United States or Dominican Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Meanwhile these Fire-spouters, having eaten and slept, and eaten and slept again, to the extent of their capacities, began to experience a revival of the war-spirit. In front of one of the lodges or leather tents, one morning early, there sat two squaws engaged in ornamenting moccasins and discussing the news of their little world.
The heart of the man was at once torn by tender pity and bitter indignation, when he thought of the gentle nature of the poor creature who had been thus laid low, and of the savage cruelty of the Indian who had done it feelings which were not a little complicated by the reflection that the war-spirit that is, the desire to kill for mere self-glorification among some of his own people had probably been the cause of it all.
Then some stood aside, but the rest ran upon Setanta to beat him off the lawn and struck at him all together, as well as they could, for their numbers impeded them, and fiercely the stranger defended himself, and many a shrewd stroke he delivered upon his enemies, for the slumbering war-spirit now, for the first time, had awaked in his gentle heart.
"Richard III," however, showed what the war-spirit can make of Shakespeare. It was interpreted in the pedantic historical vein, and was given as a bloody, brutal mediaeval piece without a thought or a smile or a tear. Richard was shown as a "Hun" of the worst kind. His murderous career was facilitated by his characterless victims.
But Gartok, who was still smarting under the disgrace to which he had been subjected at the hands of Oolalik, managed to rekindle and blow up the war-spirit, so that, two days later, a strong party of the more pugnacious among the young men of the tribe set off in their kayaks for the Whale River, taking with them a few of the women in one of their open boats or oomiaks chiefly for the purpose of keeping their garments in repair.
He resolved, however, only to give his enemies a serious fright, for he knew full well that if blood should flow, the old war-spirit would return, and the ancient suspicion and hatred be revived and intensified. Arranging his plans therefore, with this end in view, he resolved to take that peaceful, though thieving, humorist Wapoota, into his secret councils.
From the beginning the thing that threatened him had been, not the War but this collective war-spirit, clamouring for his private soul. For the first time since August, nineteen-fourteen, he found himself thinking, in perfect freedom and with perfect lucidity, about the War. He had really known, half the time, that it was the greatest War of Independence that had ever been.
The war-spirit in France, during the year 1917 was simply upheld by the hope of American help, and finally, in March, the Russian Revolution broke out. If we had accepted Wilson's mediation, the whole of American influence in Russia would have been exercised in favor of peace, and not, as events ultimately proved, against ourselves.
Setanta sailed his boats in the stream and taught it here to be silent, and there to hum in rapids, or to apparel itself in silver and sing liquid notes, or to blow its little trumpet from small cataracts. "For a boy's way is the wind's way." And now the daily life of that remote dun no longer pleased the boy, for the war-spirit within drave him on.
It is abundantly clear that with his first answer, "as things turned out, I hope that it" that is to say, America's moral conviction of the injustice of the German war "would finally have drawn us into the war" the President lays the emphasis on the words "as things turned out." There can be no doubt that he meant to say: "As things turned out in regard to his efforts for peace," the first ready concurrence of the Imperial Government, notwithstanding, was thwarted at the decisive moment. With such a Government, Mr. Wilson seems to imply, it was impossible in the long run for America to remain on terms of peace. From that time henceforward there can be no question of any earlier period, because up to that moment he had been in constant negotiation with us he regarded the Imperial Government as morally condemned. Then, however, he calls to mind very clearly the feeble war-spirit of the American people in the spring of 1917, which, as is well known, had to be whipped into the war by propaganda on a prodigious scale. That is why the President says he "hopes," that the moral conviction of the American people regarding the injustice of Germany's cause would finally have triumphed over his readiness for peace expressed so brilliantly as late as November, 1916. His words are, therefore, to be regarded as a reflection in retrospect, not as a proof of an
Word Of The Day