t seem to you
to be worthless, if the rebuilding of them still seems worth while to
you. Tomorrow is again a common day."

Do not lapse into dreams about United States of Europe, about
mild-intentioned division of the Coburg heritage, (a bit of it to
Holland, a bit to Luxemburg, perhaps even a bit to France. Any one with
even the slightest nobility of feeling would reject the proffered dish
of poison with a gesture of disgust,) nor be lulled into delusions of
military and tax conventions that would deprive the country of its free
right of determining its own destiny.

To the Belgians we are the Arch-imp and the Tenant of the Pool of Hell!
We would remain so, even if every stone in Louvain and in Malines were
replaced by its equivalent in gold. That rage can be overcome only after
the race, praised by Schiller's fiery breath, sees its neighbors close
at hand and draws advantage from intimate relations with them. Antwerp
not pitted against, but working with, Hamburg and Bremen; Liege, side by
side with Essen's, Berlin's, and Swabia's gun factories--Cockerill in
combination with Krupp; iron, coal, woven stuff from old Germany and
Belgium, introduced into the markets of the world by one and the same
commercial spirit; our Kamerun and their Congo--such a warm blaze of
advantage has burned away many a hatred. The wise man wins as his friend
the deadly foe whose skull he cannot split, and he will rather rule and
allow to feast on exceptional dainties this still cold and shy new
friend than lose potential well-wishers of incalculable future
good-will.

Only, never again a withered Reichsland! (imperial territory.) From
Calais to Antwerp, Flanders, Limburg, Brabant, to behind the line of the
Meuse forts, Prussian! (German Princes no longer haggle, German tribes
no longer envy one another;) the Southern triangle with Alsace and
Lorraine--and Luxemburg, too, if it desires--is to be an independent
federated State, intrusted to a Catholic noble house. Then Germany would
know for what it shed its blood.

We need land for our industries, a road into the ocean, an undivided
colony, the assurance of a supply of raw materials and the most fertile
well-spring of prosperity--a people industrious and efficient in its
work.

Here they are: Ore and copper, glass and sugar, flax and wool. But here,
too, there once lived Jan and Hubert van Eyck, Rubens, the reveler
Ruysbroek, and Jordeans of the avid eyes. Here there always lived--to be