This was the morning of the 13th of August.  For three more days Vivie lived deliriously, isolated from the world.  She took new books to the shade of the forest, and a rug on which she could repose, and read there with avidity, read also all the newspapers her mother had brought over from England, tried to master the events which had so rapidly and irresistibly plunged Europe into War.  Were the Germans to blame, she asked herself?  Of course they were, technically, in invading Belgium and in forcing this war on France.  But were they not being surrounded by a hostile Alliance?  Was not this hostility on the part of Servia towards Austria stimulated by Russia in order to forestal the Central Powers by a Russian occupation of Constantinople?  Why should the Russian Empire be allowed to stretch for nine millions of square miles over half Asia, much of Persia, and now claim to control the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor?  If England might claim a large section of Persia as her sphere of influence, and Egypt likewise and a fourth part of Africa, much of Arabia, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, why might not Germany and Austria expect to have their little spheres of influence in the Balkans, in Asia Minor, in Mesopotamia?  We had helped France to Morocco and Italy to Tripoli; why should we bother about Servia?  It might be unkind, but then were we not unkind towards her father’s country, Ireland?  Were we very tender towards national independence in Egypt, in Persia?

Yet this brutal invasion of France, this unprovoked attack on Liege were ugly things.  France had shown no disposition to egg Servia on against Austria, and Sir Edward Grey in the last days of June—­she now learnt for the first time, for she had seen no newspapers in prison, where it is part of the dehumanizing policy of the Home Office to prevent their entry, or the dissemination of any information about current events—­Sir Edward Grey had clearly shown Great Britain did not approve of Servian intrigues in Bosnia.  Well:  let the best man win.  Germany was just as likely to give the Vote to her women as was Britain.  The Germans were first in Music and in Science.  She for her part didn’t wish to become a German subject, but once the War was over she would willingly naturalize herself Belgian or Swiss.

And the War must soon be over.  Europe as a whole could not allow this devastation of resources.  America would intervene.  Already the Germans realized their gigantic blunder in starting the attack.  Their men were said to be—­she read—­much less brave than people had expected.  The mighty German Armies had been held up for ten days by a puny Belgian force and the forts of Liege and Namur.  There would presently be an armistice and Germany would have to make peace with perhaps the cession to France of Metz as a solatium, while Germany was given a little bit more of Africa, and Austria got nothing....

Meantime the Villa Beau-sejour seemed after Holloway Prison a paradise upon earth.  Why quarrel with her fate?  Why not drop politics and take up philosophy?  She felt herself capable of writing a Universal History which would be far truer if more cynical than any previous attempt to show civilized man the route he had followed and the martyrdom he had undergone.