查看文章

From the firing of the first shot on the banks of the Sha-ho, the fate of the great battle of this war hung in the balance for more than a fortnight. The famous three-day battles, for which history has reserved the recognition of special pages, sink into insignificance before the struggles in Manchuria engaging half a million of men on fronts of sixty miles, struggles lasting for weeks, flaming up fiercely and dying away from sheer exhaustion, to flame up again in a desperate persistence, and end? as we have seen them end more than once? not from one side or the other obtaining a decisive advantage, but through the mortal weariness of the combatants.

We have seen these things, though we have seen them only in the cold, silent, colorless print of books and newspapers. In stigmatizing the printed word as cold, silent and colorless, I have no intention of putting a slight upon the fidelity and the talents of men who have …