“She was brought to the stake on May 30th, 1431.  The woman’s tears dried upon her cheeks, and she faced her doom with the triumphant courage of the martyr.”  During her last awful moments, as she left this world with the torture of the flames slowly consuming her body, what were the last impressions of this girl of nineteen who left home and happiness to free a people who allowed her to be thus tormented to death?  “A court was constituted by Pope Calixtus III., in 1455, which declared her innocent and pronounced her trial unjust.  And through the whole civilized world her memory is fittingly commemorated in statuary and literature.”  But this is poor consolation and does not undo the mischief.  So far as Joan of Arc is concerned, she is still burning, scorching, suffering at that stake, and the world and the English are her torturers, still tormenting her, while the man she made king stands looking on indifferently, heartlessly.  All the honor and statuary that ever had creation on this green earth cannot atone for this crime of “civilization” on the innocent.  But it is only one blot of many with which the world moves on, branded indelibly to its unknown end; and beneath a pleasant exterior we know, but try to hide, those blots, with apologies for our ancestors.  And yet some say the world is getting no better.  Out of this chaos of blood, crime and heathendom we sprang with all our pride and greatness, and with such a record it behooves us to be rather humble than high-minded, for crime and disgrace are lying at our very door-step.

“The story of Joan has been a rich motive in the world of art, and painter and sculptor have spent their genius on the theme without as yet adequately realizing its simple grandeur.”

Of Voices Long Dead

The following is not history, although we have placed it under this heading.  It is the literal translation of a poem by Theocritus, a light in the ancient literature of the Greeks.  Although the actual incident never occurred, it is typical of what was going on among that long dead people, and it is of as much importance to us as the most valuable record of history, and is of vital interest when viewed in retrospect from the year 1915, because it gives us a rare glimpse into the domestic manners of a people who lived when all the present civilized world was in the hands of savages—­and how modern it all seems.  The scene might have been enacted yesterday even to the smallest detail.

Imagine yourself in the city of Alexandria about the year 280 B.C.

“Some Syracusan women staying at Alexandria, agreed, on the occasion of a great religious solemnity—­the feast of Adonis—­to go together to the palace of King Ptolemy Philadelphus, to see the image of Adonis, which the Queen Arsinoe, Ptolemy’s wife, had had decorated with peculiar magnificence.  A hymn, by a celebrated performer, was to be recited over the image.  The names of the two women are Gorgo and Praxinoe; their maids, who are mentioned in the poem, are called Eunoe and Eutychis.  Gorgo comes by appointment to Praxinoe’s house to fetch her, and there the dialogue begins.”