The Star. SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1915. THE CONSOLING SURPRISE OF THE WAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11359, 10 April 1915, Page 8

The Star. SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1915. THE CONSOLING SURPRISE OF THE WAR.

One of the consoling surprise.'! n( this war is the unlocked for and. so to speak, universal heroism which it has revealed among all tho nntions taking part in it. Hitherto wo have been in - dined! to believe that fortitude and physical courage belonged' to a past age, and that- in theso degenerate times hemmu. was extinct. It is therefore consoling to find so great a writer as the Belgian dramatist and thinker Maeterlinck taking quite the opposite view, and maintaining that the home-; of the past had not a true coiii'cption of heroism.

FTomcr'fl heroes, whom we are accustomed to look upon as the first masters of bravery were riot really very brave. "They bad," says the writer in question, " a wholesome drcd oi being hit or wounded, and' an ingenuous and manifest fear of death. 'I heir mighty conflicts aro declamatory and decorative, but not so very bloody . they iftflict more noise than pain upon their adversaries; they deliver many more words than blown.' Death with these warriors of antiquity was an unforeseen and indecorous event which threw tho ranks into disorder and' very often put an end to tho combat. [Wounds in battle were enumerated, sung and deplored as "so many remarkable phenomena." Discreditable routs, disorder and pamw, on tne other hand, are quite frequent, and Homer relates them as ordinary inciclenta and Inevitable in any warfare.

This much over-rated courage ot totiquity is characteristic of the heroes of the Middle Ages. In the fierce hand to hand encounters of the merconar.es of the .Renaissance period the ter was as nothing compared with the conflicts of to-day. Often not more than half a dozen victims were left on the field. These contests were, or course, concerned only with professionals. It was not a nation in arms like that which we witness to-day, but a selection of the population framed o arms. Wars, too, were of short duration—in the majority of cases being reduced to two or three pitched battles. The battles also were a mattei or hours, not, as in our time, of days and weeks. After the fighting over, relaxation and rest followed, and t men went baok to their homes.

It might also be added that ,n ancient and medieval times the very superstitions of the P«P l 6 tho,r tioning religious beliefs robbed death of much of its honor. 1o fight m the religious wars of the Crusades or the Renaissance was to aspire to a seat in Paradise. In ft more critical age like that in which we live such childlike theories have little power of persuasion, and men face death in the fear o e great mystery that lies beyond the vei ■

Nowadays everything is changed and death is 110 longer what it was. Formerly you looked it in the face, you Knew whence it came and who sent it to you. It had ft dreadful aspect, but one that remained human. Its ways were not unknown. At present, to all these horrors it adds the great, intolerable fear of mystery. It no longer has any aspect, no longer has habits or spells of .sleep and it is never still. It is always ready, always on the watch, everywhere present, scattered, intangible and dense, stealthy and cowardly, diffuse, all-encompassing, innumerous, looming at ©very point of the horizon rising from the waters and faling from the skies, indefatigable, inevitable, filling the whole of space and time fo rdays, weeks and months without a minute's lull., without a second's intermission. Men live, move and sleep in the meshes of its fatal web. They know that the least step to the right or left, a head bowed or lifted, a body bent or upright, is seen by its eyes and draws its thunder.

The destructive forces in this war have never been equalled in tho pafit, and we would never have believed that man's nerves could stand so great a trial. The nerves of the bravest man are tempered to face death for a second or two, but not to live in the hourly expectation of it and nothing else. And yet at tho very moment when man seemed the most enervatwt by the vices of civilisation, when possessing the minimum of faith and vainly seeking a new ideal he finds himself confronted with an unprecedented danger, which he is almost certain that the most heroic nations of history would not have faced or even have dreamt of faoing. Nowadays European nations d<s not dream that it is possible to do aught but face it. " And let it not bo said," adds Mr Maeterlinck, " that tho danger and the struggle were thrust upon us, that we had to defend ourselves or die, and that in such cases there are no cowards. It is not true; there was, there always has been, there still is a choice."

j 'H» Belgian is here speaking of his owa covin try and its heroic sacrifice To save their lives and their country the Belgians had but to submit to the passage of the invader. But it was jjot the nation's life but the nation's honour that was at stake, and the brave little people resisted the infamous temptation ot security with disgrace. " We are not" (says our authority) " speaking of a heroism that would be but the last resort of despair, the heroism of the animal driven to bay and fighting blindly to delay death's corning for a moment. No, it is the heroism freely donned, hailed deliberately and unanimously; heroism on behalf of an idea and a sentiment. . . If life and persomd liberty were more i>ra:ious than the idea of honour, patriotism ami iklelity to the tradition and iho mat, there was, I repeat, and there still is, a choice to be made; and nevor perhaps in any war was the choice easier, for never did men feel more free, never indeed were they mora t'reo, t-o choose." Did a nation ever play a nobler part in the past? Yet the peoples of iho past seemed through traditional retrospect so much stronger and ixraver than the men and women of ■fcKlny, But would the*o men of history have gone through the tribulation and suffering of the Belgians during the last eight months? fs ,l nil a, proof that civilisation jnstrad of corrupting ilit) uianfe yirtues iias ftdtU

Ed to our potential pride, nobility and heroism? Man's increased knowledge of nature far from landing him in a wilderness of arid materialism has iosult.ed in his hoiC immolation in the interests of his honour and the tuture of tluv race. And this is tho hopeful note si ruck by M. Maeterlinck when he eric- from the wreckage of his helmed land : If it be true, as I believe, that humanity is worth just as much a* the sum total of latent heroism which it contains, then we may declare that humanity was never stronger nor more exemplary than now and that it is at this laoinem reaching ei:e of its highest points and capable of braving everything and Hoping everything. And it is for this reason that, despite our present sadness, we are entitled to congratulate ourselves and to rejo ice-