CHAPTER XI

THE LETTER

For the rest of the afternoon she carried the letter hidden in her uniform, where, from time to time, she could pause in her task, and put her hand reassuringly on the edge of the envelope. Not until evening, when she had left her patient and was back in her room, did she unfold the pages, and begin slowly to read what he had written. The first sentences, as she had expected, were stiff and constrained--she had known that until he could speak freely he would speak no word of love to her--but, as soon as he had passed from the note of feeling to the discussion of impersonal issues, he wrote as earnestly and spontaneously as he had talked to Sloane on that October afternoon at Briarlay. Another woman, she realized, might have been disappointed; but the ironic past had taught her that emotion, far from being the only bond with a man like Blackburn, was perhaps the least enduring of the ties that held them together. His love, if it ever came to her, would be the flower, not of transient passion, but of the profound intellectual sympathy which had first drawn their minds, not their hearts, to each other. Both had passed through the earlier fires of racial impulse; both had been scorched, not warmed by the flames; and both had learned that the only permanent love is the love that is rooted as deeply in thought as in desire.

* * * * *

In France.

MY DEAR CAROLINE:

I have tried to write to you many times, but always something has held me back--some obscure feeling that words would not help things or make them easier, and that your friendship could be trusted to understand all that I was obliged to leave to the silence. You will see how badly I have put this, even though I have rewritten the beginning of this letter several times. But it is just as if I were mentally tongue-tied. I can think of nothing to say that it does not seem better to leave unsaid. Then I remembered that when we parted I told you I should write of what I thought, not of what I felt, and this makes it simpler. When I relax my mental grip, the drift of things whirls like a snow-storm across my mind, and I grow confused and bewildered----

In the last year I have thought a great deal about the questions before us. I have tried to look at them from a distance and on the outside, as well as from a closer point of view. I have done my best to winnow my convictions from the ephemeral chaff of opinions; and though I am groping still, I am beginning to see more clearly the road we must travel, if we are ever to come out of the jungle of speculation into the open field of political certainty. Behind us--behind America, for it is of my own country that I am thinking--the way is strewn with experiments that have met failure, with the bones of political adventurers who have died tilting at the windmill of opportunity. For myself, I see now that, though some of my theories have survived, many of them have been modified or annulled by the war. Two years ago you heard me tell Sloane that our most urgent need was of unity--the obliteration of sectional lines. I still feel this need, but I feel it now as a necessary part of a far greater unity, of the obliteration of world boundaries of understanding and sympathy. This brings us to the vital question before us as a people--the development of the individual citizen within the democracy, of the national life within the international. Here is the problem that America must solve for the nations, for only America, with her larger views and opportunities, can solve it. For the next generation or two this will be our work, and our chance of lasting service. Our Republic must stand as the great example of the future, as the morning star that heralds the coming of a new day. It is the cause for which our young men have died. With their lives they have secured our democracy, and the only reward that is worthy of them is a social order as fair as their loyalty and their sacrifice.

And so we approach our great problem--individuality within democracy, the national order within the world order. Already the sectional lines, which once constituted an almost insurmountable obstacle, have been partly dissolved in the common service and sacrifice. Already America is changing from a mass of divergent groups, from a gathering of alien races, into a single people, one and indivisible in form and spirit. The war has forged us into a positive entity, and this entity we must preserve as far as may be compatible with the development of individual purpose and character. Here, I confess, lies the danger; here is the political precipice over which the governments of the past have almost inevitably plunged to destruction. And it is just here, I see now, in the weakest spot of the body politic, that the South, and the individualism of the South, may become, not a national incubus, but the salvation of our Republic. The spirit that fought to the death fifty years ago for the sovereignty of the States, may act to-day as a needed check upon the opposing principle of centralization in government, the abnormal growth of Federal power; and in the end may become, like the stone which the builders rejected, the very head of the corner. As I look forward to-day, the great hope for America appears to be the interfusion of the Northern belief in solidarity with the ardent Southern faith in personal independence and responsibility. In this blending of ideals alone, I see the larger spirit that may redeem nationality from despotism.

I am writing as the thoughts rush through my mind, with no effort to clarify or co-ordinate my ideas. From childhood my country has been both an ideal and a passion with me; and at this hour, when it is facing new dangers, new temptations, and new occasions for sacrifice, I feel that it is the duty of every man who is born with the love of a soil in his heart and brain, to cast his will and his vision into the general plan of the future. To see America avoid alike the pitfall of arbitrary power and the morass of visionary socialism; to see her lead the nations, not in the path of selfish conquest, but, with sanity and prudence, toward the promised land of justice and liberty--this is a dream worth living for, and worth dying for, God knows, if the need should ever arise.

