The moods of nations pass like clouds, only more slowly. They bank up filled with menace; we look again and are surprised to find that they have melted away as silently and swiftly as they came. One does not need to be very old to recall various wars, deemed at one time or another to be inevitable, which never occurred. In the 'sixties' war with the second Empire was judged to be inevitable; and along our coasts dismantled forts remain to this day as monuments of our fathers' firm belief in the imminence of an invasion. In the 'seventies,' and indeed until we had entered the present century, war with Russia was regarded as inevitable by a large number of well-informed people; and for a part of this period war with the French Republic was judged to be no less so. Fortune on the whole was favourable. Circumstances changed. The sense of a common danger healed old antagonisms. Causes of chronic irritation disappeared of themselves, or were removed by diplomatic surgery. And with the disappearance of these inflammatory centres, misunderstandings, prejudices, and suspicions began to vanish also. { 39} Gradually it became clear, that what had been mistaken on both sides for destiny was nothing more inexorable than a fit of temper, or a conflict of business interests not incapable of adjustment. And in a sense the German menace was less formidable than any of these others, for the reason that it was a fit of temper on one side only--a fit of temper, or megalomania. We became fully conscious of the German mood only after the end of the South African War, when its persistence showed clearly that it arose, not from any sympathy with the Dutch, but from some internal cause. When this cause was explained to us it seemed so inadequate, so absurd, so unreal, so contrary to the facts, that only a small fraction of our nation ever succeeded in believing that it actually existed. We had been taught by Carlyle, that while the verities draw immortal life from the facts to which they correspond, the falsities have but a phenomenal existence, and a brief influence over the minds of men. Consequently the greater part of the British people troubled their heads very little about this matter, never thought things would come to a crisis, or lead to serious mischief; but trusted always that, in due time, the ridiculous illusions of our neighbours would vanish and die of their own inanity.