FRANCE

(From the Westminster Gazette, 1914.)

France! Beautiful word! Beautiful land! What a proud soul lives in that France, now racked and tortured! What chimes will ring when the last invader is pushed back over the edge of the lost provinces! Land for whom, when you are hard driven, the heart most aches! Is it that you are Woman, with a caress in your eyes, and your floating robe; with mystery in your clear, woman’s smile, and that promise of eternal constancy which Man never offers? Is it that in you we feel, as in no other Land, a Presence, such as in some houses makes life assured, and lovely; a Presence inhabiting the air of every room, more precious than its garniture? Take away the trappings, make desolate that place of all material things, and there will yet be the loved one, there will yet be the gracious ardent spirit.

France! You, of all Countries, have the gift of Living Form, of a coherent grace, like that of your own flower of light, or such as haunts La Gioconda, listening to life.

When I think of you there comes into my mind the image of a lime-tree, in her spring garb of buds delicate, breaking to little gay leaves ecstatic in each wind; in her summer dress so full, so perfumed with honey-coloured blossoms; in her autumn robe of few golden leaves, flat on the clear air, and trembling, trembling with each breath of the day; and in her pale winter nakedness—ever the same essential goddess of a tree, perfect in form.

France! It is your power to see that “soul in things” which we call Ideals, to bring to life the truth you have seen, and so to concrete and shape your vision that it becomes the rock spiritual on which nations stand. Because you are the living incarnation of your clear, unflinching spirit, we others love you.

You stand before the world, true embodiment of your three immortal words; as your immortal tune is the true voice of a Land’s ardour and devotion.

You have sloughed off the gross and the vainglorious flesh of nations! You are the flame in the night! In this hour we see, and know you!

Great and touching comrade! Clear, invincible France! To-day, in your grave chivalry, you were never so high, so desirable, so true to yourself and to Humanity!