It needs, indeed, an effort of the imagination at the moment of
writing to think of Belgium as in any sense a component part of
"Beautiful Europe." The unhappy "cockpit" of the Continent at the
actual hour is again in process of accomplishing its frightful
destiny - no treaty, or "scrap of paper," is potent to preserve
this last, and weakest, of all the nations of Western Europe from
drinking to the dregs the cup of ruin and desolation. Tragic
indeed in the profoundest sense - in the sense of Aristotle - more
tragic than the long ruin of the predestined house of Oedipus - is
this accumulated tragedy of a small and helpless people, whose
sole apparent crime is their stern determination to cling at any
cost to their plighted word of honour. I have been lately glancing
into a little book published about five years ago, in which a view
is taken of the Belgian character that no one could term
indulgent. "It is curious," says the writer in one place, "how few
Belgians, old or young, rich or poor, consider the feelings or
convenience of others. They are intensely selfish, and this is
doubtless caused by the way in which they are brought up." And,
again, in another chapter, he insinuates a doubt as to whether the
Belgians, if ever called on, would even prove good soldiers. "But
whether the people of a neutral State are ever likely to be brave
and self-sacrificing is another thing." Such a writer certainly
does not shrink - as Burke, we know, once shrank - from framing an
indictment against an entire people. Whether Belgium, as a nation,
is self-sacrificing and brave may safely be left to the judgment
of posterity. There is a passage in one of Mr. Lecky's books - I
cannot put my finger on the exact reference - in which he
pronounces that the sins of France, which are many, are forgiven
her, because, like the woman in the Gospels, she has loved much.
It is not our business now, if indeed at any time, to appraise the
sins of Belgium; but surely her love, in anguish, is manifest and
supreme. When we contemplate these firstfruits of German "kultur"-
-this deluge of innocent blood, and this wreckage of ancient
monuments - who can hesitate for a moment to belaud this little
people, which has flung itself thus gallantly, in the spirit of
purest sacrifice, in front of the onward progress of this new and
frightful Juggernaut? Rather one recalls that old persistent
creed, exemplified perhaps in the mysteries, now of the Greek
Adonis, now of Persian Mithras, and now of the Roman priest of the
Nennian lake, that it is only through the gates of sacrifice and
death that the world moves on triumphant to rejuvenation and life.
Is it, in truth, through the blood of a bruised and prostrate
Belgium that the purple hyacinth of a rescued European
civilization will spring presently from the soaked and untilled
soil?
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