To the
westward of this delightful shelf there is a deep and densely wooded
trench, a great gulf of blue some mile or so in width out of which
arise great precipices very high and wild. Above the asphodel fields the
mountains climb in rocky slopes to solitudes of stone and sunlight that
curve round and join that wall of cliffs in one common skyline. This
desolate and austere background contrasts very vividly with the glowing
serenity of the great lake below, with the spacious view of fertile
hills and roads and villages and islands to south and east, and with the
hotly golden rice flats of the Val Maggia to the north. And because
it was a remote and insignificant place, far away out of the crowding
tragedies of that year of disaster, away from burning cities and
starving multitudes, bracing and tranquillising and hidden, it was here
that there gathered the conference of rulers that was to arrest, if
possible, before it was too late, the debacle of civilisation. Here,
brought together by the indefatigable energy of that impassioned
humanitarian, Leblanc, the French ambassador at Washington, the chief
Powers of the world were to meet in a last desperate conference to 'save
humanity.'
Leblanc was one of those ingenuous men whose lot would have been
insignificant in any period of security, but who have been caught up
to an immortal role in history by the sudden simplification of
human affairs through some tragical crisis, to the measure of their
simplicity.
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