“Varus, Varus, give back my legions, Varus”--that cry of Cæsar Augustus, Ruler of Rome, Mistress of the World, was the first wild note of a chorus of woe that arose in full diapason when Valens fell in the battle of Adrianople. From the victory of Arminius over the Roman troops under Quintilius Varus in the Black Forest of Germany (A. D. 9) to the decisive victory of the combined Gothic tribes over the veteran Roman army under Valens near the capital of the Empire, the sympathetic student of history may hear ever that losing cry of the Emperor-seer, “Give back my legions, Varus.” Legend relates that on the Roman northern frontier there stood a colossal statue of Victory; it looked toward the North, and with outstretched hand pointing to the Teutoberger Wald, seemed to urge on to combat and victory: but the night following the massacre of the Roman troops in the Black Forest, and the consequent suicide of Varus, this statue did, of its own accord, turn round and face the South, and with outstretched hand pointing Romeward, seemed to urge on to combat and victory the wild-eyed children of the North. Thus did the Goddess of Victory forsake Rome. The Moskva river is yet memory-lit with the fires of burning Moscow; and its murmuring ever yet faintly echoes the toll, toll, toll of the Kremlin bell. Three days and three nights of conflagration--and then the charred and crumbling stillness! Snow on the hills and on the plains; white, peaceful snow healing the wounds of Borodino, blanketing uncouth forms, hiding the horror; but within the fated city, no snow, nothing white, nothing peaceful; gaunt icicle-blackness o’er huge, prostrate Pan-Slavism. Yet surely cognizant old Moscow, secure in ruins, sighed, too, o’er the gay and gallant Frenchmen caught fatefully in the trap of desolation. Perhaps, too, the compensating lamentation of distant Berezina mingled genially with the murmuring Moskva. Little Nap Bonaparte met his Waterloo in Moscow: history to the contrary notwithstanding. “The soldiers fight and the kings are called heroes,” says the Talmud. Of all that nameless host of ardent, life-loving men who entered Moscow, stood aghast amid the ruins, started back on that awful across-Continent retreat--the world knows only Napoleon, history poses Napoleon, Meissonier paints Napoleon, Byron apostrophizes Napoleon, Emerson eulogizes Napoleon, Rachmaninoff plays Napoleon, and the hero-lover loves Napoleon. Why? Is there any answer to ten thousand Whys perched prominently and grinning insolently in this mad play-house of the Planets? None.