The form of government which will yield us this ideal union of individualism with nationalism, I confess, lies still uninvented or undiscovered. Autocracies have failed, and democracies have been merely uncompleted experiments. The republics of the past have served mainly as stepping-stones to firmer autocracies or oligarchies. Socialism as a state of mind, as a rule of conduct, as an expression of pity for the disinherited of the earth--Socialism as the embodiment of the humane idea, is wholly admirable. So far as it is an attempt to establish the reign of moral ideas, to apply to the community the command of Christ, 'Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them;' so far as it expresses the obscure longing in the human heart for justice and right in the relations of mankind--so far as it embodies the instincts of compassion and sympathy, it must win the approval of every man who has looked deeply into human affairs. The evil of Socialism lies not in these things; nor does it rest in the impracticability of its theory--in the generous injustice of "robbing the rich to pay the poor." The evil of it consists in the fact that it would lend itself in practice even more readily than democracy, to the formation of that outer crust of officialism which destroys the blood and fibre of a nation. Socialism obeying the law of Christ might be a perfect system--but, then, so would despotism, or democracy, or any other form of government man has invented.

But all theories, however exalted, must filter down, in application, through the brackish stream of average human nature. The State cannot rest upon a theory, any more than it can derive its true life from the empty husks of authority. The Republic of man, like the Kingdom of God, is within, or it is nowhere.

To-day, alone among the nations, the American Republic stands as the solitary example of a State that came into being, not through the predatory impulse of mankind, but, like its Constitution, as an act of intellectual creation. In this sense alone it did not grow, it was made; in this sense it was founded, not upon force, but upon moral ideas, upon everlasting and unchanging principles. It sprang to life in the sunrise of liberty, with its gaze on the future--on the long day of promise. It is the heir of all the ages of political experiment; and yet from the past, it has learned little except the things that it must avoid.

There was never a people that began so gloriously, that started with such high hearts and clear eyes toward an ideal social contract. Since then we have wandered far into the desert. We have followed mirage after mirage. We have listened to the voice of the false prophet and the demagogue. Yet our Republic is still firm, embedded, as in a rock, in the moral sense of its citizens. For a democracy, my reason tells me, there can be no other basis. When the State seeks other authority than the conscience of its citizens, it ceases to be a democracy, and becomes either an oligarchy or a bureaucracy. Then the empty forms of hereditary right, or established officialdom, usurp the sovereignty of moral ideas, and the State decays gradually because the reservoir of its life has run dry.

For our Republic, standing as it does between hidden precipices, the immediate future is full of darkness. We have shown the giant's strength, and we must resist the temptation to use it like a giant. When the war is won, we shall face the vital and imminent danger, the danger that is not material, but spiritual--for what shall it profit a nation, if it shall gain the whole world, and lose its own soul? In a time of danger arbitrary power wears always a benevolent aspect; and since man first went of his own will into bondage, there has never been absolutism on earth that has not masqueraded in the doctrine of divine origin--whether it be by the custom of kingship, or by the voice of the people. War, which is an abnormal growth on the commonwealth, may require abnormal treatment; but history shows that it is easier to surrender rights in war than it is to recover them in peace, and a temporary good has too often developed into a permanent evil. The freedom of the seas will be a poor substitute for the inalienable rights of the individual American. A League of Nations cannot insure these; it is doubtful even if it can insure peace on earth and good will toward men. Men can hate as bitterly and fight as fiercely within a league as outside of one.

We shall go forth, when victory is won, to enlighten the world with liberty and with far-seeing statesmanship; but just as the far-sighted physical vision perceives distant objects more clearly than near ones, there is, also, a world vision of duty which overlooks immediate obligations while it discerns universal responsibilities. In this mental view the present is invariably sacrificed to the future, the personal rights to the general security. Yet to the more normal faculty of vision, it would appear that the perfect whole must result from the perfect parts; and that only by preserving our individual liberties can we make a League of Free Nations. International treaties are important, but national morality is vital--for the treaty that is not confirmed by the national honour is only a document.

And now, after a year's thinking, I have come back to the conviction from which I started--that the only substantial groundwork of a republic is the conscience of its citizens. The future of our democracy rests not in the Halls of Congress, but in the cradle; and to build for permanency, we must build, not on theory, but on personal rectitude. We hear a great deal said now, and said unthinkingly, about the personal values not counting in a war that is fought for world freedom. Yet there was never an age, and I say this with certainty, in which personality was of such supreme significance as it is to-day. For this, after all, is the end to which my thinking has brought me--nationalism is nothing, internationalism is nothing, unless it is an expression of individual aspirations and ideals--for the end of both nationalism and internationalism is the ultimate return to racial character. Cultivate the personal will to righteousness, teach the citizen that he is the State, and the general good may take care of itself.

