War is a bad thing; it is a reversal, sudden and complete, to barbarism.
That is what I would get at in this article. One day there is
civilization, authentic, complex, triumphant; comes war, and in a moment
the entire fabric sinks down into a slime of mud and blood. In a day, in
an hour, a cycle of civilization is canceled. What you saw in the
morning was suave and ordered life; and the sun sets on howling
savagery. In the morning black-coated men lifted their hats to women.
Ere nightfall they are slashing them with sabres and burning the houses
over their heads. And, the grave old professors who were droning
platitudes of peace and progress and humanitarianism are screaming, ere
today is done, shrill senile clamors for blood and ravage and rapine.
(Not less shrill than others is the senile yawp of that good old man
Ernst Haeckel, under whom I studied in my youth.)
A reversal to barbarism.
Here; it is in the tearoom of the smartest hotel in Munich; war has
come; high-voiced women of title chatter over their teacups; comes
swaggering in the Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria; he has just had his
sabre sharpened and has girt his abdomen for war. His wife runs to him.
And she kisses the sabre and shouts: "Bring it back to me covered with
blood--that I may kiss it again!" And the other high-voiced women flock
to kiss the sword.
A reversal to barbarism.
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