bark across our faces from the pines as we disap
peared in the forest, but did no further harm. My
mission of peace was at an end. Bitterly indeed I
deplored its blunt and rough conclusion. I had
always hated war and despised warriors. Warriors
a re coarse - natured men trained to destroy what
refined and gentle men build up.
Men fight for freedom of body. There is no such thing. For six thousand years men have struggled for a mistake. There is a freedom of mind, and a man can have that just as much in a monarchy as in a land even beyond the pale of law. A shoemaker or mender of nets may be as free of mind as a monarch. Give us freedom of mind, or rather let each man emancipate his mind, and all the rest will follow. It is not in the power of kings to enslave the mind, or of presidents to emancipate it. Free the mind and the body will free itself.
Poets, painters, historians, and artists generally, are responsible for the wars they deprecate, the devastation they deplore. Let the poet cease to celebrate men s achievements in battle, men, nine cases out of ten, who have not even the virtues of a bull-dog, men in debt, desperate, who have nothing to lose in the desolation they spread, and everything to gain, and wars will cease at once. Ridicule the warrior as we do the bully of the prize ring, as he deserves to be, and the pen will no longer be the servant of the sword. So long as the world goes on admiring these deeds of ruffianism, so long will wars
