Then I tell myself 'mere coincidence'--'subconscious memory'
and so forth."
"I do not see how any memory could remember a thing before it was ever
said at all," persisted Susan, "though of course I am not educated like
you and the doctor. I would rather not be, if it makes anything as
simple as that so hard to believe. But in any case we need not worry
over Verdun, even if the Huns get it. Joffre says it has no military
significance."
"That old sop of comfort has been served up too often already when
reverses came," retorted Gertrude. "It has lost its power to charm."
"Was there ever a battle like this in the world before?" said Mr.
Meredith, one evening in mid-April.
"It's such a titanic thing we can't grasp it," said the doctor. "What
were the scraps of a few Homeric handfuls compared to this? The whole
Trojan war might be fought around a Verdun fort and a newspaper
correspondent would give it no more than a sentence. I am not in the
confidence of the occult powers"--the doctor threw Gertrude a twinkle--
"but I have a hunch that the fate of the whole war hangs on the issue of
Verdun. As Susan and Joffre say, it has no real military significance;
but it has the tremendous significance of an Idea. If Germany wins there
she will win the war. If she loses, the tide will set against her."
"Lose she will," said Mr. Meredith: emphatically. "The Idea cannot be
conquered.
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