Page:Above the battle.djvu/147

Our Neighbour the Enemy in these chilly March days when we see the first flowers appear above the soil. They show that the warmth of life persists below the surface of the earth, that fraternal love persists below the surface of the nations, and that soon nothing will prevent it rising again.

I have on several occasions shown how the neutral countries have become the refuge of this European spirit, which seems driven from the belligerent countries by the armies of the pen, more savage than the others because they risk nothing. The efforts made in Holland or in Spain to save the moral unity of Europe, the burning charity and untiring help that Switzerland lavishes on prisoners, on wounded, on victims of both sides, are a great comfort to oppressed souls, who in every country are suffocating in the atmosphere of hatred forced on them, and who look for purer air. But I find still more beautiful and touching the signs of fraternal aid between friends and enemies in belligerent countries, however rare and feeble they may be.

If there are two countries between which the present war seems specially to have created an abyss of hatred and misunderstanding, they are England and Germany. The writers and publicists of Germany, whose orders are to profess 143