In the sable depths below Lies as the last sweet dream of morning On our waking eyes. Ravine (Spring) The pale trees Are towers of scented leaves; The path is black and moist and panting— Into the deep pool, Where slate gives a blue bed, The crescent moon Stabs a bright dagger. Under the hill. White Locusts The clear spring lies, In shadowy depths white locusts rising, Under the hill The clear spring quenched my lips, The locust trees My soul. "Death Is an Old Man at the Window" Death is an old man At the window. Death is a green, heavy wave Breaking It is a footfall, light and hesitating On the stair. Night Trail In the icy night Stars burn, Gaunt apple trees Lift stiff arms from the snow, Where do we go, Oh gipsy, BABEL AND GENEVA By A. L. GUERARD I. According to the best authorities, the international language problem arose 4168 years ago. The whole earth was then of one language and of one speech; and, in the land of Shinar, they built a city and a tower, whose top was to reach unto heaven. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said: Behold, the people is one, and they all have one language: and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Thereupon, he scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth. Perhaps he might have allowed them to go right ahead: they would have found out that you can not build a tower reaching unto Heaven, because the supply of clay would give out first. This experimental method involved a great waste of brick and labour: but the confusion of tongues was even worse. Anyway, it is idle to deal with Might-Have-Beens, and we must accept Babelism as a fact. Good people with a painfully literal turn of mind will see in this quaint old story a condemnation of the International Language idea. They might more legitimately consider it as the first ordinance against skyscrapers. Passages from the Bible have been adduced to condemn social reform, insurance (take no thought for the morrow), prohibition and the peace movement: but earnest Christians have never been overawed by the letter that killeth. One Pope made Father Schleyer a prelate, because his Volapük was a valiant effort to undo the confusion of Babel. Other Popes have sent their blessing to Esperanto congresses. The one obvious lesson to be derived from our Biblical text is that, in the minds of the Hebrews of old, the fate that befell the children of men in the land of Shinar was a curse; and a curse it has remained to the present day. How grievous a curse, we, in this huge, fortunate conti nent, are apt to forget. In Europe, a man can scarcely travel a thousand miles-the distance from New York to Chicago-without intersecting three or four linguistic frontiers. Tiny Switzerland is "tetraglot." The defunct Hapsburg empire was about the same size as our own Texas: six major languages, belonging to at least four different families, and a vast number of dialects, were spoken within its boundaries. A glance at the language map of Europe1 will show that there is nothing faddy or cranky about the International Language Problem, whatever we may think of some of the solutions proposed. As soon as people of different nations attempt to transact business together, the difficulty arises. And come together they must: the ideal of Japan before Perry's friendly visit, of Tibet before Younghusband's, of Korea the Hermit Kingdom, of Afghanistan, of Paraguay under the Jesuits-that Sinn Fein ideal is fast getting obsolete. There may be a few "hundred per cent" Americans who would like to revive it at present: but even the United States can not afford to ignore the rest of the world. Whether we like it or not, we have to meet foreigners. They may have to learn our language, we may attempt to learn theirs, we may engage interpreters: the problem is there all the same. On the historic occasion when President Wilson met Marshall Joffre and neither could say a word to the other, we had a symbolical demonstration of the difficulty. We are tired of anarchy: the organization of the world, for the prevention of waste, conflict and crises, is the task now before us. The scientific organization of the world, through international research foundations: that is well under way. The economic organization of the world, through the increased efficiency of transportation and finance, through the proper adjustment of labor laws and custom tariffs. The sanitary organization of the world, for the stamping out of contagious diseases: the victory won by the Rockefeller Foundation at "There is an excellent one by Morris Jastrow, Jr., published by Rand MacNally. Guayaquil is full of splendid promises. The judicial organization of the world, substituting law for violence between nation and nation: an ideal upon which Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, and Harding were of one mind. The religious organization of the world, through its evangelization in the true spirit of Christ and the abolition of sectarian strife. Multiform aspects of the same cause, all bound together and helping one another, all idealistic and practical at the same time; an immense and glorious mission, the like of which was never offered to men before. But whilst this great work lies before us, what do we see? Thirty nations wearily staggering out of the worst of all wars; devastation on an unexampled scale; a holocaust of millions; and worse than bloodshed and arson, a sowing broadcast of hatred so lasting that our sons and their sons after them will taste the bitter fruit. Whilst Christianity, science, industry, democracy, social reform, combine in making the world increasingly one, a wrong conception of national honor and national culture tears it apart. And if we examine closely the causes of the conflict, we shall find that they were not strictly national, but linguistic. The German Culture, for whose supremacy Germany was willing to set the world on fire, was German-speaking culture. The root of the evil, in AlsaceLorraine, in Poland, in Schleswig, in Macedonia, was the confusion of tongues. Language is everywhere taken as the surest sign of something deeper than mere nationality-a common culture. I know that there are exceptions: it is possible for nations of the same speech to fight. But increasingly we feel that a war between Austria and Prussia, or a war between Britain and ourselves, would be a civil war. There are little countries which have achieved a high degree of national consciousness without the bond of a single national speech: but Switzerland is a miracle in history, a miracle which Destiny has not seen fit to repeat in the case of Belgium. Languages are the only remaining frontiers in an age of fast aeroplanes and wireless telephones. A man from Geneva, a man from Brussels, a man from Paris, are imme |