So you were thinking about--over there?" she added,
moving her head seawards.
"Over there absorbs a great deal of one's thoughts," he confessed,
"and the rest of them have been playing me queer tricks."
"Well, I should like to hear about the first half," she insisted.
"Do you know," he replied, "there are times when even now this war
seems to me like an unreal thing, like something I have been reading
about, some wild imagining of Shelley or one of the unrestrainable
poets. I can't believe that millions of the flower of Germany's
manhood and yours have perished helplessly, hopelessly, cruelly.
And France--poor decimated France!"
"Well, Germany started the war, you know," she reminded him.
"Did she?" he answered. "I sometimes wonder. Even now I fancy, if
the official papers of every one of the nations lay side by side,
with their own case stated from their own point of view, even you
might feel a little confused about that. Still, I am going to be
very honest with you. I think myself that Germany wanted war."
"There you are, then," she declared triumphantly. "The whole thing
is her responsibility."
"I do not quite go so far as that," he protested. "You see, the
world is governed by great natural laws. As a snowball grows larger
with rolling, so it takes up more room. As a child grows out of its
infant clothes, it needs the vestments of a youth and then a man.
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