Chapter 9

The Commandant has been called away on a sad business, a soldier's funeral, hence the Junior Major of the 43rd as chairman of that important and delicately organized Committee of the Bandmasters and Pipe Majors of the various battalions is in charge of the program. Major Grassie is equal to the occasion, quiet, ready resourceful. With him associated is Major Watts, Adjutant of the 9th, as Musical Director; in peaceful times organist and choir master of a Presbyterian congregation in Edmonton far away.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The drums in the distance begin to throb and from the eastern side of the plain march in the band of the 9th playing their regimental march, "Garry Owen," none the less. From the west the band of the 11th, then that of the 12th, finally (for the 43rd Band is away on leave, worse luck) the splendid Band of the 49th, each playing its own Regimental march which is taken up by the bands already in position. Next comes the massed buglers of all the regiments, their thrilling soaring notes rising above the hills, and take their stand beside the bands already in place. Then a pause, when from round the hill shoulder rise wild and weird sounds. The music of the evening, to Scottish hearts and ears, has begun. It is the fine pipe band of the 42nd Royal Highlanders from Montreal, khaki clad, kilts and bonnets, and blowing proudly and defiantly their "Wha saw the Forty-twa." Again a pause and from the other side of the hill gay with tartan and blue bonnets, their great blooming drones gorgeous with flowing streamers and silver mountings, in march the 43rd Camerons. "Man, would Alex Macdonald be proud of his pipes to-day," says a Winnipeg Highlander for these same pipes are Alex's gift to the 43rd, and harkening to these great booming drones I agree.

Ah these pipes! These Highland pipes! Truly as one of them said, "Pipers are no just like other people!" Blowing their "Pilrock of Donald Dhu" they swing into line, mighty and magnificent. Last comes the brave little pipe band of the 49th. This battalion has one Scotch company from Edmonton, which insisted on bringing its pipe band along. Why not? "The Blue Bonnets" is their tune and finely they ring it out. Now they are all in place, Bands, Bugle and Pipes. The massed Bands strike up our National Song, and all the soldiers spring to their feet and sing "Oh, Canada." A little high but our hearts were in it. And so the program goes on. Single bands and massed bands with solos from French Horns, Trombones and Cornets, varied delightfully with the Highland Fling by Pipe Major Johnson of the 42nd, and the Sword Dance by Piper Reid of the 43rd followed by an encore, the "Shean Rheubs" which I defy any mere Sassenach to pronounce or to dance, at least as Piper Heid of the twinkling feet danced it that night. For he did it "in the style of Willie Maclennan," as a piper said, "the best of his day and they have not matched him yet." The massed pipe bands play "The 79th's Farewell at Gibraltar." Forty-one pipers and every man blowing his best. "Aye man, it is grand hearing you," said a man from the north. Colonel Moore of the 9th, on a minute's warning, makes a fine speech instinct with patriotic sentiment and calls for three cheers for Canada. He got three and a tiger and "a tiger's pup." Major Grassie in another speech neat and to the point thanks those who had helped to celebrate our Dominion Day and once more calls for cheers and gets them. Then the "First Post" warns us that we are soldiers and under orders. The massed bands play "Nearer My God to Thee." Full and tender the long drawn notes of the great hymn rise and fall on the evening air, the soldiers joining reverently. The Chaplain of the 43rd congratulates the Commandment upon the happy suggestion of a Tattoo, the Chairman upon his very successful program and all the Company upon a very happy celebration of our national holiday--then a word about our Day and all it stands for, a word about our Empire, our Country, our Kiddies at home, another word of thanks to the Committee for the closing hymn so eminently appropriate to their present circumstances and then God bless our King, God bless our Empire, God bless our Great Cause and God bless our dear Canada. Good night.

The "Last Post" sounds. Its piercing call falls sharp and startling upon the silent night. Long after we say "Good night" that last long-drawn note high and clear with its poignant pathos lingers in our hearts. The Dominion Day celebration is over.

