The scope of your planning and of your accomplishment, the very rank luxuriance of your life, will be marveled at as a fairy wonder. We, victors and conquered and neutrals, will alike be confined by duty to austere simplicity of living. Your complaint is unfounded; only gird yourselves for a wee short time in patience. Whether the business deals which you grab in the wartime smell good or bad, we shall not now publicly investigate. If law and custom permit them, what do you care for alien heartache? If the statutes of international law prohibit them, the Governments must insure the effectiveness thereof. Scolding does not help. Until the battle has been fought out to the finish, until the book of its genesis has been exalted above every doubt, your opinion weighs as heavy as a little chicken's feather to us. Let writer and talker rave till they are exhausted--not a syllable yet in defense. We do not feel hurt, (haven't spare time for it;) indeed, we are glad that you gave ten millions each month for Belgium, that you intend to help care for Poland, that you are opening the savings banks of your children. But, seriously, we beg you not to howl if American ships are damaged by the attack of German submarines. England wishes to shut off our imports of foodstuffs and raw materials, and we wish to shut off England's. You do not attempt to land on our coast; keep away also from that of Britain. You were warned early. What is now to take place is commanded by merciless necessity; must be. And let no woeful cries, no threats, crowd into Germany's ears. ENDOWED WITH A NOBLE FIRE OF BLOOD By A. Kouprine [From King Albert's Book.] Not applause, not admiration, but the deep, eternal gratitude of the whole civilized world is now due to the self-denying Belgian people and their noble young sovereign. They first threw themselves before the savage beast, foaming with pride, maddened with blood. They thought not of their own safety, nor of the prosperity of their houses, nor of the fate of the high culture of their country, nor of the vast numbers and cruelty of the enemy. They have saved not only their fatherland, but all Europe--the cradle of intellect, taste, science, creative art, and beauty--they have saved from the fury of the barbarians trampling, in their insolence, the best roses in the holy garden of God. Compared with their modest heroism the deed of Leonidas and his Spartans, who fought in the Pass of Thermopylae, falls into the shade. And the hearts of all the noble and the good beat in accord with their great hearts.... No, never shall die or lose its power a people endowed with such a noble fire of blood, with such feelings that inspire it to confront bereavement, sorrow, sickness, wounds; to march as friends, hand in hand, adored King and simple cottager, man and woman, poor and rich, weak and strong, aristocrat and laborer. Salutation and humblest reverence to them! Chronology of the War