Page:Above the battle.djvu/116

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Above the Battle

in his leisure hours a politician and a strategist, sketches in bold outline the picture of the victories of Germany and a remodelled Europe—a United States of Europe under the paternal sceptre of his mailed Kaiser: England crushed, France disarmed, and Russia dismembered. His colleague Haeckel completes this joyous exposé by dividing Belgium, the British Empire, and the North of France—like Perrette of the fable before her pitcher broke. Unfortunately neither Haeckel nor Ostwald tell us if their plan for the establishment of this higher civilisation included the destruction of the Halle of Ypres, of the Library at Louvain, of the Cathedral at Rheims. After all these conquests, divisions, and devastations, let us not overlook this wonderful sentence of which Ostwald certainly did not realise the sinister buffoonery, worthy of a Molière: "You know that I am a pacifist."

However far the high priests of a cult may allow their emotion to carry them, their profession of faith still retains a certain diplomatic reserve which does not hamper their followers. Thus the Kulturmenschen. But the zeal of their Levites must frequently disturb the serenity of Moses and Aaron—Haeckel and Ostwald—by its intemperate frankness. I do not know

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