Now mind, I don't want you to deceive yourself. If I dislike you and feel as if I'd sooner kick you than shake hands with you, it isn't because I'm a peace-at-any-price man. No man can say that about me without qualifying for a place within easy reach of ANANIAS; but when I decide to take part in a scrap--and there's few scraps going that I don't butt into sooner or later--I like to feel that I've got a bit of right on my side. But how can _you_ feel that when you over-run Belgium and burn down Louvain--that's the place that made your heart bleed, bah!--and when you shoot down Belgian hostages and do to death an English nurse? All that never seems to strike you. You go on thinking of yourself as a holy humble man whom everybody wilfully mistakes for a bully and a tyrant. Well, you can't fool everybody all the time, you know, and in this case it happens that everybody has got some sound horse-sense in his head. Who wanted to hurt you? You'd put together a great army and your commercial prosperity was a pretty good business proposition. You'd got a navy and you'd got a very meek and submissive people, which didn't prevent them from being harsh and domineering and cruel so far as other peoples were concerned. If you wanted to have folk afraid of you there were plenty to humour you by pretending to tremble when you frowned and shook your head. But you weren't going to be satisfied. You must have a war so as to show what a great general you were, and you shoved on the old man FRANCIS JOSEPH and kept urging him from behind until everyone got tired by the impossibility of making you come out fair and square on the side of peace. Well, you've got your war, and I hope you like it. This isn't one of your military promenades. This is hard, long fighting against men whose only wish was to be left alone. You've forced them to form a trust for the purpose of trust-busting, and in the end they'll wear you out and have you beaten to a frazzle in spite of all you can do. You've lost millions of men and millions of money, and you don't seem to get on with your final and decisive victory, and you're still the vainest and the loudest man on earth. Isn't it just about time you saw yourself as the rest of us see you, an irritable lime-light hero, whose favourite effort is to sink a _Lusitania_ and pretend he had to do it because he didn't think she'd go down or because there were too many women and just enough children in the world? All I can say is that I've had more than enough of you. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. * * * * * BEYOND THE LIMIT. [The German General Staff declares that for air-warfare there are still lacking international laws of any kind.]