While this diplomatic game is enacting, there is a pause. Is it the hush which precedes the storm?
All eyes are fixed upon the Russian bear, cautiously and stealthily prowling toward the south and east.--Austria hungrily watches the Balkan provinces, over which the paw of the bear already hovers.--Italy, with hate and suspicion, has eyes riveted upon her hereditary enemy, Austria.--France, never for a moment forgetting Alsace and Lorraine, watches her opportunity with Germany, and draws into closer affinity with Russia--England, with gaze fixed upon an open pathway to India, suspects them all--and Germany, conscious that disaster is always imminent while the French thirst for revenge, and the Russian thirst for the waters of the Mediterranean are unabated, strengthens her defences and sleeps with hand upon her sword.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Evolution of an Empire, by Mary Parmele