I believe that not a thousand miles from these shores
certain public prints have betrayed in gothic letters their
satisfaction--to speak plainly--by rather ill-natured comments.
In what light one is to look at the action of the American Senate is more
difficult to say. From a certain point of view the sight of the august
senators of a great Power rushing to New York and beginning to bully and
badger the luckless "Yamsi"--on the very quay-side so to speak--seems to
furnish the Shakespearian touch of the comic to the real tragedy of the
fatuous drowning of all these people who to the last moment put their
trust in mere bigness, in the reckless affirmations of commercial men and
mere technicians and in the irresponsible paragraphs of the newspapers
booming these ships! Yes, a grim touch of comedy. One asks oneself what
these men are after, with this very provincial display of authority. I
beg my friends in the United States pardon for calling these zealous
senators men. I don't wish to be disrespectful. They may be of the
stature of demi-gods for all I know, but at that great distance from the
shores of effete Europe and in the presence of so many guileless dead,
their size seems diminished from this side.
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