ohenstiel and SAGACITY both agreed that this evil
temper must be destroyed; but SAGACITY advised him to undermine--Prince
Hohenstiel chose to combat it.

SAGACITY said, "Here is an interval of peace. Prolong it, make it
delightful; but do so under cover of intending to cut it short. If you
would induce a fierce mountain tribe to come down from its fortress and
settle in the plain, you do not bid it destroy the fortress. You bid it
enjoy life in the city, and remember that it runs no risk in doing so,
because it has its fortress to fall back upon at the first hint of
danger. And the time will come when it can hear with equanimity that the
fortress has gone to ruin, and that fighting is no longer in fashion.
The mountain tribe will have learned to love the fatness of the valley,
while thinking of those mother ribs of its mountain fastness which are
ever waiting to prop up its life. Just so put a wooden sword into the
hand of the Hohenstieler, and let him brag of war, learning meanwhile
the value of peace."

"Not so," the Prince replied; "my people shall not be cheated into
virtue. Truth is the one good thing. I will tell them the truth. I will
tell them that war, for war's sake, is damnable; that glory at its best
is shame, since its image is a gilded bubble which a resolute hand might
prick, but the breath of a foolish multitude buoys up beyond its reach."
"And what," he asked, "is the glory, what the greatness, which this
foolish nation seeks? That of making every other small; not that of
holding its place among others which are themselves great. Shall such a
thing be possible as that the nation which earth loves best--a people so
aspiring, so endowed; so magnetic in its attraction for its
fellow-men--shall think its primacy endangered because another selects a
ruler it has not patronized, or chooses to sell steel untaxed?"

"But this does not mean that Hohenstiel is to relinquish the power of
war. The aggressiveness which is damnable in herself is to be condemned
in others, and to be punished in them. Therefore, for the sake of
Austria who sins, of Italy who suffers, of Hohenstiel-Schwangau who has
a duty to perform, the war which SAGACITY deprecates must be waged, and
Austria smitten till Italy is free."

"At least," rejoins SAGACITY, "you secure some reward from the country
you have freed; say, the cession of Nice and Savoy; something to satisfy
those at home who doubt the market-value of right and truth."

"No,