"The fire smouldering in the forest of Europe was be-
ginning to burst into flames. In vain did they try to put it
out in one place; it only broke out in another. With gusts
of smoke and a shower of sparks it swept from one point
to another, burning the dry brushwood. Already in the
East there were skirmishes as the prelude to the great war
of the nations. All Europe, Europe that only yesterday
was sceptical and apathetic, like a dead wood, was swept
by the flames. All men were possessed by the desire for
battle. War was ever on the point of breaking out. It was
stamped out, but it sprang to life again. The world felt
that it was at the mercy of an accident that might let loose
the dogs of war. The world lay in wait. The feeling of
inevitability weighed heavily even upon the most pacifically
minded. And ideologues, sheltered beneath the massive
shadows of he cyclops, Proudhon, hymned in war man's
fairest title of nobility. . . . ."

"This, then, was to be the end of the physical and moral
resurrection of the races of the West! To such butchery
they were to be borne along by the currents of action and
passionate faith! Only a Napoleonic genius could have
marked out a chosen, deliberate aim for this blind, onward
rush. But nowhere in Europe was there any genius for
action. It was as though the world had chosen the most
mediocre to be its governors. The force of the human mind
was in other things--so there was nothing to be done but
to trust to the declivity down which they were moving.
This both the governing and the governed classes were
doing. Europe looked like a vast armed camp."
Jean-Christophe, vol. x ( 1912).

[English translation by Gilbert Cannan, vol. iv. p. 504.]

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