people; whether this country and that will be content to ease their
tempers with bloodless squabbling, subduing the more violent promptings
for the common good. Yet I suspect that a century is a very short time
to allow for even justifiable surmise of such an outcome. If by any
chance newspapers ceased to exist . . .

Talk of war, and one gets involved in such utopian musings!



VII.


I have been reading one of those prognostic articles on international
politics which every now and then appear in the reviews. Why I should so
waste my time it would be hard to say; I suppose the fascination of
disgust and fear gets the better of me in a moment's idleness. This
writer, who is horribly perspicacious and vigorous, demonstrates the
certainty of a great European war, and regards it with the peculiar
satisfaction excited by such things in a certain order of mind. His
phrases about "dire calamity" and so on mean nothing; the whole tenor of
his writing proves that he represents, and consciously, one of the forces
which go to bring war about; his part in the business is a fluent
irresponsibility, which casts scorn on all who reluct at the
"inevitable." Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the
event.

But I will read no more such writing. This resolution I make and will
keep. Why set my nerves quivering with rage, and spoil the calm of a
whole day, when no good of any sort can come of it? What is it to me if