d me for
at least three miles; and so much did I want to talk it over that I
nearly began talking it over with Gertrud herself, but was restrained by
the dread of offending her; for to drive round Ruegen side by side with
an offended Gertrud would be more than my fortitude could endure.

Vilmnitz is a pretty little village, and the guide-book praises both its
inns; but then the guide-book praises every place it mentions. I would
not, myself, make use of Vilmnitz except as a village to be driven
through on the way to somewhere else. For this purpose it is quite
satisfactory though its roads might be less sandy, for it is a flowery
place with picturesque, prosperous-looking cottages, and high up on a
mound the oldest church in the island. This church dates from the
twelfth century, and I would have liked to go into it; but it was locked
and the parson had the key, and it was the hour in the afternoon when
parsons sleep, and wisdom dictates that while they are doing it they
shall be left alone. So we drove through Vilmnitz in all the dignity
that asks no favours and wants nothing from anybody.

The road is ugly from there to a place called Stresow, but I do not mind
an ugly road if the sun will only shine, and the ugly ones are useful
for making one see the beauty of the pretty ones. There are many Hun
graves, big mounds with trees growing on them, and I suppose Huns inside
them, round Stresow, and a monument reminding the passer-by of a battle
fought there between the Prussians under the old Dessauer and the
Swedes. We won. It was my duty as a good German to swell with patriotic
pride on beholding this memorial, and I did so. As a nation, the least
thing sets us swelling with this particular sort of pride. We acquire
the habit in our childhood when we imitate our parents, and on any fine
Sunday afternoon you may see whole families standing round the victory
column and the statues in the _Sieges Allee_ in Berlin engaged in doing
it. The old Dessauer is not very sharply outlined in a mind that easily
forgets, and I am afraid to say how little I know of him except that he
was old and a Dessauer; yet I felt extremely proud of him, and proud of
Germany, and proud of myself as I saw the place where we fought under
him and won. 'Oh blood and iron!' I cried, 'Glorious and potent mixture!
Do you see that monument, Gertrud? It marks the spot where we Prussians
won a mighty battle, led by the old, the heroic Dessauer.' And though
G