New-York tribune., 1921-02-28
Books ( )

Wells could have made better world
OF it. Indeed, we are not at all sure
that he won't, but we think he owes
existence a somewhat more patient for
bearapce toward the violence of the
various folk who have twisted history
out of shape. Alexander, Cesar, Ma
poleon and the others whose careers
Wells looks upon with abhorrence were
not honorable men. Probably the world
would have been better off without
them, but it is useless to minimize
their magnificence as Wells does in his
Outline of History. 1t is hard to ra-
tionalize them out of the place which
they hold high in the imagination of
mankind.
One of the first records which were
bought for our phonograph, years ago
in our formative period, was Robert
Ingersoll at the Tomb of Napoleon"
AS we remember the speech which came
from the wax cylinder Ingersoll said:
II would rather have lived and died un-
known except by those who loved me
than to have been that. imperial mon
ster who covered Europe with blood
and tears"
In those days We did not believe Mr..
Ingersoll. We do not believe him now.
He was not successful in convincing us
that a peaceful obscuritv was to be de-
sired over the Job of imperial monster.
As matter of fact the early admira-
tion for Napoleon which was planted in
our breast by Ingersalls eloquent warn
ing has never done US any harm. We
have overrun nothing. Nobody has
been conquered by us. We have upon
a few occasions made H Sd cry by TAX
ing the scissors away from him or re-
fusing to let him draw pictures in the
new and limited edition of George
Moores Memoirs of My Dead Life,
but we have covered no extensive ter
ritory with tears. 1t has been enough
for US, and for most of the world, to
keep the identification with Napoleon
sub-conscious and remote. The world
simply had to have him at least once.
Even Wells needed him. Without n
Napoleon or Cesar or an Alexander
every now and then, how could a great
reformer point his moral of the barren
ness of mere military triumph?
Often Wells is engaged in the task
net of painting purple figures in dark
and depressing colors but in soften
ing the hue which has been set upon
some well known people or person by
the tradition of history. For instance,
in all probability hardly ten words of
comfort or commentator have been
spoken about Attila the Hun during the
last hundred years in all the City of
New York Up pops Wells to do jus
tce to the dead little man who can.
tesed across Europe to Troyes.
at is still the European CUSTOM" he
writes, "to follow the lead of the Ro-
man writers and write of these Huns
and their associates as OF something
incredibly destructive and cruel
We must remember that these accounts
of the savagery and frightfulness of
the Huns came from a people whose
chief amusement was gladiatorial
shows and whose chief method Of deal
ing with insurrection and sedition was
mailing the offender to the cross to die.
1t is we'll to bear these facts
in mind before we mourn the swapping
of the Roman Empire by the barbara
ans as though it was an extinction of
all that is fine in life by all that is
black and ugly The facts seem to be
that the Hunnish people were the
EASTERN equivalent of the primitive
Aryans, of whom we have given an ac-
count in Chapter XIV, and that in spite
of their profound racial and linguistic
differences they mixed with the no.
madic and semi-nomadic residuum of the
Aryan races north of the Danube and
Persia vary easily and successfully. In