And so our first duty appears to be, not national expansion, but the development of moral fibre. Before we teach other nations to stand alone, we must learn to walk straight; before we sow the seeds of the future, we must prepare our own ground for planting. National greatness is a flower that has often flourished over a sewer of class oppression and official corruption; and the past teaches us that republics, as well as autocracies, may be founded on slavery and buttressed by inequalities. As I look ahead now, I see that we may win freedom for smaller nations, and yet lose our own liberties to a Federal power that is supported by a civilian army of office-holders. For power is never more relentless in exercise than when it has transformed the oppressed of yesterday into the oppressors of to-day; and it is well to remember that democracy means not merely the tyranny of the many instead of the few; it means equal obligations and responsibilities as well as equal rights and opportunities. If we have failed to reach this ideal, it has been because the individual American has grasped at opportunity while he evaded responsibility; and the remedy for the failure lies not in a change of institutions, but in a change of heart. We must realize that America is a faith as well as a fact--that it is, for many, a divine hypothesis. We must realize that it means the forward-looking spirit, the fearless attitude of mind, the belief in the future, the romantic optimism of youth, the will to dare and the nerve to achieve the improbable. This is America, and this is our best and greatest gift to the world--and to the League of Free Nations.

With the end of the war the danger will be threatening; and we must meet it as we met the feebler menace of Prussian militarism--but we must meet it and conquer it with intangible weapons. No nation has ever fought for a greater cause; no nation has ever fought more unselfishly; and no nation has ever drawn its sword in so idealistic a spirit. We have entered this war while our hearts were full, while the high and solemn mood was upon us. If we keep to this mood, if we seek in victory the immaterial, not the material advantage, if our only reward is the opportunity for world service, and our only conquered territory the provinces of the free spirit--if we keep fast to this ideal, and embody its meaning in our national life and actions, then we may save the smaller nations because we have first saved our Republic. For, if it is a day of peril, it is also a day of glory. The seal of blood is upon us, but it is the prophetic mark of the future, and it has sealed us for the union of justice with liberty. We have given our dead as a pledge of the greater America--the America of invisible boundaries. There is but one monument that we can build in remembrance, and that monument is a nobler Republic. If we lose the inspiration of the ideal, if we turn aside from the steady light of democracy to pursue the _ignis fatuus_ of imperialistic enterprise or aggression, then our dead will have died in vain, and we shall leave our building unfinished. For those who build on the dead must build for immortality. Physical boundaries cannot contain them; but in the soul of the people, if we make room for them, they will live on forever, and in the spirit we may still have part and place with them.

And because the collective soul of the race is only the sum total of individual souls, I can discern no way to true national greatness except through the cultivation of citizenship. Experience has proved that there can be no stability either of law or league unless it is sustained by the moral necessity of mankind; and, for this reason, I feel that our first international agreement should be the agreement on a world standard of honour--on a rule of ethical principles in public as well as in private relations. I confess that a paternalism that enfeebles the character appears to me scarcely less destructive than a license that intoxicates. Between the two lies the golden mean of power with charity, of enlightened individualism, of Christian principles, not applied on the surface, but embodied in the very structure of civilization. Though I am not a religious man in the orthodox meaning, the last year has taught me that the world's hope lies not in treaties, but in the law of Christ that ye love one another.

This splendid dream of the perfectibility of human nature may not have led us very far in the past, but at least it has never once led us wrong. There are ideas that flash by like comets, bearing a trail of light; and such an idea is that of world peace and brotherhood. Only those whose eyes are on the heavens behold it; yet these few may become the great adventurers of the spirit, the prophets and seers of the new age for mankind. There has never been a great invention that did not begin as a dream, just as there has never been a great truth that did not begin as a heresy. And, if we look back over history, we find that the sublime moments with men and with nations, are those in which they break free from the anchorage of the past, and set sail toward the unknown seas, on a new spiritual voyage of discovery.

It is thus that I would see America, not as schoolmistress or common scold to the nations, but as chosen leader by example, rather than by authority. I would see her, when this crisis is safely past, keeping still to her onward vision, and her high and solemn mood of service and sacrifice; and it is in the spirit of humility, not of pride, that I would have her stretch the hand of friendship alike to the great and the little peoples. She has had no wiser leaders than the Founders of this Republic, and I would see her return, as far as she can return, to the lonely freedom in which they left her. I would see her enter no world covenant except one that is sustained not by physical force, but by the moral law; and I would, above all, see her follow her own great destiny with free hands and unbandaged eyes. For her true mission is not that of universal pedagogue--her true mission is to prove to the incredulous Powers the reality of her own political ideals--to make Democracy, not a sublime postulate, but a self-evident truth.

I have written as words came to me, knowing that I could write to you freely and frankly, as I could to no one else, of the life of the mind. Your friendship I can trust always, in any circumstances; and it is only by thinking impersonally that I can escape the tyranny of personal things. I have not written of my surroundings over here, because I could tell you only what you have read in hundreds of letters--in hundreds of magazines. It is all alike. One and all, we see the same sights. War is not the fine and splendid thing some of us at home believe it to be. There is dirt and cruelty and injustice in France, as well as glory and heroism. I have seen the good and the evil of the battlefields, just as I have seen the good and the evil of peace, and I have learned that the romance of war depends as much upon the thickness of the atmosphere as upon the square miles of the distance. It is pretty prosaic at close range; yet at the very worst of it, I have seen flashes of an almost inconceivable beauty. For it brings one up against the reality, and the reality is not matter, but spirit.

I am trying to do the best work of my life, and I am doing it just for my country.

God bless you.

DAVID BLACKBURN.