Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 edition. Excerpt: ... EPILOGUE Wilhelm--League of Nations--Freedom of the Seas--Moral--Finis '"TOWARDS the close of the eighteenth century.. the incomparable historian of Roman glory and decline paused in his great work in order to indulge in that most elusive luxury--prophecy. He had been engaged in tracing the career of a great people through centuries of varying fortune; he was weary of slaughter and fondly looked forward to a world in which wars would be humanely conducted, fewer in number, or even wholly suppressed. He wrote at the close of a century in which soldiering had been the chronic occupation of Christian states and he was convinced that the time had arrived for such a league of nations as would effectually control the savage impulses of any prospective Genseric, Alaric, or Attila. He referred particularly to the royal philosopher who sat upon the throne of Prussia and a blue stocking Czarina whose court on the Neva suggested the Happy Valley of Rasselas not to say the Groves of Academe. Gibbon reviewed the world of his day and saw with joy the noble triumphs of art, literature, and science. He saw religious persecution waning and monarchy daily assuming forms more in harmony with popular aspiration. The Huns and Vandals, thought he, had been eliminated from their ancient habitats or weaned from their pristine propensities; and the forests whence had rushed the hungry hordes who overran the Europe of fifteen centuries ago had given place to cultivated farms, smiling villages, and centers of Kultur. The skin-clad chief had been replaced by a Frederick the Great--the Cossack raider by a Catherine Romanov. Whence then could ever come another menace to civilized Europe? Surely not from Berlin or the now enlightened Empire of Russia! The great...
