O dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer!
We shall exult, if they who rule the land
Be men who hold its many blessings dear,
Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band,
Who are to judge of dangers which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand.'
Always in the same cause, we have suffered worse things than we are
suffering to-day, and if there is worse to come we hope that we are
ready. The youngest and best of us, who carry on and go through with
it, though many of them are dead and many more will not live to see the
day of victory, have been easily the happiest and most confident among
us. They have believed that, at a price, they can save decency and
civilization in Europe, and, if they are wrong, they have known, as we
know, that the day when decency and civilization are trampled under the
foot of the brute is a day when it is good to die.
When I speak of the German nation as the brute I am not speaking
controversially or rhetorically; the whole German nation has given its
hearty assent to a brutal doctrine of war and politics; no facts need be
disputed between us: what to us is their shame, to them is their glory.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83