Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully aspossible, including non-standard spelling and a misquotation ofJohn McCrae's "In Flanders Fields".
In the paragraph starting "Advertisements appear in the Berlin papers,""Advertisements" is a correction for "Advertisments".
THE CLOUD
Copyright 1918By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
TO MY WIFE
A Cloud Like a Man's Hand
Up on the crest of Carmel a man stood watching. Before him lay the bluewaters of the Mediterranean Sea, to the North the curving Bay of Acre,while to the south the white surf was breaking on the reefs ofPhilistia.
At the other end of the long Carmel ridge another man stood waiting.Before his eyes the great Plain of Esdraelon lay extended with the hillsof Galilee to the North and the great bulk of Mt. Gilboa, faint in thesummer haze, bounding the vision to the East.
Seven times the Watcher had climbed to the Western crest of[Pg 2] Carmel; sixtimes he had returned to report that there was nothing to be seen, andseven times he had been bidden, "Go up again; look towards the sea." Nowat last he knew that his vigil was ended; something had risen above thehorizon that told him his watch was past. It was a very little thing;yet it sent him speeding back along the mountain's ridge until he cameagain to the man who was waiting. "Behold," he said, "There ariseth alittle cloud out of the sea like a man's hand." And the man who waitedsent word to a King of Israel, saying, "Prepare thy chariot."
A man's hand is a very little thing, frail and weak, but we have seen acloud like a man's hand, a man's hand clad in armor, rising up beyondthe sea. The shadow of that cloud[Pg 3] fell on Poland, and Poland died. Itfell on Russia, and a great Empire went down in darkness and eclipse. Itfell on Serbia, and blotted her out, on Roumania, and Roumania passedinto bondage. It fell on Belgium, and Belgium cried out a little andthen grew still. That shadow fell on France and even the trees witheredand died. It stretched out over the sea and touched the Lusitania, andshe crumpled and went down, carrying with her 120 American dead. And nowthat shadow falls upon our own shores and darkens the streets and homesof our towns and cities. So to-day the summons has gone forth to everyAmerican, "Prepare thy chariot!" Each one of us has his own—not to allof us is the same kind given. To some of us it is the[Pg 4] Red Cross, toothers it is the voice or the pen, to every one of us it is the buyingof Liberty Bonds, to some of us it is the Training Camp, the Trench, andthe Battlefield. But to every man, woman, and child of us the hour hascome to "Prepare our chariots." For America has willed with all hermight, her soul, her strength, that the shadow of that "Cloud like aman's hand" shall forever pass away; that it shall no longer rest onPoland, Russia, Serbia, Roumania, Belgium, France or on our own America,but that Liberty, Justice, and Democracy shall shine in an unclouded skyand that no shadow of a man's mailed fist shall darken either the homesor the hearts of men.
In 1204 Philip Augustus laid siege to the Chateau Gaillard, whichRich[P BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!
Sitemize Üyelik ÜCRETSİZDİR!