and she
gives back her music to the man of
to-day, who returns in his new fight
ing posture to the instincts of prirni-
tive warriors
Il heard kind of humming, far off.
very faint. clickingS, tearings: a sound
or oil cooking on a stove leagues aWay
from my ear, from which one would
catch now and then an exasperated.
irregular song, as cake was thrown
in or fish. OFF there flowed, thin and
ceaseless, the murmur as Of a brook
over the stones, an inexhaustible
stream; no break. no enlargement,
something hardly perceptible and pow
erful in its perpetuity, enormous in its
spread through the air, the very soul
of the earth whose voice l surprised.
A streamfet of the electric life
of the planet traversed my body: re-
ceived it's force and gave it back, and
the circuit curved about the lines by
an impulse incredibly extended over
the surface and through the depth of
Europe. The Earth could not betray
the race which had replenished her for
so many centuries: she played the spy
on my behalf. Through her eternal
motion I had enlarged my ephemeral
nervous system. In primitive
periods l should have perceived my
enemy afar off, isolated his footprints
from the numberless marks of the
trail. should have possessed the gift
of divination. of long sight and of
telepathic communication, being still
rich in natural forces. To-day subtle
devices aid my stupid body, help out
my poverty"
At last Dhuys hears the voice or
Gottfried as in Munich so long agC
1t no longer dominates him. He has
won his war. He discovers and utilizes
to their discontinue a plan If the
enemy.
In ArnouX's work the most abstract
ideas are expressed in opulent colors,
tangible forms. People and things are
localized. characters stand out in a
strange relief, individual, yet bearing
the broad meaning of universal types:
the smallest details, the very names
are symbolic. The dance of ideas
makes one dizzy. They are in per-
petual motion. The author has a par
ticular liking for paradox and the un-
expected.
1t is a great achievement-thisr reve-
lation in a work of art of mankind's
new sense of the earth-the electric
sense. I wish that every American
who can read French would read Tn
dice 49," 1t Is something absolutely
new in the entire literature of war,
new in all literature.