And he quotes the words of old Meister Eckehart: "_Suffering is the fastest steed that will bear you to perfection._" * * * * * At the close of this summary review of the young writers of the war, a place must be found for those whom the war has crushed--they counted amongst the best. Ernst Stadler was an enthusiastic admirer of French art and of the French spirit. He translated Francis Jammes, and on the eve of his death, in November, he was writing to Stefan Zweig from the trenches about the poems of Verlaine, which he was translating. The unfortunate George Trakl, the poet of melancholy, was made lieutenant of a sanitary column in Galicia, and the sight of so much suffering drove him to despair and death. And there are many hidden tragedies, still unrevealed. When they are made known, humanity will tremble in contemplating its handiwork. I reflected, as doubtless many of my French readers have also done, in reading through these German writings inspired by the war--writings through which from time to time there passes a mighty breath of revolt and sorrow--that our young writers are not writing "literature." Instead of books they give us deeds, and their letters. And in re-reading some of their letters I thought that ours had chosen the better part. It is not for me now to point out the position that this heroic correspondence will occupy, not only in our history but also in our literature. Into it the flower of our youth has put all its life, its faith and its genius: and for some of those letters I would give many of the finest lines of the noblest poems. Whatever be the result of this war, and the opinion as to its value later, it will be recognized that France has written on paper, mud-stained and often blotted with blood, some of its sublimest pages. Assuredly this war touches us more nearly than it does our adversaries, for who of us would have the heart to write a play or a novel whilst his country is in danger and his brothers dying? But I will make no comparisons between the two nations. For the present the essential thing is to show that even in Germany there are certain finer minds who are fighting against the spirit which we hate--the spirit of grasping imperialism and inhuman pride, of military caste and the megalomania of pedants. They are but a minority--we have no illusions about that--and we ought to redouble our efforts on that account to vanquish the common enemy. Why then should we trouble to make these generous but feeble voices heard? Because their merit is the greater for being so little heeded; because it is the duty of those who are fighting for justice to render justice in their turn to all those men, even when they dwell in a country in which the state represents the violation of right by _Faustrecht_, who are defending with us the spirit of liberty. _Journal de Genève_, April 19, 1915. XV. THE MURDER OF THE ÉLITE