A Woman's Experience in the Great War

erished a lurking hope that the Huns w

d the man who wrote the Fifth Symphony; the man who wrote the divine first part of "Faust," and still more

of respect for your undying genius can I

seen, I mu

ted no longer; it was absolutely the shell of a town. The long streets were full of hollow, blackened skeletons of what had once been houses-street upon street of th

nd penates just as the people of Pompeii and Hercula

s, there a pillar

ahlias and roses in the gardens behind, that have somehow miraculously escaped the ruin that has fallen on the solid

tar, some strange magic, that keeps the sweet blossoms laughing and defiant under the Hun's shell-fire. And the r

fficer was also a Bruxellois, and I was told afterwards that these two had formerly been the "Nuts" of Brussels, the two smartest young men of the town. To see them that day gave little idea of their smartness; t

tle old brown-faced sacristan joined us, punc

s what

It is in a way a church. But what has happened to it? What horror has seized upon it

bottles, empty rum bottles, a broken bot

y champagne bottles, empty bran

r fonts are empt

under the pews, or o

ux, burgundy; and again beer, brandy

one looks, there are bottles-hundreds of them, thousand

where with piles of straw, and bottles, an

g, trembling voice of the distr

he white marble bas-

head has been

g at such nightmares, I feel the little sacristan's fingers trembling

wood-carving of our Saviour, and burnt the sacred

hen turning and slashing at the great old oil paintings on the Cathedral walls, chopping them right out of their frames, but lea

e chapel to the right, a dea

c is that dead pig, an

sacrilege of its prese

f pig be given to the Germans. We pi

pped and smashed where they stabled their horses, th

ome to the G

r of a small

iece of white paper, with this message in

in

of them tossed hastily on the floo

women's

is a long time before anyone can speak again, thou

urch some German prisoners that have jus

He is thinking of that room; they were of Belgium, those girls and women; he is of Belgium too; and he flings his scorn and hatr

nt at last succeed

mon ami!" he says.

at the Officers' Mess, the Captain of the regiment has a few words to say agai

to a point that is almost beyond human compr

roughly-set table. "You see, my friends, these poor German fellows that we take are not all typical of the crimes

the church?" cry a score

ips together, and attacks his

must remember the

re flash across my mind those ol

for they know n