The trumpet sounds once more. The people are now eager to depart. The huge procession ranges itself in silence. At the head is the king, borne in a litter. The tribes follow, singing as they march, with the solemn joy of sacrifice. There is neither haste nor lagging. An infinite on the march. As they pass, the Chaldeans gaze at them with astonishment. Strange folk, whom no one can understand, whether in their dejection or their exultation! CHORUS OF JEWS. We move among the nations, we move athwart the ages, by the unending roads of suffering. For ever and for ever. Eternally we are vanquished.... But cities fall, nations vanish, oppressors go down into shame. We move onward, through the eternities, towards our country, towards God. THE CHALDEANS. Their God? Have we not conquered him?... Who can conquer the invisible? Men we can slay, but the God who lives in them we cannot slay. A nation can be controlled by force; its spirit, never. For the third time the tucket sounds. The sun, breaking forth, shines on the procession of God's people, beginning their march athwart the ages. * * * * * Thus does a great artist exemplify the supreme liberty of the spirit. Others have made a frontal attack upon the follies and crimes of to-day. At grips with the force which wounds them, their bitter words of revolt bruise themselves against the obstacles they are endeavouring to break down. Here, the soul which has won to peace, sees passing before it the tragical flood of the present. Unperturbed, it torments itself no longer, for its gaze takes in the whole course of the stream, absorbing into itself the secular energies of that stream and the tranquil destiny which leads the flow onward towards the infinite. _November 20, 1917._ Written for the review "Coenobium," edited by Enrico Bignami, at Lugano. XX A GREAT EUROPEAN: G. F. NICOLAI[48] I Art and science have bent the knee to war. Art has become war's sycophant; science, war's hand-maiden. Few have had the strength or inclination to resist. In art, rare works, sombre French works, have blossomed on the blood-drenched soil. In science, the greatest product during these three criminal years has been the one we owe to G. F. Nicolai, a German whose spirit is free and whose thought has an enormous range. The book is, as it were, a symbol of that unconquerable Freedom whom all the tyrannies of this age of force have vainly endeavoured to gag. It was written behind prison walls, but these walls were not thick enough to stifle the voice which judges the oppressors and will survive them.