O.S. * * * * * UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER. No. XL. (_From a German._) Yes, and for the very reason that I am a German I am speaking to you, so that you may know what one German at least thinks of you and your deeds. For I know that even where you sit walled about by your flatterers, ramparted against the intrusion of any fresh breath of criticism, and protected by entanglements of barbed wire against any hint of doubt as to your god-like attributes--even there I know that my voice shall in time reach you, and you shall become aware that there is a German who dares to say of you what millions of Germans think and soon will dare to say. You are the man, Sir, who by a word spoken in a seasonable moment might have forbidden the War, and this word you refused to speak because, knowing your own preparations for war and those of the nations whom you forced to be your enemies, you anticipated an easy and a swift triumph. You believed that, after spending a few thousands of men and a few millions of marks, victory would be yours, and you would be able, as an unquestioned conqueror, to dictate peace to those who had dared to oppose you. And thus in a few months at the most you would return to Berlin and prance along the flower-strewn streets at the head of your victorious and but little-injured regiments. It is told of you that lately, when you visited a great hospital crowded with maimed and shattered men, your vain and shallow mind was for a moment startled by the terrible sight, and you murmured, "It was not I who willed this." In part you were right. You did not consciously will to bring upon your country the suffering and the misery you have caused, because you were willing to take the gambler's chance; but in the sight of God, to whom you often appeal, you will not escape the responsibility for having steadily thrust peace and conciliation aside when, as I say, by one word you might have avoided war.