Germany, you will say, is a great nation and cannot brook being insulted and defied. Great Heaven, Sir, who denied that Germany was great? Who wished to insult or defy her? Not France, whose one desire was to live in peace; not Russia, still bleeding from wounds suffered at the hands of Japan; not England, still, as of old, intent on her commercial development, though anxious, naturally enough, for her Fleet; not Italy, bound to you by a treaty designed to guard against aggression. It is true that all nations were becoming weary of a violent and hectoring diplomacy, of a restless and jealous punctilio seeking out occasions for misunderstandings and quarrels, and rushing wildly from one crisis to another; but under your direction this intolerable system had been patented and put in operation by Germany and by no other nation. It was as though a _parvenu_, uncertain of his manners and doubtful as to his reception, should burst violently into a _salon_ filled with quiet people and, having upset the furniture and thrown the china ornaments about, should accuse all the rest of treading on his toes and insulting him. So did Germany act, and for such actions you, who had autocratic power--you, at whose nod Chancellors trembled--you loved their tremors--and Generals quaked with fear--must be held responsible. What low strain of vulgarity was it, what coarse desire to bluster and rant yourself into fame and honour, rather than to deserve them by a magnanimous patience and a gentleness beyond reproach, that drove you on your perilous way? It was your pettiness that at the last plunged you into the War. And now that you have been in it for little short of two years, how stands the Fatherland, and where are the visions of easy and all but immediate victory? Germany is bleeding at every pore. Her soldiers are brave; but to confirm you on your throne you force them day by day to a slaughter in which millions have already been laid low. That other nations are suffering too is for me no consolation. My thoughts are centred on Germany, once so nobly great, and now forced by a restless and jealous lunatic into a war to which there seems no end. I sign myself in deep sorrow, A GERMAN. * * * * * "The Mahogany Tree." A correspondent writes to Mr. Punch: "In this season's _Printer's Pie_ your old friend and mine, Sir HENRY LUCY, speaks of '"the old mahogany tree" in Bouverie Street, under which THACKERAY for a while sat.' This tantalising sidelight makes many of us pine for fuller information. Did the incident occur on some particular occasion, or did the great novelist make a practice of this engaging form of self-effacement?" * * * * *