_Amusez les rois par tes songes,_ _Flattez-les, payez les d’agréables mensonges._ _Quelque intignation dont leur cœur soit rembli,_ _Ils goberont l’abbât, vous serez leur ami._ But methought it isn’t anything like what the “people” will have to “swallow,” when everybody is free and nobody is equal. And I wondered again at those who think to change the destinies of nations from without, by formulas or commands, when each evolves mysteriously, mystically, inevitably from within, out of its own particular shape and substance and strength. Even one from over the seas, clad in the supremest power a great nation has ever lent a mortal, though he pull the earth to pieces in the attempt, cannot change this law of nature. “_Que direz-vous, races futures?_” And time respects nothing that is done without it. As we came out into the square, little boys were bringing in armfuls of wood for their schoolroom stoves, others were already noisily scampering home for dinner in the crisp, sawdusty air; straight columns of smoke from many chimneys evoked women standing about noonday fires; there was a homely, human feeling about it all.... As I went through the school it seemed to me that the types of the children were modified in two ways, inclining now toward the elongated head, with pointed chin, dark hair, dark eyes, and mantling color, now toward the round-headed, square-jawed, blond type, with full, dreamy, blue eyes. But under these modifications one felt that there was a persistent something that was their own, neither German nor French nor anything else, for all the mingling; the Alsatian root and stem, with an inalienable, peculiar life mounting in it, its very own, its race-gift. And this essential gift, this rich, diverse inheritance, had been received from each point of the compass. From the south, through the defiles of the Alps, the great Latin traditions had infiltered. From the north and east had come Germanic thought, with its mystical reactions, its metaphysical inclinations, its marvelous legends, and its romantic chronicles of gods and half-gods. From the west, from Gaul, came grace and courtesy and the deathless wish for liberty. Was ever a people more richly endowed? Yet, how shall even such a seed grow if it never lie quiet in the warm darkness of the earth?... Then I turned from the paths of learning, and went over to the very well-kept ambulance, in charge, since several years, of the ladies from Mulhouse, whom I had met at dinner the night before.