Brussels rejoicing over bulletins of victory, its streets walled with
bunting; but there was something brewing in one's mind which was as
treason to one's desires. Let Brussels enjoy its flags and its capture
of German cavalry patrols while it might!

On the hills back of Louvain we came upon some Belgian troops in
their long, cumbersome coats, dark silhouettes against the field,
digging shallow trenches in an uncertain sort of way. Whether it was
due to the troops or to Belgian staff officers hurrying by in their cars, I
had the impression of the will and not the way and a parallel of raw
militia in uniforms taken from grandfather's trunk facing the trained
antagonists of an Austerlitz, or a Waterloo, or a Gettysburg.

Le brave Beige! The question on that day was not, Are you brave?
but, Do you know how to fight? Also, Would the French and the
British arrive in time to help you? Of a thousand rumours about the
positions of the French and the British armies, one was as good as
another. All the observer knew was that he was an atom in a motor-
car and all he saw for the defence of Belgium was a regiment of
Belgians digging trenches. He need not have been in Belgium before
to realize that here was an unwarlike people, living by intensive thrift
and caution--a most domesticated civilization in the most thickly-
populated workshop in Europe, counting every blade of grass and
every kernel of wheat and making its pleasures go a long way at
small cost; a hothouse of a land, with the door about to be opened to
the withering blast of war.

Out of the Hôtel de Ville at Louvain, as our car halted by the cathedral
door, came an elderly French officer, walking with a light, quick step,
his cloak thrown back over his shoulders, and hurriedly entered a car;