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Average One Directory 06
Page 09
He who sat beside the driver, with his arms folded, and thoughtful, was a tall, well-formed young man, with light hair that curled into his neck, side whiskers, deep and intelligent blue eyes, a face that lighted up with a smile when he spoke, and which had been fair and handsome, but was now scorched and sun-burnt. His hands, too, were small, but hard and weather-burnt, indicating that he had been accustomed to use them at hard work. His dress was of blue petersham, looking neat and new, the short coat buttoning square across his breast; and a tall hat set oddly enough on a head evidently not accustomed to the fashion that dictated such a covering. A broad, white shirt collar, turned carelessly down, was tied with a black silk handkerchief, the long ends of which hung outside his coat.
The immediate effects of this brilliant success were immense. Many of the Spanish tribes deserted the Carthaginian cause; and when Scipio took the field in the following year (B.C. 209) Mandonius and Indibilis, two of the most powerful and hitherto the most faithful supporters of Carthage, quitted the camp of Hasdrubal Barca, and awaited the arrival of the Roman commander. Hasdrubal was encamped in a strong position near the town of Baecula, in the upper valley of the Baetis (Guadalquiver), where he was attacked and defeated by Scipio. He succeeded, however, in making good his retreat, and retired into northern Spain. He subsequently crossed the Pyrenees, and marched into Italy to the assistance of his brother Hannibal, as already narrated.
And not only indignation and distress must come to this task. The stern, uncompromising militarist will not be moved from his determinations by our horror and hostility. These things will but "brace" him. He has a more vulnerable side. The ultimate lethal weapon for every form of stupidity is ridicule, and against the high silliness of the militarist it is particularly effective. It is the laughter of wholesome men that will finally end war. The stern, strong, silent man will cease to trouble us only when we have stripped him of his last rag of pretension and touched through to the quick of his vanity with the realization of his apprehended foolishness. Literature will have failed humanity if it is so blinded by the monstrous agony in Flanders as to miss the essential triviality at the head of the present war. Not the slaughter of ten million men can make the quality of the German Kaiser other than theatrical and silly.
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