matter leaving practically no impression on the exhausted
sensibility.

A few miles on the opposite side of the town were the German
artillery positions, with guns well calculated to destroy Cathedrals
and Cloth Halls. Around these guns were educated men who had
spent years--indeed, most of their lives--in the scientific study of
destruction. Under these men were slaves who, solely for the
purposes of destruction, had ceased to be the free citizens they
once were. These slaves were compelled to carry out any order
given to them, under pain of death. They had, indeed, been
explicitly told on the highest earthly authority that, if the order came
to destroy their fathers and their brothers, they must destroy their
fathers and their brothers: the instruction was public and historic.
The whole organism has worked, and worked well, for the
destruction of all that was beautiful in Ypres, and for the break-up of
an honourable tradition extending over at least eight centuries. The
operation was the direct result of an order. The order had been
carefully weighed and considered. The successful execution of it
brought joy into many hearts, high and low. "Another shell in the
Cathedral!" And men shook hands ecstatically around the excellent
guns. "A hole in the tower of the Cloth Hall." General rejoicing! "The
population has fled, and Ypres is a desert!" Inexpressible
enthusiasm among specially educated men, from the highest to the
lowest. So it must have been. There was no hazard about the
treatment of Ypres. The shells did not come into Ypres out of
nowhere. Each was the climax of a long, deliberate effort originating
in the brains of the responsible leaders. One is apt to forget all this.

"But," you say, "this is war, after all." After all, it just is.