lic without being
subjected to insults. On our way home, we stopped for dinner at the
garrison town, where we heard the most contemptuous allusions to the
"Prussian braggarts," as they were termed.

It was said that they had no officers who had ever smelt powder. That
what had been done in Schleswig-Holstein had been achieved by the
Austrians; and that if they ever dared go so far as to fight, they
would be sent home in disgrace.

I do not know whether they really believed what they said, or whether
they were simply trying to keep up their courage. But, on every hand,
one could hear them say, "They will not let matters proceed so far;
they are loud talkers and nothing else."

I was quite beside myself; but Richard begged me to remain silent. He
thought it was well that matters had come to this pass.

Whoever had brought on this war had assumed a great, but perhaps
unavoidable, responsibility. It was the sad fiat of fate, and none
could foretell where the sacrifice and suffering would end. History
would march on in its appointed path, even though sin and suffering be
its steppingstones.

And then he pointed to our surroundings, and added, "Such fellows as
these will never be converted by speeches; nothing but a thorough
beating will teach them reason."

I have found that sober history tells us very little of all those
things. She brings the harvest under shelter and enters the result; but
who stops to ask how the weather may have changed while the grain was
ripening?

But to us who live in the present, such things are not trifles; and I
cannot help maintaining that the war of 1866 was forced on the people
against their will, as far as I can judge, and I have spoken to many on
the subject. The Prussians did not desire war; the conservatives did
certainly not wish for it, for Austria was, spite of all, the bulwark
of their principles. The liberals did not want it; nor did the soldiers
go forth with cheerful hearts. But necessity had become incarnate in
the brain of a single statesman: separation from Austria was the end to
be gained, and though it went hard, that result must be achieved.

But the operation was a difficult and a painful one.

CHAPTER XXII.

Before the train left the station, the newsboys were running about
offering copies of extra issues of the journals, with news that the
Diet had raised the German colors: black, red, gold.

And thus the Diet dared to unf