The Murder of the Élite
cause being from the first tainted with injustice, the sufferings of the few who are just, and the still fewer who have spiritual perceptions are greater there than elsewhere; because these evidences appear openly in publications whose boldness the German censorship has not perceived; because I bow with respect to the heroic discipline of silence which France in fighting imposes on her sufferings. (Would to God that this silence were not broken by those who, trying to deny these sufferings, profane the grandeur of the sacrifice by the revolting levity of their silly jests in newspapers which are without either gravity or dignity.)
⁂
I have shown in a recent article that a part of the intellectual youth of Germany was far from sharing the war-madness of its elders. I cited certain energetic reproofs delivered by these young writers to the theorists of imperialism. And these writers are not, as one might think from an article in the Temps (though I gladly pay a tribute to its honesty), merely a small group as narrow as that of our symbolists. They count among them writers who appeal to a large public and who do not
169
