d. They get between the approaching forces, and I expect the bullets
that put them out of their misery come pretty even from both sides.

The men are mad. Mad with fear, mad with hate, blinded by excitement.
Take a mere dog fight. If you interfere you have got to be prepared for
your own dog turning upon you. In war half the time the men do not know
what they are doing. They are little else than wild beasts. There was
great indignation at the dropping of bombs into Antwerp. One now hears
that a French dirigible has been dropping bombs into Luxembourg--a much
more dignified retort. War is a grim game. Able editors and club-chair
politicians have been clamoring for it for years past. They thought it
was all goose-step and bands.

The truth is bad enough, God knows. There is no sense in making things
out worse than they are. When this war is over we have got to forget it.
To build up barriers of hatred that shall stand between our children and
our foemen's children is a crime against the future.

These stories of German naval officers firing on their wounded sailors
in the water! They are an insult to our intelligence. At Louvain fifty
of the inhabitants were taken out and shot. On Monday the fifty had
grown to five hundred; both numbers vouched for by eye-witnesses,
"Dutchmen who would have had no interest," &c. That the beautiful old
town has been laid in ashes is undoubted. Some criminal lunatic
strutting in pipeclay and mustachios was given his hour of authority and
took the chance of his life. If I know anything of the German people it
will go hard with him when the war is over, if he has not had the sense
to get killed. But that won't rear again the grand old stones or wipe
from Germany's honor the stain of that long line of murdered men and
women--whatever its actual length may have been. War puts a premium on
brutality and senselessness. Men with the intelligence and instincts of
an ape suddenly find themselves possessed of the powers of a god. And we
are astonished that they do not display the wisdom of a god!

There are other stories that have filtered through to us. There was a
dying Uhlan who caught a child to his arms and kissed him. One would
like to be able to kiss one's own child before one dies, but failing
that--well, after all, there is a sort of family likeness between them.
The same deep wondering eyes, the same--and then the mist grows deeper.
Perhaps after all it was Baby Fritz that he kissed.

A