ANATOLE FRANCE

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town halls, hospitals, statues of sages and of heroes -monuments whose walls, whether modest or magnificent, shelter alike commerce, industry, science, and the arts, all that constitutes the beauty of life.

You are fighting for our moral heritage, our manners, our uses, our laws, our customs, our beliefs, our traditions. For the works of our sculptors, our architects, our painters, our engravers, our goldsmiths, our enamelers, our glass cutters, our weavers. For the songs of our musicians. For our mother tongue which, with ineffable sweetness, for eight centuries has flowed from the lips of our poets, our orators, our historians, our philosophers. For the knowledge of man and of nature. For that encyclopedic learning which attained among us the high-water mark of precision and lucidity. You are fighting for the genius of France, which enlightened the world and gave freedom to the nations. By this noble spirit bastiles are overthrown. And, lastly, you are fighting for the homes of Belgians, English, Russians, Italians, Serbians, not for France merely, but for Europe, ceaselessly disturbed and furiously threatened by Germany's devouring ambition.

The Fatherland! Liberty! Beloved children of France, these are the sacred treasures committed to your keeping; for their sakes you endure; for their sakes you will

conquer.

EVIVA L'ITALIA

WILLIAM ARCHER

ONE of the most beautiful and memorable of human experiences is to start, some fine morning, from a point in German Switzerland or Tyrol and, in two or three days or it may be in one swinging stretch-to tramp over an Alpine pass and down into the Promised Land below. It is of no use to rush it in a motor; you might as well hop over by aëroplane. In order to savor the experience to the full, you must take staff and scrip, like the Ritter Tannhäuser, and go the pilgrim's way. It is a joy even to pass from the guttural and explosive place names of Teutonia to the liquid music of the southern vocables - from Brieg to Domo d' Ossola, from Göschenen to Bellinzona, from St. Moritz to Chiavenna, from Botzen and Brixen to Ala and Verona. It is a still greater joy to exchange the harsh, staring colors of the north for the soft luminosity of the south, as you zigzag down from the bare snows to the pines, from the pines to the chestnuts, from the chestnuts to the trellised vineyards. And just about where the vineyards begin, you come upon two

William Archer, journalist and editor, was born in Perth, Scotland, on the 23d day of September, 1856. He received his education at Edinburgh University. He is widely known as a dramatic critic and has served on several of the leading European journals.

Mr. Archer's article, which appears below, was first published in the London Daily News, July, 1915.

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wayside posts, one of them inscribed "Schweiz" or "Oesterreich," the other bearing the magic word "Italia." If your heart does not leap at the sight of it you may as well about-turn and get you home again; for you have no sense of history, no love of art, no hunger for divine, inexhaustible beauty. For all these things are implicit in the one word, "Italy."

Alas! the charm of this excursion has from of old made irresistible appeal to the northern barbarian. That has been Italy's historic misfortune. For certain centuries, under the dominance of Rome, she kept the Goths and Huns and Vandals aloof by what is called in India a "forward policy" by throwing the outworks of civilization far beyond the Alpine barrier. But Rome fell to decay, and, wave upon wave, the barbarian - generally the Teuton, under one alias or another surged over her glorious highlands, her bounteous lowlands, and her marvelous cities. It is barely half a century since the hated Tedeschi were expelled from the greater part of their Cisalpine possessions; and now, in the fullness of time, Italy has resolved to redeem the last of her ravished provinces and to make her boundaries practically conter-. minous with Italian speech and race.

The political and military aspects of the situation have been fully dealt with elsewhere; but a lifelong lover of Italy may perhaps be permitted to state his personal view of her action. While the negotiations lasted, her position was scarcely a dignified one. It seemed to be a question not, indeed, of selling her birthright for a mess of pottage, but of buying her birthright at the cost of complicity in monstrous crime. Neither Italy nor Europe would have profited in the long run by the substitution of "Belgia Irredenta" for "Italia Irredenta." But now that she has repudiated the sops offered to her honor and

conscience, her position is clear and fine. She has rejected concessions larger, probably, than any great power has ever before been prepared to make without stroke of sword; and she has thrown in her lot with the Allies in no time-serving spirit, but at a point when their fortunes were by no means at their highest. This is a gesture entirely worthy of a great and high-spirited people.

It is true that she had no guarantee for the promised concessions except the "Teutonica fides," which has become a byword and a reproach. But I am much mistaken if that was the sole or main motive that determined her resort to arms. She took a larger view. She felt that even if Germany, by miracle, kept her faith, the world, after a German victory, would be no place for free men to live in. She was not moved by the care for a few square miles of territory, more or less, but by a strong sense of democratic solidarity and of human dignity. After the events of the past ten months, she felt that, to a selfrespecting man or nation, German hate was infinitely preferable to German love. It was, in fact, a patent of nobility.

And now that Italy is ranked with us against the powers of evil, it becomes more than ever our duty to strain every nerve for their defeat. We are now taking our share in the guardianship of the world's great treasure house of historic memories and of the creations of genius. We have become, as it were, co-trustees of an incomparable, irreplaceable heritage of beauty. Italy has been the scene of many and terrible wars; but since she emerged from the Dark Ages I do not know that war has greatly damaged the glory of her cities. She has not, of recent centuries, had to mourn a Louvain or a Rheims. But if the Teuton, in his present temper, should gain any considerable footing within her bounds, the Dark Ages

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would be upon her once more. great to avert such a calamity!

What effort can be too

I am not by way of being versed in the secrets of Courts; but I recall to-day, with encouragement, a conversation I had some years ago with an ex-Ambassador to Italy (not a British Ambassador) who had been on intimate terms with the King, and spoke with enthusiasm of his Majesty's character. He told me of his bravery, his devotion to duty, his simple manners, his high intelligence. One little anecdote I may repeat without indiscretion. A Minister of Education said to my friend that when he had an interview with the King he felt like a schoolboy bringing up to an exacting though kindly master a half-prepared lesson; and when this was repeated to his Majesty, he smiled and said: "Ministers come and go, but I, you see, am always here." He merited far better than his grandfather (said my informant) the title of "il Re Galantuomo." Under such a Chief of State Italy may, with high hope and courage, set about her task of tearing away her unredeemed fringes from that patchwork of tyrannies known as the Austrian Empire.