uture; if I would save the future, I must save him also, and rescue
fathers to come from the agony that I endure. Come then, and help me!
Cast out these falsehoods! Surely it is not for our sakes that men
wage these combats between nations, this universal brigandage? What
good is it to us? A tree grows up straight and tall, stretching out
branches around it, full of free-flowing sap; so is a man who labours
calmly, and sees the slow development of the many-sided life in his
veins fulfil itself in him and in his sons. Is not this the first law,
the first of joys? Brothers of the world, which of you envies the
others or would deprive them of this just happiness? What have we to
do with the ambitions and rivalries, covetousness, and ills of the
mind, which they dignify with the name of Patriotism? Our Country
means you, Fathers and Sons. All our sons.--Come and save them_!

Clerambault asked no one's advice but as soon as he had written these
pages he took them to the editor of a small socialist paper nearby. He
came back much relieved, as he thought:

"That is off my mind. I have spoken out, at last." But in the
following night, a weight on his heart told him that the burden was
still there, heavier than ever. He roused himself.

"What have I done?"

He felt that he had been almost immodest to show his sacred sorrow to
the public; and though he did not foresee the anger his article would
provoke, he knew the lack of comprehension, the coarse comments, which
are in themselves a profanation.

Days passed, and nothing happened. Silence. The appeal had fallen on
the ear of an inattentive public, the publisher was little known, the
pamphlet carelessly issued. There are none so deaf as those who will
not hear, and the few readers who were attracted by Clerambault's
name, merely glanced at the first lines, and threw it aside, thinking:

"The poor man's head has been turned by his sorrow,"--a good pretext
for not wishing to upset their own balance.

A second article followed, in which Clerambault took a final leave of
the bloody old fetish falsely called Country; or rather in opposition
to the great flesh-eater, the she-wolf of Rome, on whose altar men are
now offered up, he set the august Mother of all living, the universal
Country:

_TO HER WHOM WE HAVE LOVED_

_There can be nothing more bitter than to be parted from her whom one
has loved. I lacerate my own heart when I tear Country from it;--dear,
beautiful,