The Martial Adventures of Henry and MeWhite, William Allen
History
The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me
White, William Allen
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Curiously enough in musical programs one finds no prejudice against
German music in London as one finds it in Paris. To get Beethoven
in Paris one had to lower the windows, close the shutters, pull down
the shades and pin the curtains tight. At the symphony concerts in
London one can hear not only Beethoven, but Wagner, who is almost
modern in his aggressive Teutonism. But the English have little
music of their own, and so long as they have to be borrowing they
seem to borrow impartially of all their neighbours, the French,
the Slavs, the Germans, and the Italians. Indeed, even when British
opinion of Russia was at its ebb, the London Symphony Orchestra
put in an afternoon with Tschaicovsky's Fourth Symphony. And yet
if, in a few months we could form even a vague notion of the public
minds of England, and of France, one might say that England seemed
more implacable than France. In France, where one heard no music but
French and Italian music in the concerts, at the parks, in opera,
one heard a serious discussion going on among school teachers about
the history to be taught after the war.
Said one side: "Let's tell the truth about this war and its horrors.
Let's tell of murdered women and children, of ravished homes, of
pillaged cities, of country-sides scourged clear down to their very
milestones! Let's tell how German rapacity for land began the war,
and kept it up to its awful end."
Says the other side: "Germany is our permanent neighbour. Our
children will have to live with Germany, and our children's children
to the end of time. War is a horrible thing. Hate breeds war. Why
not then let the story of this war and its barbarities die with
this generation? Why should we for ever breed hate into the heart
of our people to grow eternally into war?"
England has no such questions in her mind. England will surely tell
the truth and defy the devil. But the Briton in matters of music
and the other arts is like 'Omer when he "smote 'is bloomin' lyre";
the Briton also will go and take what he may require, without much
sentiment in the matter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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