d here, is simply inconceivable. A defensive war in which she
should have to defend her homes from wanton attack is inconceivable.
There is no wantonness now in the civilized nations. We have outgrown
the blood stage. We are sober peoples, sober and civilian,--grown up,
in fact. And the semi-civilized peoples would be afraid to attack a
nation so strong as Germany. She is training and living, and has been
training and living for years and years, simply to attack. What is the
use of their protesting? One has only to listen to their points of
view to brush aside the perfunctory protestations they put in every now
and then, as if by order, whenever they remember not to be natural.
Oh, I know this is very different from what I was writing and feeling
two or three days ago, but I've been let down with a jerk, I'm being
reminded of the impressions I got in Berlin, they've come up sharply
again, and I'm not so confident that what was the matter with the
people there was only heat and overwork. There was an eagerness about
them, a kind of fever to begin their grabbing. I told you, I think,
how Berlin made me think when first I got there of something _seething_.

Darling mother, forgive me if I'm shrill. I wouldn't be shrill, I'm
certain I wouldn't, if I could believe in the necessity, the justice of
such a war, if Germany weren't going to war but war were coming to
Germany. And I'm afraid,--afraid because of Bernd. Suppose he--Well,
perhaps by the time we get to Berlin things will have calmed down, and
the Grafin will be able to come back straight here, which God grant,
and I shall go back to Frau Berg and my flies. I shall regard those
flies now with the utmost friendliness. I shan't mind anything they do.

Good night blessed mother. I'm so thankful these two days are over.

Your Chris.

It is this silence here, this absurd peaceful sunshine, and the placid
Grafin, and the bland unconsciousness of nature that I find hard to
bear.

_Berlin, Wednesday, July 29th_.

My own little mother,

It is six o'clock in the morning, and I'm in my dressing-gown writing
to you, because if I don't do it now I shall be swamped with people and
things, as I was all yesterday and the day before, and not get a
moment's quiet. You see, there is going to be war, almost to a dead
certainty, and the Germans have gone mad. The effect even on this
house is feverish, so that getting up very early will be my only chanc