impossible; and, to even better purpose and effect, she further admitted that, had she been thus only defensively ready, the German war would never have occurred. When every citizen was a possible soldier, wielding with full precision the death-dealing modern arms, how would invasion be possible?
There were not wanting, indeed, certain lively regrets at the prosaic prospect thus opened to society's future by the disappearance of the soldier. And now that, in our Old England, hunting, shooting, fishing and such-like were about to be crowded out of the busy and teeming country, here, alas! was also the last possible resource of an independent gentleman, the professional army, going with the rest! What on earth is a gentleman now to do with himself, if his careful forefathers have provided for him, and he is himself indisposed to bend his back to the world's work? But society contrived by degrees to fill up this ominous-looking blank, and even to look back upon the once gentlemanly profession of killing one's fellowmen as amongst accomplishments no longer desirable. The twentieth century had not yet rolled past, ere all prospect of war, as between at least the great civilized powers of the world, had, by universal admission, finally disappeared.
An intensity of joy overspread the civilized world, on fully realizing that international war had in reality ceased. Amongst the various peoples of that world of those days, most of whom had by this time acquired the thorough command of their own destinies, great international celebrations were inaugurated, and great schemes in connection with peaceful progress were on all hands projected. The foreign element
