It needs, indeed, an effort of the imagination at the moment of writing to think of Belgium as in any sense a component part of Beautiful Europe. " The unhappy "cockpit" of the Continent at the actual hour is again in process of accomplishing its frightful destiny-no treaty, or "scrap of paper, " is potent to preserve this last, and weakest, of all the nations of Western Europe from drinking to the dregs the cup of ruin and desolation. Tragic indeed in the profoundest sense-in the sense of Aristotle-more tragic than the long ruin of the predestined house of Oedipus-is this accumulated tragedy of a small and helpless people, whose sole apparent crime is their stern determination to cling at any cost to their plighted word of honour. "