6

ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART I

levity, blindness, insolence, confused cries fromwithout,—all the elements of ancient tragedywere there. Seated indeed amid the theatricaltrappings of the French Saloons of State, onecould wonder if the extraordinary visages ofWilson and of Clemenceau, with their fixedhue and unchanging characterisation, werereally faces at all and not the tragic-comic masksof some strange drama or puppet-show.

The proceedings of Paris all had this air ofextraordinary importance and unimportance atthe same time. The decisions seemed chargedwith consequences to the future of humansociety; yet the air whispered that the wordwas not flesh, that it was futile, insignificant, ofno effect, dissociated from events; and one feltmost strongly the impression, described byTolstoy in War and Peace or by Hardy in TheDynasts, of events marching on to their fatedconclusion uninfluenced and unaffected by thecerebrations of Statesmen in Council:

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Observe that all wide sight and self-commandDesert these throngs now driven to demonryBy the Immanent Unrecking. Nought remainsBut vindictiveness here amid the strong,

And there amid the weak an impotent rage.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Why prompts the Will so senseless-shaped a doing?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARSI have told thee that It works unwittingly,

As one possessed, not judging.