FROM BERLIN (II)

EXTRA LEAVES

(v) _On "Clay Sparrows" and the Failure of Freedom_

XIV. FROM ROME
XV. FROM MONTE CARLO
XVI. FROM LONDON
XVII. FROM PARIS

EUROPE--WHITHER BOUND?

LETTERS OF TRAVEL

I. FROM ATHENS

Europe, whither goest thou?--the poignant question of to-day. The
pride of Christian culture, the greatest human achievement in history,
with, as we thought before 1914, the seal of immortality set upon her,
is now perhaps moving towards dissolution and death. Europe has begun
a rapid decline, though no one dares to think that she will continue in
it downward until she reaches the chaos and misery and barbarity from
which she sprang. Affairs will presently take a turn for the better,
Europe will recover her balance and resume the road of progress which
she left seven years ago--prompts Hope.

"Europe must die in order to be re-born as something better"; "all must
be destroyed," say the theorists of revolution. "She staggers and
falls and falls and plunges," seem to say the facts with the
inexorableness of Fate.

Prophecy can be left to all men--it does not alter the course of
events. The historian in the future will ask what was the actual
condition of Europe at this time, and it is possible to assume that he
would grasp eagerly at an account of a visit by an impartial observer
to all the principal capitals of Europe in the year 1921. An effort to
record what Europe looks like now, a series of true reflections and
verbal photographs of swirling humanity at the great congregating
places, the capitals, cannot but be of value. So with the motto: "See
all: reserve your judgment," let us proceed.

The winds of the mountains traverse the well-shod civilization of a
great city. At the end of each of the long streets rises a mountain,
and on the mountain rest the clouds and the sky. You walk outwards,
and climb the nearest and most prominent of the heights to the
Acropolis, to the mighty slabs of the marble of the Parthenon, simple
and pure in the mountain air, a point of view where it is always
morning, and you look down from the ancient Athens to the new. Your
eyes rest on modern Athens all built in white stone, and extensive and
handsome in a setting of mountains and sea, but the heart refuses to
travel with the eyes. The heart remains in the ancient city, and
there, somehow, is perfect happiness, and it is a place in which to
abide.

Not without some sacred thought