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An American who was in the club yesterday told us they had spent over a hundred millions on their west coast fortifications in the last two years." "One can understand, too, in that case," Nigel continued, "why Japan left the League of Nations. That stunt of hers about being outside the sphere of possible misunderstandings never sounded honest."
"We were saying, my lord," said the Frenchman, in perfect English and with that graceful tact which belongs to France alone, "that we have all been the victims of an unfortunate chain of misunderstandings.
Some of the subjects with which it dealt have ceased to be disputed questions, or no longer attract much interest. Above all, its course was clouded and confused by verbal misunderstandings, arising in part, perhaps, from the occasional prolixity of Hoadly's style, but chiefly from the distorting influence of strong prejudices.
They'd make you think it was the most complicated, rotten, intriguing business imaginable; all misunderstandings and cross-purposes, and the Lord knows what. But it isn't. It's jolly simple, or it can be. Here we are, you and I, and we aren't at loggerheads, and we've got enough to eat and a pair of boots apiece, and the sun, and the sea, and old Etna behaving nicely and what more do we want?"
The friendships of boyhood, like relationship of blood, possess this important advantage, that mistakes and misunderstandings never produce irreparable injury; and the old regard after a time will always reestablish itself. Edward began with inquiring about the situation of his friend, and learnt that fortune had favored him exactly as he most could have wished.
"When I had descended again to my proper place the Grand Lunar asked how we sheltered ourselves from heat and storms, and I expounded to him the arts of building and furnishing. Here we wandered into misunderstandings and cross-purposes, due largely, I must admit, to the looseness of my expressions. For a long time I had great difficulty in making him understand the nature of a house.
Yet when the secrecy of the Spanish cabinet and the Macchiavellian scheme of policy by which the age was characterized are considered, it is not strange that there should have been misunderstandings and contradictions with regard to the man's character till a full light had been thrown upon it by the disinterment of ancient documents.
When the history of the War for the Union comes to be written at a later day, and when the petty jealousies and misunderstandings are discarded which now embarrass all contemporary records, it is scarcely to be doubted that the battle of Malvern Hill will be set down as the most terrible conflict ever known on this continent; the most splendid artillery duel of any country or any age; a crowning test of indomitable bravery on the part of both loyalists and rebels; and a brilliant victory for the Union cause, which saved an army, crowned the reputation of its young General, and averted a series of evils which could not have failed to culminate in the fall of Washington and the virtual destruction of the last hope of the republic.
I am thoroughly convinced that should explanations take place with confidence between the two Cabinets, irritation would cease, a crowd of misunderstandings would disappear, and the ties of friendship would be the more strongly united as each party would discover the hand which sought to disunite them.
Perhaps all the pain and mistakes and misunderstandings of which this workaday world is so full are, after all, only a part of the beautiful tapestry which the patient Fingers of God are weaving a dark and sombre warp, giving value to the gold and silver and jewelled threads of the weft which shall cross it.
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