[signed]Ralph Connor

Simple as Day

It was among the retorts and test-tubes of his physical laboratory that we were privileged to interview the Great Scientist. His back was towards us when we entered. With characteristic modesty he kept it so for some time after our entry. Even when he turned round and saw us his face did not react off us as we should have expected.

He seemed to look at us, if such a thing were possible, without seeing us, or, at least, without wishing to see us.

We handed him our card.

He took it, read it, dropped it into a bowlful of sulphuric acid, and then, with a quiet gesture of satisfaction, turned again to his work.

We sat for some time behind him. "This then," we thought to ourselves (we always think to ourselves when we are left alone) "is the man, or rather is the back of the man, who has done more" (here we consulted the notes given us by our editor) "to revolutionize our conception of atomic dynamics than the back of any other man."

Presently the Great Scientist turned towards us with a sigh that seemed to our ears to have a note of weariness in it. Something, we felt, must be making him tired.

"What can I do for you?" he said.

"Professor," we answered, "we have called upon you in response to an overwhelming demand on the part of the public--"

The Great Scientist nodded.

"--to learn something of your new researches and discoveries in--" (here we consulted a minute card which we carried in our pocket) "--in radio-active-emanations which are already becoming--" (we consulted our card again) "--a household word--"

The professor raised his hand as if to check us--

"I would rather say," he murmured, "helio-radio-active--"

"So would we," we admitted, "much rather--"

"After all," said the Great Scientist, "helium shares in the most intimate degree the properties of radium. So, too, for the matter of that," he added in afterthought, "do thorium, and borium!"

"Even borium!" we exclaimed, delighted, and writing rapidly in our note book. Already we saw ourselves writing up as our headline, "Borium Shares Properties of Thorium."

"Just what is it," said the Great Scientist, "that you want to know?"

"Professor," we answered, "what our journal wants is a plain and simple explanation, so clear that even our readers can understand it, of the new scientific discoveries in radium. We understand that you possess more than any other man the gift of clear and lucid thought--"

The Professor nodded.

"--and that you are able to express yourself with greater simplicity than any two men now lecturing."

The Professor nodded again.

"Now, then," we said, spreading our notes on our knee, "go at it. Tell us, and through us, tell a quarter of a million anxious readers just what all these new discoveries are about."

"The whole thing," said the Professor, warming up to his work as he perceived from the motions of our face and ears our intelligent interest, "is simplicity itself. I can give it to you in a word--"

"That's it," we said. "Give it to us that way."

"It amounts, if one may boil it down to a phrase--"

"Boil it, boil it," we interrupted.

"--amounts, if one takes the mere gist of it--"

"Take it," we said, "take it."

"--amounts to the resolution of the ultimate atom."

"Ha!" we exclaimed.

"I must ask you first to clear your mind," the Professor continued, "of all conception of ponder able magnitude."

We nodded. We had already cleared our minds of this.

"In fact," added the Professor, with what we thought a quiet note of warning in his voice, "I need hardly tell you that what we are dealing with must be regarded as altogether ultra-microscopic."

We hastened to assure the professor that, in accordance with the high standards of honor represented by our journal, we should of course regard anything that he might say as ultra-microscopic and treat it accordingly.

"You say, then," we continued, "that the essence of the problem is the resolution of the atom. Do you think you can give us any idea of what the atom is?"

The professor looked at us searchingly.

We looked back at him, openly and frankly. The moment was critical for our interview. Could he do it? Were we the kind of person that he could give it to? Could we get it if he did?

"I think I can," he said. "Let us begin with the assumption that the atom is an infinitesimal magnitude. Very good. Let us grant, then, that though it is imponderable and indivisible it must have a spatial content? You grant me this?"

"We do," we said, "we do more than this, we GIVE it to you."

