Ernest Feydeau: Of all the horrors war is the worst

====

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

French writers on war and peace

Ernest Feydeau: First time I found myself with my feet in the blood of a battlefield

====

Ernest Feydeau
The Secret of Happiness

…of all creatures on earth man is the most cruel, for he alone sheds blood, not for food, but to satisfy his interests, his passions, and to propagate his opinions; say that, with refinements of savagery unknown to the tiger, man is not always satisfied with blood-shedding, but delights to torture every fiber of his victim’s frame; say that, whenever a despot aspires to be a murderer he is sure to find slaves ready to encourage and assist him, and that civilization will, unhappily, be always powerless to curb the hideous zeal of Dukes of Alba, Pizarros, Jeffreys, Bastille and other monsters I shrink from quoting, for their very names soil my lips; say, in short, that of all the horrors war is the worst, and that in principle we are bound to detest war, for after all the legitimate only thrives on death!

***

…a family every member of which was thoroughly kindhearted, and could not endure to have about them any occasion of suffering or even inconvenience. Nor did their compassion, as is the case with the semi-benevolent, stop at humanity. It extended to the very lowest creatures, nay even to plants, which are indeed merely a being of inferior order, inflexibly attached to the soil and therefore deserving even more attention and sympathy.