nd--will clear away our doubts, put an end to our hesitations,
compel us to choose.

Marcelle Capy has chosen. The strength of her book is to be found in
this, that through her _Woman's Voice from out the Tumult_ there
breathes the common sense of the French people, which has shaken off the
sophisms of ideology and rhetoric. This free vision, living, thrilling,
never deceived, is sensitive to every hint of suffering or ridicule. For
in the sightless epic which racks the nations of Europe, every type of
experience abounds: great exploits and great crimes, sublime acts of
devotion and sordid interests, heroes and grotesques. If to laugh be
permissible, if it be French to laugh amid the worst trials, how much
more justifiable is laughter when it becomes a weapon against hypocrisy,
a weapon employed for the vindication of stifled common sense! Never was
hypocrisy more widespread and more disastrous than in these days, when
in every land it is a mask assumed by force. Hypocrisy, it has been
said, is the homage vice pays to virtue. Well and good; but the homage
is excessive. Charming comedy, in which instincts, interests, and
private revenges take shelter beneath the sacred cloak of patriotism.
These Tartufes of heroism, prepared to offer up a splendid holocaust--of
others! These poor Orgons, duped and sacrificed, eager to destroy those
who would defend them and who seek to enlighten them! What a spectacle
for a Moliere or a Ben Jonson. Marcelle Capy's book presents us with a
fecund collection of these perennial types which teem in our epoch, much
as poisonous toadstools of unclassified species teem on rotting wood.
Yet the old stumps on which they batten throw out green shoots. We
perceive that the heart of the French forest is still sound; that the
poison has not eaten into our vitals.[14]

Take courage, good friends, all who love France. Rest assured that the
best way of doing honour to France is to maintain her reputation for
good sense, geniality, and humour. Let the voice of Marcelle Capy's
book, tender and valiant, be an example and a guide. Use your eyes, let
your heart speak. Be not fooled by big words. _Peoples of Europe, throw
off this herd mentality, the mentality of sheep who would ask the
shepherds and the sheep-dogs to tell them where to feed._ Take heart!
Not all the furies in the universe shall prevent the world from hearing
the cry of faith and hope uttered by a single free spirit, from hearing
the song of