The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fighting For Peace, by Henry Van Dyke

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Title: Fighting For Peace

Author: Henry Van Dyke

Release Date: November 1, 2006 [EBook #19693]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGHTING FOR PEACE ***

Produced by Don Kostuch

[Transcriber's Notes]
Chapter numbers and subheading are both Roman numerals.
The chapter headings are preceded with the word "Chapter".

Text has been moved to avoid breaking sentences across page boundaries.

Other Gutenberg books on World War I are:

"Sergeant York And His People" by Samuel Kinkade Cowan. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19117

"History of the World War An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War" by Richard Joseph Beamish. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18993

This is a list of unfamiliar (to me) words.

apologue
  Moral fable; an allegory.

arbitral
  Relating to arbiters or arbitration.

bahn
  Pathway.

Belial
  Spirit of evil personified; the devil; Satan; worthlessness.

billet-doux
  Love letter.

chatelaine
  Mistress of a castle or fashionable household. Clasp or chain for
  holding keys, trinkets, etc., worn at the waist by women; woman's
  lapel ornament resembling this.

confabulations
  Conversation; discussion.

Credat Judaeus Apella! [non ego]
  "Let the Jew Apella believe it; not I".
  Roughly, "tell it to someone else, not me."

escutcheon
  Shield or similar surface showing a coat of arms.

flagitious
  Shamefully wicked, persons, actions, or times.
  Heinous or flagrant crime;

grandiloquently
  Speaking or expressed in a lofty style; pompous, bombastic, turgid,
  pretentious.

identic
  Identical in form, as when two or more governments deal simultaneously
  with another government.

lycanthropy
  In folklore, ability to assume the form and characteristics of a wolf.

Mare Liberum
  Body of navigable water to which all nations have unrestricted access.

mendax
 Given to lying.

miching mallecho
  Sneaky mischief.

Mittel-Europa
  German term approximately equal to Central Europe.

non possumus
  We cannot.

obeisance
  Movement of the body showing respect or deferential courtesy; bow,
  curtsy, or similar gesture.

passier-scheine
  Pass; permit.

persona grata
  Acceptable person or diplomatic representative.

poilus
  French soldier, especially in World War I.

Potsdam
  Capital city of the federal state of Brandenburg in Germany, southwest
  of Berlin. Berlin was the official capital of Prussia and later of the
  German Empire, but the court remained in nearby Potsdam, and many
  government officials also settled in Potsdam. The city lost this
  status as a second capital in 1918, when World War I ended and the
  emperor Wilhelm II was deposed.

refractory (persons)
  Hard or impossible to manage; stubbornly disobedient.

sagacity
  Sound judgment.

schmuck
  Obnoxious, contemptible, clumsy or stupid person.

schrecklichkeit
  Frightfulness; horror.

soubrette
  Maidservant in a play displaying coquetry, pertness, and a tendency to
  engage in intrigue. Flirtatious or frivolous young woman.

trepanning
  Using a small circular saw with a center pin mounted on a strong
  hollow metal shaft that is attached a transverse handle: used in
  surgery to remove circular disks of bone from the skull.

ululation
  Howl, as a dog or a wolf; hoot, as an owl; to lament loudly and
  shrilly.

Vallombrosa
  Resort in central Italy, near Florence; a famous abbey.

vicegerent
  Person appointed by a head of state to act as an administrative deputy.

voluble
  Continuous flow of words; fluent; glib; talkative: articulate,
  garrulous, loquacious.

[End Transcriber's Notes]

BY HENRY VAN DYKE
Fighting for Peace
The Unknown Quantity
The Ruling Passion
The Blue Flower
———————————
Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land
Days Off
Little Rivers
Fisherman's Luck
——————————-
Poems, Collection in one volume
——————————-
The Red Flower
The Grand Canyon, and Other Poems
The White Bees, and Other Poems
The Builders, and Other Poems
Music, and Other Poems
The Toiling of Felix, and Other Poems
The House of Rimmon

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

FIGHTING FOR PEACE

BY HENRY VAN DYKE D.C.L. (OXFORD) RECENTLY UNITED STATES MINISTER TO HOLLAND

NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1917

Copyright, 1917, by Charles Scribner's Sons
Published November, 1917

[Illustration: Scribner's Logo]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

FOREWORD

I. FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS

II. APOLOGUE

III. THE WERWOLF AT LARGE

IV. GERMAN MENDAX

V. A DIALOGUE ON PEACE BETWEEN A HOUSEHOLDER AND A BURGLAR

VI. STAND FAST, YE FREE!

VII. PAX HUMANA

FOREWORD

This brief series of chapters is not a tale

  "Of moving accidents by flood and field,
  Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach."

Some dangers I have passed through during the last three years, but nothing to speak of.

Nor is it a romance in the style of those thrilling novels of secret diplomacy which I peruse with wonder and delight in hours of relaxation, chiefly because they move about in worlds regarding which I have no experience and little faith.

There is nothing secret or mysterious about the American diplomatic service, so far as I have known it. Of course there are times when, like every other honestly and properly conducted affair, it does not seek publicity in the newspapers. That, I should suppose, must always be a fundamental condition of frank and free conversation between governments as between gentlemen. There is a certain kind