She has made for herself a new soul, or rather, she has docilely accepted that which Bismarck has given her.  To that statesman has been attributed the famous phrase:  “Might makes right.”  As a matter of fact Bismarck never said it, because he was unable to distinguish between might and right; in his eyes right was simply that which is desired by the strongest, that which is declared in the law imposed by the victor upon the vanquished.  His whole moral philosophy is summed up in that.  The Germany of the present knows no other.  She also worships brute force.  And as she believes herself strongest she is entirely absorbed in adoration of herself.  Her energy has its origin in this pride.  Her moral force is only the confidence by which her material force inspires her.  That is to say, that here also she lives on her reserves, that she has no means of revitalization.  Long before England was blockading her coasts she had blockaded herself, morally, by isolating herself from all ideals capable of revivifying her.

Therefore she will see her strength and her courage worn out.  But the energy of our soldiers is linked to something which cannot be worn out, to an ideal of justice and liberty.  Time has no hold on us.  To a force nourished only by its own brutality we oppose one that seeks outside of itself, above itself, a principle of life and of renewal.  While the former is little by little exhausted, the latter is constantly revived.  The former already is tottering, the latter remains unshaken.  Be without fear:  the one will be destroyed by the other.

France Through English Eyes

With Rene Bazin’s Appreciation.

Referring to the article printed below, which appeared in The London Times Literary Supplement of Oct. 1, and which the French Government ordered to be read in all Parisian schools, M. Rene Bazin writes in l’Echo de Paris:

Is not this language admirable?  What full and flowing phrases.  They are like a ship filled with grain sailing into port with her sails full.  Preserve them, these fugitive lines written by a neighbor, and read them to your children.  They will teach them the greatness of France and the greatness of England.

The whole world recognizes two qualities in the Englishman:  his bravery and his common sense.  We know that the Englishman is true to his given word, and that even in the antipodes he never changes his habits.  As I write, the postman brings me a letter from the front, dated Oct. 17.  The cavalryman who sends it tells of our Allies.  “We are fighting the enemy’s cavalry,” he writes, “and for two days my brigade was in action with the British.  They know how to fight and they astonish us by their marvelous powers of organization and their coolness.”

Yes, we know that of old.  We also know that England never closes her doors to liberty.  We have a confused memory of the hospitality given to our priests in the times of the Revolution.  Now England provides us with fresh proof of her kindness of heart.  You have heard the news—­the professors and students of the Catholic University of Louvain invited to Cambridge.  The destroyed Belgian university reconstituted in the home of the celebrated English university.  What a magnificent idea!