It needs, indeed, an effort of the imagination at the moment of
writing to think of Belgium as in any sense a component part of
"Beautiful Europe." The unhappy "cockpit" of the Continent at the
actual hour is again in process of accomplishing its frightful
destiny - no treaty, or "scrap of paper," is potent to preserve
this last, and weakest, of all the nations of Western Europe from
drinking to the dregs the cup of ruin and desolation. Tragic
indeed in the profoundest sense - in the sense of Aristotle - more
tragic than the long ruin of the predestined house of Oedipus - is
this accumulated tragedy of a small and helpless people, whose
sole apparent crime is their stern determination to cling at any
cost to their plighted word of honour. I have been lately glancing
into a little book published about five years ago, in which a view
is taken of the Belgian character that no one could term
indulgent. "It is curious," says the writer in one place, "how few
Belgians, old or young, rich or poor, consider the feelings or
convenience of others. They are intensely selfish, and this is
doubtless caused by the way in which they are brought up." And,
again, in another chapter, he insinuates a doubt as to whether the
Belgians, if ever called on, would even prove good soldiers. "But
whether the people of a neutral State are ever likely to be brave
and self-sacrificing is another thing." Such a writer certainly
does not shrink - as Burke, we know, once shrank - from framing an
indictment against an entire people. Whether Belgium, as a nation,
is self-sacrificing and brave may safely be left to the judgment
of posterity. There is a passage in one of Mr. Lecky's books - I
cannot put my finger on the exact reference - in which he
pronounces that the sins of France, which are many, are forgiven
her, because, like the woman in the Gospels, she has loved much.
It is not our business now, if indeed at any time, to appraise the
sins of Belgium; but surely her love, in anguish, is manifest and
supreme. When we contemplate these firstfruits of German "kultur"-
-this deluge of innocent blood, and this wreckage of ancient
monuments - who can hesitate for a moment to belaud this little
people, which has flung itself thus gallantly, in the spirit of
purest sacrifice, in front of the onward progress of this new and
frightful Juggernaut? Rather one recalls that old persistent
creed, exemplified perhaps in the mysteries, now of the Greek
Adonis, now of Persian Mithras, and now of the Roman priest of the
Nennian lake, that it is only through the gates of sacrifice and
death that the world moves on triumphant to rejuvenation and life.
Is it, in truth, through the blood of a bruised and prostrate
Belgium that the purple hyacinth of a rescued European
civilization will spring presently from the soaked and untilled
soil?
Yet even if German "kultur" in the end sweep wholly into ruin the
long accumulated treasures of Belgian architecture, sculpture, and
painting - if Bruges, which to-day stands still intact, shall to-
morrow be reckoned with Dinant and Louvain - yet it would still be
worth while to set before a few more people this record of
vanished splendour, that they may better appreciate what the world
has lost through lust of brutal ambition, and better be on guard
in the future to protect what wreckage is left. All these
treasures were bequeathed to us - not to Belgium alone, but to the
whole world - by the diligence and zeal of antiquity; and we have
seen this goodly heritage ground in a moment into dust beneath the
heel of an insolent and degraded militancy. Belgium, in very
truth, in guarding the civilization and inheritance of other
nations, has lavishly wrecked her own. "They made me keeper of the
vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept."
Luckily, however, it is not yet quite clear that the "work of
waste and ruin" is wholly irreparable. One sees in the illustrated
English papers pictures of the great thirteenth-century churches
at Dixmude, Dinant, and Louvain, made evidently from photographs,
that suggest at least that it is not impossible still to rebuild
the walls of Jerusalem. Dixmude, indeed - I judge from an interior
view - is possibly shattered past hope; but Dinant and St. Pierre,
at Louvain, so far at least as their fabrics are concerned, seem
to lack little but the woodwork of their roofs. It is only a few
years ago since the writer stood in the burnt-out shell of Selby
Abbey; yet the Selby Abbey of to-day, though some ancient fittings
of inestimable value have irreparably perished, is in some ways
not less magnificent, and is certainly more complete, than its
imperfect predecessor. One takes comfort, again, in the thought of
York Minster in the conflagration caused by the single madman
Martin in 1829, and of the collapse of the blazing ceilings in
nave and chancel, whilst the great gallery of painted glass, by
some odd miracle, escaped. Is it too much to hope that this
devil's work of a million madmen at Dixmude or Nieuport may prove
equally incomplete?
In the imperfect sketch that follows I write of the aspect of
Belgium - of its cities, that were formerly the most picturesque in
Europe; of its landscapes, that range from the level fens of
Flanders to the wooded limestone wolds of the Ardennes - as I knew
these, and loved them, in former years, before hell was let loose
in Europe. And perhaps, the picture here presented will in time be
not altogether misrepresentative of the regenerated Belgium that
will certainly some day arise.
II.
It is not merely in its quality of unredeemed and absolute
flatness that the great fen country of Flanders is so strongly
reminiscent of the great fen country of the Holland parts of
Lincolnshire.
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