Part 41

THE TWO EAGLES

A double-edged satire on both political birds. Neither is a true eagle. They have talons but nothing of the noble air proper to the king of birds. The German bird is not an eagle but a vulture; and he is in a sorry plight, with torn and ruffled feathers, dishevelled, dripping blood. He is disappointed, angry, soured, and unhappy. Yet he is straightforward about it. He makes no attempt to disguise his feelings, but glares at the other with the indignation of one who has been deceived written on his face and vibrating in his voice.

And his reproach gets home. The American bird, who is bigger and stands on a bigger rock, is sleek enough except about the head which is a bit ruffled. But he is more of a raven than an eagle in his sable plumes of professional cut, and he is obviously not at ease. He does not look the other in the face. He stares straight in front of him at nothing with a forced, hard and fixed smile, obviously assumed because he has no reply to make.

During the war many indiscreet phrases have dropped from the lips of prominent persons who must bitterly regret them and wish them buried deep in oblivion. But they stand on record, and history will not let them die. "Too proud to fight" is the most unfortunate of all, and when others are forgotten it will remain, because it has a general application. Mr. Raemaekers exposes its foolishness here with a single masterly touch and he puts the exposure in the right mouth. The cartoon is an illuminating epitome of the interminable exchange of notes between the two Powers on submarine warfare.

A. SHADWELL.

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LONDON--INSIDE THE SAVOY

At first glance this cartoon would seem to imply that the people inside the Savoy had little interest in the war, for the figures in evening dress are well in the foreground; a count of heads, however, will show six, and possibly seven men in uniform and only four in civilian attire, and of the soldiers not one is dancing--they are lookers-on at these strange beings who pursue the ordinary ways of life.

Of such beings, not many are left--certainly not this proportion of four to six, or four to seven. Compulsion has thinned the ranks of the shirkers down to an irreducible minimum, and a visit to the Savoy at any time in the last six months of 1916 would show khaki entirely preponderant, just as it is in the streets. These correctly dressed and monocled young men have been put into the national machine, and moulded into fighting material--their graves are thick in Flanders and along the heights north of the Somme, and they have proved themselves equal and superior to what had long been regarded as the finest fighting forces of Europe.

It is in reality no far cry from the Somme fighting area to the light and the music of the Savoy, and a man may dance one night and die under a German bullet the next--many have already done so. Here the artist shows the lighter side of British life to-day, but one has only to turn to the companion cartoon to this, "Outside the Savoy," to see that he realizes London as thoroughly in earnest about the war.

E. CHARLES VIVIAN.

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LONDON--OUTSIDE THE SAVOY

The newsboy, under military age; one man, well over military age; three women--and all the rest in uniform--even the top of the bus that shows in the distance is filled with soldiers. Thus Raemaekers sees the Strand, one of the principal thoroughfares of the heart of the British Empire.

For the sake of contrast with the companion cartoon, "Inside the Savoy," there is a slight exaggeration in this view of London street life in war-time--the proportion of civilians to soldiers is necessarily greater than this, or the national life could not go on. A host of industries are necessary to the prosecution of the war, and it falls to some men to stay behind--many of them unwillingly.

There was a time, in the early days, when Britain suffered from an under-estimate of the magnitude of this task of war--a time which the cartoon "Inside the Savoy" typifies in its presentment of careless enjoyment. But that attitude was soon dispelled, and it is significant of the spirit of the nation that only when nine-tenths of the necessary army had been raised by voluntary--indeed, this is a certainty, for not until long after the cartoon was published did any conscripts appear in the streets. Though, in the proportion of soldiers to civilians, the cartoon may exaggerate, in its presentment of the spirit of the nation, and of the determination of the nation with regard to the war, it is true to life.

E. CHARLES VIVIAN.

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THE INVOCATION

This drawing touches the highest level of the draughtsman's art and demonstrates the unique power of the pencil in a master hand. So simple, so true, so complete, so direct and so eloquent is the message that words can add nothing to it. They can only pay a tribute of appreciation.

Everybody can read the meaning at a glance; none can read it wholly unmoved. For here is pure humanity, which none can escape, the primal instinct without which man that is born of woman would not be. Before this weak, bowed, and homely figure Knowledge is silent, Pride and Passion are rebuked. Strength is shamed. Motherhood and mother-love transcend them all.

There is here nothing of anger, no thought of hostility or revenge, no trace of evil passion. Only a mother yearning after her son and pleading to another mother, the Divine type of motherhood, the Mother of God. And what she asks is so little, only to see him again. She has given him, as the mother to whom she prays gave her Son, and she does not demand him back. She reproaches no one, accuses no one, makes no complaint and no claim for herself, but meekly pleads that she may be allowed to see him again to still the longing in her breast. She is a woman of the people, a simple peasant, but she personifies all mothers in every war, as she bows her silvered head in humble prayer at the way-side shrine.

A. SHADWELL.

"Let me see him again, Holy Virgin!"]

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THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N. Y.