ir
kindling periods to dwell on the immorality of war. The one spoke of the
beauty of Bible precepts, the other disburdened himself on the cruelty
and wickedness of a battle. What artistic hypocrisy! It was as if one
were to strike up the "Faerie Voices" waltz, and tell a girl to keep her
feet still; as if one were to lend "Robinson Crusoe" to a boy, and warn
him not to think of running away to sea. Still, I must even add my voice
to the orthodox chorus, and affirm that warfare is bad, brutal,
fraudful, a thing of meretricious gauds, a clay idol, fetish of humbug
and havoc, whose feet are soaking in muddy gore and salt tears; yet in
the privacy of my own study I might sadly admit that the Millennium is
remote, that the Parliament of Nations exists but in the dreams of the
poet, and that Longfellow's forecast of the days down through the dark
future when the holy melodies of love shall oust the clangours of
conflict is a pretty conceit--and no more.

War is inexcusable, and is foolish and ugly; but, like the poor and the
ailing, we shall have it always with us. It is criminal, except as
protest against intolerable persecution, or in maintenance of national
honour or defence of national territory; and even in these cases it
should be undertaken only when all devices of conciliation have been
tried in vain. Next to the vanquished, it does most harm to the victor.
Yet about it, as about high play, there is a fascination, and I have to
plead guilty to the weak feeling that I would not look with overwhelming
aversion on an order, should it come to me to-morrow, to prepare to
chronicle a new campaign and face the chronicler's risks; and they are
real. But I should not go into it with a light heart, like M. Emile
Ollivier. I might be, in a quiet way, happy as Queen Victoria was
(according to Count Vitzthum) for she danced much the night before the
declaration of hostilities against Russia, but spoke of what was coming
with amiable candour and great regret.

We are on the eve of a Jubilee Year, when the halcyon shall plume his
wing, and we shall hear much oratorical trash and hebetude about the
peacefulness of this happy reign.

Does the reader reflect how many wars we have had in the pacific
half-century which is lapsing? The tale will astonish him, and should
silence the thoughtless word-spinners of the platforms. The door of the
temple of Janus has been seldom closed for long. Our campaigns, great
and small, and military e