UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
nation will ever be as unselfish and fair-minded as 
the individuals composing it? The experience of 
most of us with individual Germans has been of the 
most satisfactory kind— an honest, sober-minded, 
fair-dealing, humane people is our verdict; but the 
nation embattled and fired with the thirst of con- 
quest and in the grip of a military despotism, re- 
verts to the temper of the original Hun: the atroc- 
ities their government and armies are guilty of 
shock mankind. The history of all other nations 
shows similar contrasts, but not, in our time, to the 
same degree. 
The streams and rivers all find their way to the 
sea; the conditions and influences that shape their 
courses are few and constant; but once they are 
united in the ocean, a new set of influences is called 
into play: the tides appear and the vast ocean cur- 
rents begin to flow and modify the climates of the 
globe. The laws of water are not changed, but new 
laws or forces, that have their sources beyond the 
earth, at once begin to operate. An application, 
not too precise and literal, of this fact to the na- 
tions of the earth may throw some light upon their 
behavior. 
