When he discovers that, he knows he, too, is a man.
It is as real for him as the experience of motherhood for a woman. He
comes out of it with self-respect and gladness.
The Belgians were a soft people, pleasure-loving little chaps, social
and cheery, fond of comfort and the cafe brightness. They lacked the
intensity of blood of unmixed single strains. They were cosmopolitan,
often with a command over three languages and snatches of several
dialects. They were easy in their likes. They "made friends" lightly.
They did not have the reserve of the English, the spiritual pride of the
Germans. Some of them have German blood, some French, some Dutch. Part
of the race is gay and volatile, many are heavy and inarticulate; it is
a mixed race of which any iron-clad generalization is false. But I have
seen many thousands of them under crisis, seen them hungry, dying, men
from every class and every region; and the mass impression is that they
are affectionate, easy to blend with, open-handed, trusting.
This kindly, haphazard, unformed folk were suddenly lifted to a national
self-sacrifice. By one act of defiance Albert made Belgium a nation. It
had been a mixed race of many tongues, selling itself little by little,
all unconsciously, to the German bondage. I saw the marks of this
spiritual invasion on the inner life of the Belgians--marks of a
destruction more thorough than the shelling of a city.
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