repulsed as something
dishonorable. He was living in a new world, and it was but natural that
extraordinary things should occur that could be neither measured nor
explained by the old processes of reasoning. So he commented with
infantile joy on the marvellous accounts in the daily papers--of combats
between a single Belgian platoon and entire regiments of enemies,
putting them to disorderly flight; of the German fear of the bayonet
that made them run like hares the instant that the charge sounded; of
the inefficiency of the German artillery whose projectiles always missed
fire.

It was logical and natural that little Belgium should conquer gigantic
Germany--a repetition of David and Goliath--with all the metaphors and
images that this unequal contest had inspired across so many centuries.
Like the greater part of the nation, he had the mentality of a reader
of tales of chivalry who feels himself defrauded if the hero,
single-handed, fails to cleave a thousand enemies with one fell stroke.
He purposely chose the most sensational papers, those which published
many stories of single encounters, of individual deeds about which
nobody could know with any degree of certainty.

The intervention of England on the seas made him imagine a frightful
famine, coming providentially like a thunder-clap to torture the enemy.
He honestly believed that ten days of this maritime blockade would
convert Germany into a group of shipwrecked sailors floating on a raft.
This vision made him repeat his visits to the kitchen to gloat over his
packages of provisions.

"Ah, what they would give in Berlin for my treasures!" . . .

Never had Argensola eaten with greater avidity. Consideration of the
great privations suffered by the adversary was sharpening his appetite
to a monstrous capacity. White bread, golden brown and crusty, was
stimulating him to an almost religious ecstasy.

"If friend William could only get his claws on this!" he would chuckle
to his companion.

So he chewed and swallowed with increasing relish; solids and liquids on
passing through his mouth seemed to be acquiring a new flavor, rare
and divine. Distant hunger for him was a stimulant, a sauce of endless
delight.

While France was inspiring his enthusiasm, he was conceding greater
credit to Russia. "Ah, those Cossacks!" . . . He was accustomed to speak
of them as intimate friends. He loved to describe the unbridled gallop
of the wild horsemen, impalpable as phantoms