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formation from your family. As to the future, however, though it is always difficult to dogmatize, still one can get fairly near the truth by conjecture, if the matter is such that its issue can be foreseen. In the present instance I think I realize no more than this, that the war will not be of long duration; though even on this very point there are some who are of a different opinion. For myself, as I write these words I believe something of importance has already occurred, not that I know it for certain, but because it is not hard to form a conjecture. For, though the Lord of War is ever impartial,^[1] and the results of battles always uncertain, on this occasion so great are the forces on each side, and so well equipped, it is said, for a decisive engagement, that nobody will be surprised whichever of the two commanders prove the victor. The general opinion, and it grows stronger every day, is this, that although the causes of the combatants differ very materially, there will after all not be much difference in the results of victory on one side or the other. Of the one party^[2] we have already, I think I may say, had some experience; as regards the commander^[3] of the other, there is not a man but reflects how much to be dreaded is the anger of a conqueror with his sword unsheathed.

At this point, if you think I am aggravating your grief when I ought to be assuaging it, by trying to console you, I confess that I can discover no consolation for our common calamities except this—and this after all, if you can but take it to your heart, is the most convincing, and the one of which I avail myself more and more each day—I mean that the best possible consolation in trouble is the con-