dows opened
opposite the quiet cathedral. It towered far above them into the
night and sky, its presence filling our rooms with a serene and grave
benediction. Just to see it from one's pillow gave to one's thoughts
the quality of prayer.

Two days later I took my leave of it by sitting for a silent hour
alone beneath its solemn nave. I can never be too glad that I bade it
this good-by. Not long afterward--only thirty-two days--we recollected
the old German's remark, for suddenly it came true. He had known
whereof he spoke. On August 1, 1914, Europe fell to pieces; and during
August, 1915, in a few weeks from to-day, the anniversaries will
begin--public anniversaries and private. These, like perfumes, like
music, will waken legions of visions. The days of the calendar,
succeeding one another, will ring in the memories of hundreds and
thousands like bells. Each date will invest its day and the sun or the
rain thereof with special, pregnant relation to the bereft and the
mourning of many faiths and languages. Thus all Europe will be tolling
with memorial knells inaudible, yet which in those ears that hear them
will sound louder than any noise of shrapnel or calamity.

II

Calamity, like those far-off locomotives on the Rhine, has again rolled
out of Germany on her neighbors. Yet this very Calamity it is that has
given me back my faith in my own country. It was Germany at peace which
shook my faith; and I must tell you of that peaceful, beautiful Germany
in which I rejoiced for so many days, and of how I envied it. Then,
perhaps, among some other things I hope you will see, you will see that
it is Germany who is, in truth, the deepest tragedy of this war.

The Germany at peace that I saw during May and June, 1914, was, in
the first place, a constant pleasure to the eye, a constant repose to
the body and mind. Look where you might, beauty was in some form to be
seen, given its chance by the intelligence of man--not defaced, but
made the most of; and, whether in towns or in the country, a
harmonious spectacle was the rule. I thought of our landscape,
littered with rubbish and careless fences and stumps of trees, hideous
with glaring advertisements; of the rusty junk lying about our farms
and towns and wayside stations; and of the disfigured Palisades along
the Hudson River. America was ugly and shabby--made so by Americans;
Germany was swept and garnished--made so by Germans.

In Nauheim the admirable courtyard