On the Edge of the War Zone eBook

Mildred Aldrich
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 237 pages of information about On the Edge of the War Zone.

On the Edge of the War Zone eBook

Mildred Aldrich
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 237 pages of information about On the Edge of the War Zone.

I frankly acknowledge that, considering the kind of warfare the world is seeing today, I doubt very much if it is worse to be asphyxiated than to be blown to pieces by an obus.  But this new and devilish arm which Germany has added to the horrors of war seemed the last straw, and within a few weeks, I have seen grow up among these simple people the conviction that the race which planned and launched this great war has lost the very right to live; and that none of the dreams of the world which looked towards happiness can ever be realized while Prussia exists, even if the war lasts twenty years, and even if, before it is over, the whole world has to take a hand in it.

Into this feeling, ten days ago, came the news of the destruction of the Lusitania.

We got the news here on the 8th.  It struck me dumb.

For two or three days I kept quietly in the house.  I believe the people about me expected the States to declare war in twenty-four hours.  My neighbors who passed the gate looked at me curiously as they greeted me, and with less cordiality as the days went by.  It was as if they pitied me, and yet did not want to be hard on me, or hold me responsible.

You know well enough how I feel about these things.  I have no sentimentality about the war.  A person who had that, and tried to live here so near it, would be on the straight road to madness.  If the world cannot stop war, if organized governments cannot arrive at a code of morals which applies to nations the same law of right and wrong which is enforced on individuals, why, the world and humanity must take the consequences, and must reconcile themselves to the belief that such wars as this are as necessary as surgical operations.  If one accepts that point of view—­and I am ready to do so,—­then every diabolical act of Germany will rebound to the future good of the race, as it, from every point of view, justifies the hatred which is growing up against Germany.  We are taught that it is right, moral, and, from every point of view, necessary to hate evil, and, in this 20th century, Germany is the most absolute synonym of evil that history has ever seen.  Having stated that fact, it does not seem to me that I need say anything further on the subject.

In the meantime, I have gone on imitating the people about me.  They are industriously tilling their fields.  I continue cutting my lawn, planting my dahlias, pruning my roses, tying up my flowering peas, and watching my California poppies grow like the weeds in the fields.

When I am not doing that, with a pot in one hand, and the tongs in the other, I am picking slugs out of the flower-beds and giving them a dose of boiling water, or lugging about a watering-pot.  I do it energetically, but my heart is not in it, though the garden is grateful all the same, and is as nice a symbol of the French people as I can imagine.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
On the Edge of the War Zone from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.