- membered for centuries, Italy, which cannot count its
defeats, is become a free nation. That is because it is inhabited by a race, clean and well-defined, upon which the foreigner has been unable to impress his mark. France enslaved, she, the most intelligent of nations, she who has had the most influence upon minds and hearts! Come now, that is not possible, that will never happen! But the people who would howl indignation at the dismembering of a disarmed France, would let a war-like France go down to ruin: she would be only one country like the others. So, I repeat it without scruple: it is necessary that we should give the magnificent example of disarmament. Only then shall we be a nation loved and admired among nations. Only then will all hearts turn toward us. Only then will the idea that anyone could touch France seem a sacrilege such as no tyrant would risk!"
The Dawn
By Émile Verhaeren
(In this play the Belgian poet has voiced his hopes for the regeneration
of human society. The city of Oppidomagne is beseiged
by a hostile army, and the revolutionists in both armies conspire and
revolt. The gates of the city are thrown open, and the end of war
declared. A captain in the hostile army is speaking over the body
of Hérénian, leader of the revolutionists in the city)
I was his disciple, and his unknown friend. His books
were my Bible. It is men like this who give birth to
men like me, faithful, long obscure, but whom fortune
permits, in one overwhelming hour, to realize the supreme
dream of their master. If fatherlands are fair, sweet to
