One of the leading Prussian social stars
    Opines that War, although it makes for leanness,
  Not only banishes discordant jars
    And purifies Berlin of all uncleanness,
  But places her, beatified by Mars,
    Upon a pinnacle of mental keenness,
  Changing the cult of trencher and of bowl
  To feasts of reason and o’erflows of soul.

  The gross carnivorous orgies of the past
    Have gone, and in their place is something finer;
  Emotions of a transcendental cast
    Preoccupy the luncher and the diner;
  The Hun, in short, by being forced to fast,
    Has grown ethereal, more alert, diviner;
  And, purged of all incentive to frivolity,
  His speech has almost lost its guttural quality.

  His talk, of old to stodginess inclined,
    Now sparkles with consistent coruscation,
  Attaining heights of mirth and wit combined
    Unknown to any previous generation,
  But always exquisitely pure, refined
    And spiritual, as befits the nation
  In which the nicer touch was never missing
  Down from great FREDERICK to blameless BISSING.

  ’Tis easy, though the writer does not tell,
    To guess the themes which prompt the brightest sallies;
  Louvain; the Lusitania; Nurse CAVELL—­
    With these Hun wit most delicately dallies;
  The wreck of Reims; the Prussic acid shell;
    The desolation of Armenia’s valleys;
  The toll of Belgian infants slain ere birth—­
  All these excite Berlin’s ecstatic mirth.

  And yet a slight amari aliquid
    Is mingled with this lady’s honeyed phrases;
  Berlin society is not yet rid
    Of one of its less admirable phases;
  There is, in other words, one fly amid
    The precious ointment of the writer’s praises;
  In every class are those who ape the airs
  Of the superior nobs and millionaires.

  But still, when all reserves are duly made
    For negligible faults in tact or breeding,
  The picture by this noble scribe displayed
    Of high-browed Hundom makes impressive reading;
  For homage to convivial needs is paid
    Without the faintest risk of over-feeding,
  And, braced by frugal fare, the Prussian brain
  Soars to a perfectly celestial plane.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “I AM THE MAN.”

["What is wanted is a moral deed, to free the world ... from the pressure which weighs upon all.  For such a deed it is necessary to find a ruler who has a conscience....  I have the courage.”—­Extract of letter from the GERMAN KAISER to his Chancellor, dated October 31st, 1916, and recently published in “The North German Gazette."]]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE ADVANTAGE OF A SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION.

Drawing Mistress (to member of class that has been told to draw some object of natural history).  “NOW, JAMES, THAT IS NAUGHTY.  WHY HAVEN’T YOU DONE A NATURAL HISTORY SUBJECT?”