He
laughs in this way at the makeshift compromises of statesmen and
theologians and economists saying that what those men hate more than
anything else is a fixed principle. He quotes with a sardonic pleasure
the capital saying that a certain statesman's idea of a settled policy
based on fixed moral principles is a policy which will last from
breakfast-time to luncheon--he repeats the last words "from
breakfast-time to luncheon," with a deep relish, an indrawing of the
breath, a flash of light in the glassy eyes.
He remains impenitent concerning his first instinct as to England's duty
at the violation of Belgium's neutrality. We were justified in fighting;
we could do no other; it was a stern duty laid upon us by the Providence
which overrules the foolishness of man. But he is insistent that we can
justify our fiery passion in War only by an equal passion in the higher
cause of Peace--no, not an equal passion, a far greater passion.
We lost at Versailles our greatest opportunity for that divine
justification. We showed no fervour for peace. There was no passion in
us; nothing but scepticism, incredulity, and the base appetite for
revenge. We might have led the world into a new epoch if at that moment
we had laid down our sword, taken up our cross, and followed the Prince
of Peace. But we were cold, cold. We had no idealism. We were poor
sceptics trusting to economics--the economics of a base materialism.
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