And now we had come, after passing through a great field of green corn rustling in the light wind, to a fence, on which we sat. My retrospective thoughts had now caught up to the present--but I was still dreaming. All that I thought was unconscious, out of my control and wonderful. Our attempt had been very beautiful, had been a work of art, and in many ways had come to a beautiful and artistic end. Like a great and wonderful bubble, wrought in many and enchanting colours, it rose up complete at that moment from its birthplace and deathbed--and I was happy again. Then from the place down below us--that place in which we had striven and apparently failed--I seemed to hear the voice of those who opposed and hated us in our ways--those who were making the school into a machine again--and were rejoicing in it, as they pumped in the oil: "The Germans are verrmin--it is your work in life to _krrussch_ them!" And at that very moment there came by three German prisoners--passed us, jumped over the fence and were gone; but the likeness! it was more than striking; never, never shall I forget it--and I was convinced. The school, its very self, its soul, had struggled to its feet, and as a little child was taking its first conscious steps--the most beautiful, perhaps, that it was ever destined to take--when they, those mechanicians, with their mailed fists smote it in the face, crushed it heartlessly to the ground, with Louvain and Belgium not only before their eyes but on their very lips. "Oh, this world is a rotten place," he said, at my side. "I wonder," I murmured in reply, and I still do.... J. A. A. J.