1913I] How Deep the Night! 



Yearly we fire the yule log, and pretend 



Good will to men a moment, and would seem 

 To augur Peace upon the earth, — O Dream! 



Peace? — Aye, but first our heaven and earth must end. 



"How wouldst thou speak, if waken'd, slumbering Night," 



Murmured the poet in Lorenzo's tomb, 



Thinking of Italy. . . . And Angelo, 

 Who made her, answered for her: "Let not sight 



Nor feeling, while the shame last, be my doom: 



So wake me not, I pray thee, — ah, speak low!" 



Via Giovanni-Battista, Florence, ii January, 1913 



Following closely on the seizure of Tripoli by Italy Morocco 

 came the war begun by France for the conquest of 

 Morocco. For this the alleged justifications were two, 

 chronic disorder there and belief that "if the French 

 did not take over that country the Germans would, 

 and experience showed that they would be very bad 

 neighbors to Algiers, as experiences in Alsace-Lorraine 

 showed them to be bad neighbors to France." 



A speech by Lloyd George threatening Germany 

 with British opposition in case she interfered with the 

 campaign in Morocco went far toward precipitating a 

 general war. This was prevented (as I have been 

 assured from three different sources) by the action 

 of leading German bankers, representatives of the 

 four " Big D's" — the Deutsche Bank, the Dresdener The 

 Bank, the Darmstadter Bank, and the Disconto ^'^^' 

 Gesellschaft. According to report, Von Gwinner of 

 the Deutsche Bank insisted that Germany was in 

 no financial condition to risk a general war, and the 

 Emperor responded: "Then we must discover some 

 other way of settling the matter." So a means of 



C 453 ~\ 



