tual, but for a solidly supplementary help arising out of the aforesaid Eastern unsettlement. Compensations elsewhere were thus provided for two of the parties thus restitutionally disposed, while that of the third, Germany, was happily forthcoming elsewhere, as we shall presently have occasion to see. At all events, a reconstituted Poland was one of the bright and happy features of the twentieth century. The "Italia Irridenta" question received also its final and happy solution about the same time and from like auspicious considerations.
We are already passed from Eastern to Western questions, and have come midway upon that of Poland, just narrated. There are more to follow as we further pursue the sun. Slight or small causes are proverbially productive of grand events. But presumably there is a helping and according preparation, as when the smallest spark will blow up a magazine, or a pistol-shot dislodge a mass of alpine rock; or when, as actually happened, an abstract discussion, at an international gathering in Belgium, on the advantages of a great independent, as compared with a small and dependent nationality, in the progress and destinies of civilized and enlightened peoples, led eventually to that country, by mutual accord, merging into France. The French Republic had by this time passed safely, and with fair steadiness in its trying circumstances, into the second generation, approving itself worthy of life by the moderation and forbearance of its course, especially towards the other and smaller political sections, which, if not altogether reconciled to the republic, had yet greater antipathies to each other.
