all their consequences will be as though it had never been.

4

It will therefore be a matter of holding our own against the enemy
whom we do not see and mastering him until the turn or chance of the
accursed race is past. How long will that be? We cannot tell; but, in
the swift-moving history of to-day, it seems probable that the waiting
and the struggle will be much shorter than they would have been in
former times. Is it possible that fatality--by which I mean what
perhaps for a moment was the unacknowledged desire of the
planet--shall not regain the upper hand? At the stage which man has
reached, I hope and believe so. He had never conquered it before; but
also he had not yet risen to the height which he has now attained.
There is no reason why that which has never happened should not take
place one day; and everything seems to tell us that man is approaching
the day whereon, seizing the most glorious opportunity that has ever
presented itself since he acquired a consciousness, he will at last
learn that he is able, when he pleases, to control his whole fate in
this world.

* * * * *

IN ITALY

XII

IN ITALY

1

A few days before Italy formed her great resolve, the following lines
appeared in one of the leading Pangermanic organs of the peoples
beyond the Rhine, the _Kreuzzeitung_:

"We have already observed that it will not do to be too
optimistic as to Italy's decision; in point of fact, the
situation is very serious. If none but moderate
considerations had ruled Italy's intentions, there is little
doubt as to which path she would choose; but we know the
height which the wave of Germanophobia has attained in that
country, a significant mark of the popular sentiment being
the declaration of the Italian Socialists upon the reasons
of their inability to oppose the war. An equal source of
danger is the fact that the government feels that it no
longer controls the current of public opinion."

The whole drama of Italian intervention is summed up in these lines,
which explain it better than would the longest and most learned
commentaries.

The Italian government, restrained by a politic wisdom and prudence,
excessive, perhaps, but very excusable, did not wish for war. To the
utmost limits of patience, until its dignity and its sense of security
could bear no more, it did all that could be done to spare