great open meetings in
London; and when the newspapers discovered that I was not only not being
torn to pieces, but that I was growing better and better liked, then the
feeling that patriotism consists of insane lies began to give place to
the discovery that the presentation of the truth is not so dangerous as
every one had believed.

At that time scarcely one of the leading newspapers took heed of my
insistence that this war was an imperialistic war and popular only in so
far as all wars are for a time popular. But I need hardly assure you
that if Grey had announced: "We have concluded a treaty of alliance with
Germany and Austria and must wage war upon France and Russia," he would
have evoked precisely the same patriotic fervor and exactly the same
democratic anti-Prussianism, (with the omission of the P.) Then the
German Kaiser would have been cheered as the cousin of our King and our
old and faithful friend.

As concerns myself, I am not unqualifiedly what is called a pan-German;
the Germans, besides, would not have a spark of respect left for me if
now, when all questions of civilization are buried, I did not hold to my
people. But neither am I an anti-German.

Militarism has just compelled me to pay about L1,000 as war tax, in
order to help some "brave little Serbian" or other to cut your throat,
or some Russian mujik to blow out your brains, although I would rather
pay twice as much to save your life or to buy in Vienna some good
picture for our National Gallery, and although I should mourn far less
about the death of a hundred Serbs or mujiks than for your death.

I am, even aside from myself, sorry for your sake that my plays
are no longer produced. Why does not the Burgtheater play the
"Schlachtenlenker"? Napoleon's speech about English "Realpolitik" would
prove an unprecedented success. If the English win, I shall call upon
Sir Edward Grey to add to the treaty of peace a clause in which Berlin
and Vienna shall be obliged each year to produce at least 100
performances of my plays for the next twenty-five years.

In London during August the usual cheap evening orchestra concerts,
so-called promenade concerts, were announced in a patriotic manner, with
the comment that no German musician would be represented on the program.
Everybody applauded this announcement, but nobody attended the concerts.
A week later a program of Beethoven, Wagner, and Richard Strauss was
announced. Everybody was indignant, and ever