"Very well. If spatial, it must have dimension: if dimension--form: let us assume 'ex hypothesi' the form to be that of a spheroid and see where it leads us."

The professor was now intensely interested. He walked to and from in his laboratory. His features worked with excitement. We worked ours, too, as sympathetically as we could.

"There is no other possible method in inductive science," he added, "than to embrace some hypothesis, the most attractive that one can find, and remain with it--"

We nodded. Even in our own humble life after our day's work we had found this true.

"Now," said the Professor, planting himself squarely in front of us, "assuming a spherical form, and a spatial content, assuming the dynamic forces that are familiar to us and assuming--the thing is bold, I admit--"

We looked as bold as we could.

"--assuming that the IONS, or NUCLEI of the atom--I know no better word--"

"Neither do we," we said.

"--that the nuclei move under the energy of such forces what have we got?"

"Ha!" we said.

"What have we got? Why, the simplest matter conceivable. The forces inside our atom--itself, mind you, the function of a circle--mark that--"

We did.

"--becomes merely a function of pi!"

The Great Scientist paused with a laugh of triumph.

"A function of pi!" we repeated with delight.

"Precisely. Our conception of ultimate matter is reduced to that of an oblate spheroid described by the revolution of an ellipse on its own minor axis!"

"Good heavens!" we said, "merely that."

"Nothing else. And in that case any further calculation becomes a mere matter of the extraction of a root."

"How simple," we murmured.

"Is it not?" said the Professor. "In fact, I am accustomed, in talking to my class, to give them a very clear idea, by simply taking as our root F,--F being any finite constant--"

He looked at us sharply. We nodded.

"And raising F to the log of infinity;--I find they apprehend it very readily."

"Do they?" we murmured. Ourselves we felt as if the Log of Infinity carried us to ground higher than what we commonly care to tread on.

"Of course," said the Professor, "the Log of Infinity is an Unknown."

"Of course," we said, very gravely. We felt ourselves here in the presence of something that demanded our reverence.

"But still," continued the Professor, almost jauntily, "we can handle the Unknown just as easily as anything else."

This puzzled us. We kept silent. We thought it wiser to move on to more general ground. In any case, our notes were now nearly complete.

"These discoveries, then," we said, "are absolutely revolutionary."

"They are," said the Professor.

"You have now, as we understand, got the atom--how shall we put it?--got it where you want it."

"Not exactly," said the Professor with a sad smile.

"What do you mean?" we asked.

"Unfortunately our analysis, perfect though it is, stops short. We have no synthesis."

The Professor spoke as in deep sorrow.

"No synthesis," we moaned. We felt it was a cruel blow. But in any case our notes were now elaborate enough. We felt that our readers could do without synthesis. We rose to go.

"Synthetic dynamics," said the Professor, taking us by the coat, "is only beginning--"

"In that case--" we murmured, disengaging his hand--

"But wait, wait," he pleaded, "wait for another fifty years--"

"We will," we said, very earnestly, "but meantime as our paper goes to press this afternoon we must go now. In fifty years we will come back."

"Oh, I see, I see," said the Professor, "you are writing all this for a newspaper. I see."

"Yes," we said, "we mentioned that at the beginning."

"Ah!" said the Professor, "did you? Very possibly. Yes."

"We Propose," we said, "to feature the article for next Saturday."

"Will it be long?" he asked.

"About two columns," we answered.

"And how much," said the Professor in a hesitating way, "do I have to pay you to put it in?"

"How much which?" we asked.

"How much do I have to pay?"

"Why, Professor," we begin quickly. Then we checked ourselves. After all was it right to undeceive him, this quiet, absorbed man of science with his ideals, his atoms and his emanations? No, a hundred times no. Let him pay a hundred times.

"It will cost you," we said very firmly, "ten dollars."

The Professor began groping among his apparatus. We knew that he was looking for his purse.

"We should like also very much," we said, "to insert your picture along with the article--"

"Would that cost much?" he asked.

