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Show l‘. ""wwu But chiefly to the living we proffer our reverent and indignant sympathy. Driven from their homes, their books scattered, their manuscripts burned they are but as beautiful autumn leaves in the blast of the Teuton war-gods: We greet the noble EMILE VERHAEREN, the first of the living poets of Europe In him the religious intensity of Belgium has taken a different expression from that of the mystics. He has not shrunk, in his abundant and various yet eminently consistent productive work, from celebrating many sides of the national character. He blows through bronze and he breathes through Silver, and if we would understand the life and soil of Belgium, toute la Flandre, we must go to this inspired and multiform mind for oiir instruction. Thirty-five years ago, three young men who were students at the College Salute-.Barbe at Ghent, determined to devote their lives to the creation of a poetical drama in Belgium; they were Van Leerberghe, Le Roy and Maeterhnck. The whole world has submitted to the fascination of MAiJRICE lVIAETERLINCK. A Parisian admirer unwiselv introduced him as " the Belgian'Shakespeare." He is, on the contrary, the one and only Belgian Maeterlinck. \Ve greet with emotion other names, less universally recognised. Brussels is the mother of ANDRE FONTAINAS, whose enchanted gardens are like the backgrounds of Rubens' pictures. From Antwerp MAX ELSKAMI" has brought his idylls of a peaceful Flanders. Let me not forget that Lie'ge has sent us the tender and tremulous ALBERT MOCKEL nor that Louvain, till the hour of her desecration, was proud of the ac-7 complished talent of ALBERT GIRAUD. If I name no more, it is due to ignorance or lack of space. uwum p Our protest By HENRI BERGSON Le Daily Telegraph veut bien me demander mon sentiment sur la Belgique et sur le Roi Albert. Ie cherche en vain, je ne trouve pas de mots pour exprimer mon admiration. Je m'incline en proie a une emotion profonde et je salue respectueusement. Un petit peuple s'est trouvé tout a coup en presence d'une des plus formidables armées de la terre. On lui demandait simplement la permission de passer ; on lui rendrait, disait-on, son territoire intact ; on respecterait son indépendance. L'efit-on fait? Je ne sais, mais ce petit peuple était libre de le croire. Et s'il cut declare qu'il cédait a la force, qu'il aeceptait l'inévitable, nous l'aurions plaint, nous n'aurions pas osé le blamer. Mais non ! il a résiste a ce qui paraissait irresistible ; il a fait par avarice 1e sacrifice de tout ce qu'il avait et de tout ee qu'il etait : ses villes et ses villages, sa fortune et sa vie, il a tout donné ‘a une idee, a la conception héroique qu'il s'e'tait faite de l'honneur. Gloire a lui ! gloire a son roi ! J'ai dit, j'ai enseigné pendant longtemps que l'histoire était une école d'immoralité. Je ne le dirai plus, apres l'exemple que la Belgique vient de donner au monde. Un acte comme celui-la rachete les plus grandes vilenies de l'humanité. Il fait qu'on se sent plus fier d'étre homme. Sera-t-il permis a un professeur de philosophie d'ajouter qu'on se sentira plus fier, desormais, d'étre philosophe? Le roi Albert s'est adonne' aux études philosophiques. Leur doit-il quelque chose de sa force d'ame et de son ge'ne'reux idéalisme P Je 1e voudrais, car la philosophie recueillirait alors quelque chose de sa gloire. Deux fois, au cours de l'histoire, elle a is not in favour of these great names alone, but of the whole intellectual brille' sur un trone ; et, les deux fois, elle aura été associée a la plus haute eiv1hsation of Belgium, so flourishing and so vivid in the peace of a month vertu. Elle inspira jadis le sto‘i'cisme de Marc Aurele. Elle sourit aujourd'hui avec amour a l'he'roisme simple et sublime du Roi Albert. or two ago, now humiliated and trampled like an autumn rose under the hoof of a bull. X/zze/a/ W 650 Ila, TRANSLATION by 7. s. c. igséggDREW CARNEGIE DLY the. people of Bel gium ' have sho th descendants of their ancestors whom Julius Caesar hdvnrbureflntllsiful:és 02021:); gagging 5:111 Beflgotei. King Albert has proven himself possessed of courage describes : e 0 1e essentials of high ' character, which ' Farquhar thus, Courage the highest gift, which scorns to bend To mean devices for a sordid end. Courage-an independent spark from Hear) en ' 3 b ' ht By which the soul'stands raised, triumphant, highfg alohémne, The Daily Telegraph has been pleased to ask of me to say what Ijeel about Belgium and King Albert. I have searched in min tofind words adequatefor expressing my admiration : I can only how my head, a prey to profound emotion, and offer a respectful homage. A small nation found herself suddenly confronted by one of the most formidable armies in the world. They asked of her merely permission to pass through ; they would restore to her, so they said, her territory untouched ; they would raped her independence. lr'Vould they have done so ? I know not, but the small nation was free to believe them. And if she had declared that she yielded to force and accepted the inevitable, we might have pitied but we should not have dared to blame. Far otherwise I She has resisted what seemed irresistible ; she has sacrificed at once all that she had, all that she was .' her towns and her villages. her wealth and her ll}, she has given all for an idea, for the heroic belief that it was done for honour. Glory to her ! Glory to her king! I have said and I have taught for long that history was a school of immorality. I shall say so no more, after the example that Belgium has just given to the world, A deed like this redeems the worst meannesses of mankind. It makes one feel more proud of being a man. lllay it be permitted to a professor of philosophy to add that it makes one feel more proud henceforth of being a philosopher? King Albert has followed philosophical studies. Is it to them that he owes something of his strength ofsoul and his noble idealism .9 I could wish so, for philosophy would then share in his glory. Twice in the course of history has philosophy shone from a throne, and on both occasions it will hare been associated with the highest i‘irtue. In ancient times philosophy inspired the stoicism of Alarms {lure/ins It smiles lovingly to-day on the simple and sublime heroism of King Albert. 59 |
