But the one German poet who has written the serenest and loftiest words, and preserved in the midst of this demoniacal war an attitude worthy of Goethe, is Hermann Hesse. He continues to live at Berne, and, sheltered there from the moral contagion, he has deliberately kept aloof from the combat. All will remember his noble article in the _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ of November 3rd, "_O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!_" in which he implored the artists and thinkers of Europe "to save what little peace" might yet be saved, and not to join with their pens in destroying the future of Europe. Since then he has written some beautiful poems, one of which, an Invocation to Peace, is inspired with deep feeling and classical simplicity, and will find its way to many an oppressed heart. Jeder hat's gehabt Keiner hat's geschätzt. Jeden hat der süsse Quell gelabt. O wie klingt der Name Friede jetzt! Klingt so fern und zag, Klingt so tränenschwer, Keiner weiss und kennt den Tag, Jeder sehnt ihn vol Verlangen her.... ("Each one possessed it, but no one prized it. Like a cool spring it refreshed us all. What a sound the word Peace has for us now! "Distant it sounds, and fearful, and heavy with tears. No one knows or can name the day for which all sigh with such longing.") * * * * * The attitude of the younger reviews is curious: for whereas the older, traditional reviews (those which correspond to our _Revue des Deux Mondes_ or our _Revue de Paris_) are more or less affected by military fervor--thus, for instance, the _Neue Rundschau_, which printed Thomas Mann's notorious vagaries on Culture and Civilization (_Gedanken im Kriege_)--many of the younger ones affect a haughty detachment from actual events. That impassive publication, _Blätter für die Kunst_, over which broods the invisible personality of Stefan George, published at the end of 1914 a volume of poems of 156 pages, which did not contain a single line referring to the war. A note at the end affirms that the points of view of the various authors have not changed on account of recent events, and anticipates the objection that "this is not the time for poetry," by the saying of Jean Paul: "No period has so much need of poetry, as the one which thinks it can do without it."