Germany lifted the law to the human realm and staked her all upon it,
and failed. The moral sense of the world--the sense of justice, of fair
play--was against her, and inevitably she went down. Her leaders were
morally blind. When the rest of the world talked of moral standards, the
German leaders said, "We think you are fools." But these standards
brought England into the war--the sacredness of treaties. They brought
the United States in. We saw a common enemy in Germany, an enemy of
mankind. We sent millions of men to France for an ideal--for justice and
fair play. To see our standards of right and justice ignored and
trampled upon in this way was intolerable. The thought of the world
being swayed by Prussianism was unbearable. I said to myself from the
first, "The Allies have got to win; there is no alternative." And what
astonishes me is that certain prominent Englishmen, such as Lord Morley,
and others, did not see it. Would they have sat still and watched
Germany destroy France and plant herself upon the Channel and make ready
to destroy England? The very framework of our moral civilization would
have been destroyed. Darwin little dreamed to what his natural selection
theory was to lead.
VIII. THE ROBIN
Of all our birds the robin has life in the fullest measure, or best
stands the Darwinian test of the fittest to survive. His versatility,
adaptiveness, and fecundity are remarkable. While not an omnivorous
feeder, he yet has a very wide range among fruits and insects. From
cherries to currants and strawberries he ranges freely, while he is the
only thrush that makes angle-worms one of his dietetic staples and looks
upon a fat grub as a rare tidbit. Then his nesting-habits are the most
diverse of all. Now he is a tree-builder in the fork of a trunk or on a
horizontal branch, then a builder in vines or rosebushes around your
porch, then on some coign of vantage about your house or barn, or under
the shed, or under a bridge, or in the stone wall, or on the ground
above a hedge. I have known him to go into a well and build there on a
projecting stone. He even nests beyond the Arctic Circle, and it is said
he never sings sweeter than when singing during those long Arctic days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account