"No, that is only five dollars."

The Professor had meantime found his purse.

"Would it be all right," he began, "--that is, would you mind if I pay you the money now? I am apt to forget."

"Quite all right," we answered. We said good-by very gently and passed out. We felt somehow as if we had touched a higher life. "Such," we murmured, as we looked about the ancient campus, "are the men of science: are there, perhaps, any others of them round this morning that we might interview?"

[signed]Stephen Leacock

The Epic Standpoint in the War

After more than three years of the War, we are only now beginning to see it, as it is, in its epic immensity. On the eastern front it has been too far from us; on the western front it has been too near us, and we have been too much a part of it, to get any sight at all of that series of monotonous and monstrous battles, a series punctuated only by names: Liege, Antwerp, Mons, Ypres, Verdun and Arras. And if nothing had happened besides the Titanic conflict of material armaments I believe that we should not yet be anywhere near realizing its vastness and its significance.

If we are aware of it now it is because, in the last few months, three events have happened which are of another order: the abdication of Constantine, King of Greece, the Russian Revolution, and the coming of America into the War.

These three events have adjusted and cleared our vision by giving us the true perspective and the scale.

From the standpoint of individuals, even of those few who have lost nothing personally, who are alive and safe, who have never been near the trenches, never watched an air-raid, or so much as seen the inside of a hospital, the War is a monstrous and irreparable tragedy.

But from the epic standpoint, it would not have mattered if all the civilians in Great Britain had been starved to death by submarines, or burned alive in our beds, so long as the freedom of one country, even a small country like Greece, was secured forever, let alone the freedom of a great country like Russia--and let alone the saving of America's soul.

For that is what it comes to.

Somewhere about the sad middle of the War, an American woman, who is one of the finest American poets, discussed the War with me. She deplored America's attitude in not coming in with us.

I said, politely and arrogantly, "Why should she? It isn't HER War. She'll do us more good by keeping out of it."

The poet--who would not have called herself a patriot--answered, "I am not thinking of YOUR good. I am thinking of the good of America's soul."

Since August 4th, 1914, England has been energetically engaged in saving her own soul. Heaven knows we needed salvation! But, commendable as our action was and is, the fact remains that it was our own soul that we were saving. We thought, and we cared, nothing about America's soul.

In the beginning of the War, when it seemed certain that America would not come in, we were glad to think that America's body was untouched, that, while all Europe rolled in blood, so vast a territory was still at peace, and that the gulf of the Atlantic kept American men, American women and children, safe from the horror and agony of war. This was a comparatively righteous attitude.

Then we found that it was precisely the Atlantic that gave Americans a taste of our agony and horror. The Atlantic was no safe place for the American men and women and children who traveled so ingenuously over it.

And when for a long time we wondered whether America would or would not come in, we were still glad; but it was another gladness. We said to ourselves that we did not want America to come in. We wanted to win the War without her, even if it took us a little longer. For by that time we had begun to look on the War as our and our Allies' unique possession. to fight in it was a privilege and a glory that we were not inclined to share.

"America," we said, "is very much better employed in making munitions for US. Let her go on making them. Let her help our wounded; let her feed Belgium for us; but let her not come in now and bag the glory when it is we who have borne the burden and heat of the battle."

And this attitude of ours was not righteous. It was egoistic; it was selfish; it was arrogant. We handed over to America the material role and hung on tight to the spiritual glory. It was as if we had asked ourselves, in our arrogance, whether America was able to drink of the cup that we drank of, and to be baptized with the baptism of blood which we were baptized withal?

We had left off thinking even of America's body, and we were not thinking at all about her soul.

Then, only a few months ago, she came in, and we were glad. Most of us were glad because we knew that her coming in would hasten the coming of peace. But I think that some of us were glad because America had saved, before everything, her immortal soul.

And by our gladness we knew more about ourselves then than we had suspected. We know that, under all our arrogance and selfishness, there was a certain soreness caused by America's neutrality.

