Points of Friction
pressure of the war-will surging through the German nation. He has a dramatic meeting with the spirit of the murdered Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, and a long interview with the spirit of Nietzsche, whom he commands—authoritatively—to go back to earth and teach humility. He rests and refreshes the jaded spirit of a British officer, killed in action, by showing him a dance of sylphs; and he meets an old acquaintance, the sylph Meriline (friend and familiar of a French magician), doing scout duty in the German trenches. Finally he assures us that Serbia is doomed to disaster, because a Serbian magician, who died many years ago, left her as a legacy a host of "astral monsters" that infest the land, awakening from slumber at the first hint of strife, and revelling in bloodshed and misery.
It is hard lines on Serbia, and it sounds a good deal like the fairy tales of our happy infancy. The "Living Dead
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