esemblances.

In 1860 I spent a few days in Holland, and among my various excursions
in that fascinating country I took a solitary trip on a _treckschuit_
from Amsterdam to Delft. Holland was so true to Dutch pictures that
there was a retrospective delight in the houses and in the people. There
was a charm in the very signs, in the names of the villas; for my
knowledge of Dutch had not passed beyond the stage at which the
Netherlandish tongue seems to be an English-German Dictionary, disguised
in strong waters. But the thing that struck me most was the general
aspect of the country. Everywhere gates. Nowhere fences. The gates
guarded the bridges and the canals were the fences, but the canals and
the low bridges were not to be seen at a distance, and the visual effect
was that of isolated gates. It was an absurd landscape even after the
brain had made the necessary corrections.

In the third year of the war I was not far from Fredericksburg. The
country had been stripped, and the forlorn region was a sad contrast to
the smug prosperity of Holland. And yet of a sudden the Dutch landscape
flashed upon my inward eye, for Spottsylvania, like Holland, was dotted
with fenceless gates. The rails of the inclosures had long before gone
to feed bivouac fires, but the great gates were too solidly constructed
to tempt marauders. It was an absurd landscape, an absurd parallel.

Historical parallels are often no better. When one compares two
languages of the same family, the first impression is that of
similarity. It is hard for the novice to keep his Italian and his
Spanish apart. The later and more abiding impression is that of
dissimilarity. A total stranger confounds twins in whom the members of
the household find but vague likeness. There is no real resemblance
between the two wars we are contemplating outside the inevitable
features of all armed conflicts, and we must be on our guard against the
sophistication deprecated in the beginning of this study. And yet one
coming fresh to a comparison of the Peloponnesian war and the war
between the States might see a striking similarity, such as I saw
between the Dutch landscape and the landscape in Spottsylvania.

The Peloponnesian war, like our war, was a war between two leagues, a
Northern Union and a Southern Confederacy. The Northern Union,
represented by Athens, was a naval power. The Southern Confederacy,
under the leadership of Sparta, was a land power. The Athenians
represe