_February_, 1916.

Your two letters, with enclosed newspaper clippings, and your postal
card were duly received. I can assure you that my failure to reply more
promptly was not meant as any discourtesy. The clippings were gladly
received, for I am always anxious to read what prominent Germans regard
as able and convincing presentations of their side of disputed matters.
Your own letters, particularly the long one of July 9, were read most
carefully. I appreciate your earnest endeavour to convince me of the
righteousness of your country's cause, and am not unmindful of the time
and trouble you spent in preparing for me so carefully worded a
presentation of the German point of view touching several matters of the
profoundest importance to our two Governments.

My failure to reply has been due to a doubt in my own mind as to whether
good would be accomplished by any letter which I could write. I could
not agree with your opinions regarding Germany's responsibility for the
war, nor regarding her methods of conducting the war; and it did not
seem to me that you would profit by any statement I might make as to the
reasons for my own opinions on such vital matters. Your letters clearly
showed that you wrote under the influence of an intense emotion--an
emotion which I can both understand and respect, but which might well
make it impossible for you to accord a dispassionate reception to a
reply which controverted your own views. With your country surrounded by
powerful foes, with your sons deluging alien soil in an heroic defence
of your Government's decrees, with the nation you love most dearly
standing in moral isolation, condemned by the entire neutral world for
barbarous crimes against civilisation, you could hardly be expected to
write with that scientific accuracy and care which would, in normal
times, be your ideal.