London at the End of the Century:A Book of Gossip
a Beckett, Arthur William
1900
WAR SONGS PAST AND PRESENT.
At right angles to the Empire stands the Alhambra, which was opened as the Panopticon, a feeble, unsuccessful rival to that vanished home of science- the Royal Polytechnic Institution. In , when | |
16 | the Franco-German war was raging, the British public were wont to enter the Alhambra regularly to cheer the Marseillaise and to hoot the Wacht am Rhein. Only a short while ago, at the commencement of our war with the Boers, the same British public, a generation younger, marched on to the same site (for the Alhambra had been burnt and rebuilt in the interim) to sing In I remember meeting, on the stage of , Herve, the celebrated French composer. I condoled with him on the triumph of the German arms. said he, with tears in his voice, |
The prophecy has not yet been fulfilled. Nearly thirty years have passed since was occupied by the Prussians and still the German flag waves over Metz. Possibly peace may come with the Twentieth Century. | |