We did not care much about Spain's or Scandinavia's or Holland's neutrality, though the Dutch and Scandinavian navies might have helped enormously to tighten the blockade; but we felt America's neutrality as a wrong done to our own soul. We were vulnerable where her honor was concerned. And this, though we knew that she was justified in holding back; for her course was not a straight and simple one like ours. No Government on earth has any right to throw prudence to the winds, and force war on a country that is both divided and unprepared.

Yet we were vulnerable, as if our own honor were concerned.

That is why, however much we honor the men that America sends out now, and will yet sent out, to fight with us, we honor still more her first volunteers who came in of their own accord, who threw prudence to every wind that blows, and sent themselves out, to fight and to be wounded and to die in the ranks of the Allies. It may be that some of them loved France more than England. No matter; they had good cause to love her, since France stands for Freedom; and it was Freedom that they fought for, soldiers in the greatest War of Independence that has ever been.

The coming in of America has not placed upon England a greater or more sacred obligation than was hers before:--to see to it that this War accomplishes the freedom, not only of Belgium and Russia and Poland and Serbia and Roumania, but of Ireland also, and of Hungary, and, if Germany so wills it, of Germany herself. It is inconceivable that we should fail; but, if we did fail, we should now have to answer to the soul and conscience of America as to our own conscience and our own soul.

[signed]May Sinclair

Eleutherios Venizelos and the Greek Spirit

Eleutherios Venizelos, the foremost statesman of Greece, the man to whom in fact she owes that growth in territory and influence that has come as a result of the first and second Balkanic wars, continues to exert paramount influence in the solution of the Eastern question, in spite of the we believe mistaken policy of the Triple Entente which permitted King Constantine of Greece for so long a period of time to prevent the direct application of the power of Greece to and in the successful termination of the war against Germany. Venizelos has never lost faith in the mission of Greece in the eastern Mediterranean. He insists that a balance of power in the Balkans will prevent an all powerful Bulgaria from selling herself and her neighbors to the Pan-German octopus which has stretched its tentacles toward Constantinople and on to the Persian Gulf.

Manfully defending the rights of the Greeks in Macedonia and Asia Minor as he for long years supported those of the Greeks in Crete, he demands no aggrandizement of territory by right of conquest, but only the legitimate control and administration of lands that have been for ages inhabited by men of Greek blood, of Greek religion, and (until efforts were made to enforce other speech) of Greek language. He hates as only Greeks can hate, oppression of all sorts whether by Turk or Bulgarian or Teuton, and desires to see democratic principles finally established the world over. Holding this attitude, he could hardly bring himself to believe that King Constantine could really be abridging the constitutional right of the Greeks to control their own external as well as their domestic policy. When fully convinced that this was the King's intention, Venezelos cast the die that gave Greek freedom a new birth in Thessaloniki and the Islands. This movement tardily supported though it was by the entente, has at last borne fruit in a United Greece which will do her share in making the East as well as the West safe for Democracy. The people that fought so nobly in the revolution of 1821 will know how to give a good account of itself under the leadership of a sane, courageous and farsighted statesman like Venizelos.

The passage which I have chosen to translate is from the closing words of the speech delivered before the Greek Chamber of Deputies October 21, 1915. In the first portion of the speech Venizelos defends the policy of the participation in the campaign against the Dardanelles, which he had in vain advocated, and the support of Serbia as against Bulgaria in accordance with the defensive alliance concluded with that country.

"I must now once more, and for the last time declare to the Government which to-day occupies these seats, that it assumes the very heaviest of responsibilities before the Nation, in under-taking once more to administer the Government of Greece and to direct its fortunes in this, the most critical period of its national existence, with those antiquated conceptions which, if they had prevailed in 1912, would have kept Greece within her old narrowly confined borders. These old ideas have been radically condemned not only by the will of men, but by the very force of circumstances.