I remember that my practical mind revolted against the prophecy, and I pressed you for reasons. You then told us that the Kiel Canal, according to experts whom you had assembled five or six years before to examine this question, could not be enlarged for the passage of the new German Dreadnoughts before 1914, and that Germany, though bent on war, would not risk it until this date. As regards Jellicoe, you explained how you yourself had so cast his professional career in such directions as to train him for the post, and, after a brief horoscope of his normal prospects of promotion, you indicated your intention of watching over his career--as you actually did. All this remains vividly in my mind, and I believe in that of my wife, but, as I am not going home for a few days, she shall give you her unbiassed account. The calculation itself was an interesting one, but what strikes me now as more remarkable is the “flair” with which you forecasted with certainty the state of mind of the German Emperor and his advisers, and their intention to go to war the first moment they dared.... No more now. In haste, Yours ever, (Signed) M. P. A. HANKEY. The grounds for my prophecies are stated elsewhere. I won’t repeat them here. They really weren’t predictions; they were certainties. I remark in passing that what the sundial said was:-- “Forsitan Ultima.” By the way, I was called a sundial once by a vituperative woman whom I didn’t know; she wrote a letter abusing me as an optimist, and sent these lines:-- “There he stands amidst the flowers, Counting only sunny hours, Heeding neither rain nor mist, That brazen-faced old optimist.” Another woman (but I knew her) in sending me some lovely roses to crown the event of a then recent success, sent also some beautiful lines likewise of her own making. She regretted that I preferred a crown of thorns to a crown of the thornless roses she sent me. The rose she alluded to is called “Zephyrine Drouhin,” and, to me, it is astounding that it is so unknown. It is absolutely the only absolute thornless rose; it has absolutely the sweetest scent of any rose; it is absolutely the most glorious coloured of all roses; it blooms more than any rose; it requires no pruning, and costs less than any rose. I planted these roses when I left the Admiralty in 1910. Somebody told the Naval Attaché at Rome, not knowing that he knew me, that I had taken to planting roses, and his remark was: “They’ll d--d well have to grow!” He had served many years with me. CHAPTER XV THE BALTIC PROJECT _Note._--This paper was submitted for my consideration by Sir Julian Corbett, in the early autumn of 1914.