Page:The Wheel of Time, Collaboration, Owen Wingrave (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893).djvu/114

106 of that Germanism which consists in the negation of intellectual frontiers. It is the English poets that, if I'm not mistaken, he loves best, and probably the harm was done by his having happened to say so. At any rate, Alfred Bonus let him have it, without due notice, perhaps, which is rather Alfred's way, on the question (a favorite one with my compatriot) of the backward state of literature in England, for which, after all, Heidenmauer was not responsible. Bonus believes in responsibility—the responsibility of others—an attitude which tends to make some of his friends extremely secretive, though perhaps it would have been justified—as to this I'm not sure—had Heidenmauer been, under the circumstances, technically British. Before he had had time to explain that he was not, the other persons present had become aware that a kind of challenge had passed—that nation, in a sudden, startled flurry, somehow found itself pitted against nation. There was much vagueness at first as to which of the nations were engaged, and as to what their quarrel was about; the question coming presently to appear less