Northwest Passage [antikvár]

BOOK I CHAPTER I Th .HIS Bcx)K has not been written to prove a case. It is not an argument against what is called the crucible of war; nor is it an attempt to show that no man has ever been tempered in that crucible without bearing one of war's inevitable scars—^without having become cruel, an ingrate, a wastrel; diseased, selfish, self-deluded, a drunkard; contemptuous of what is good, or without faith in God or mankind. It may, at times, seem to hint that patriots, steadfast defenders of their country against enemies in warpaint or scarlet, are still called patriots when, in times of peace, they sit traitorously irresolute or quiescent before those equally dangerous foes that lurk in the shadows of all wars—such foes as greed, short-sightedness, and the stupidity and cowardice of backyard statesmen. My purpose has been more simple. It has been my lot to have some contact with a man who was remarkable and strange; and by chance I encountered him at periods important in the early history of my country. Given the proper guidance, he might have been a greater prince than Jenghiz Khan. To me, at times, he seemed almost a god: at other times possessed by demons. Yet I think that at his best he benefited his country more substantially than have warriors, statesmen and authors of greater renown; and at his worst, I suspect he fell no lower than any one of us might fall, provided we had possessed his vision and energy to begin with, and then had undergone the same exertions, the same temptations, the same ingratitudes and disappointments he endured. Therefore it has seemed to me worth