Page:The battle of Dorking; (IA battleofdorking00chesrich).pdf/14

viii national belief in the right or duty of self-assertion.

If, in 1871, we were represented as the helpless dupes of foreign diplomacy, in 1914 we rather appear to have deceived the enemy to our own hurt. A humane aversion to War—though, for that matter, it is only by a philanthropic "illusion" that the extreme stage of self-assertion can be morally differentiated from those that precede it, may tempt politicians by a too sedulous avoidance of the unpleasing phrase to invite the dreadful reality. But, again, in the private life of the nation, other traits (some noted in the pamphlet of '71) have given cause for critical reflection. Besides Luxury—remarkable enough in its novel and fantastic forms, though a commonplace complaint of tractarians in all ages—a generally increased relaxation of all old-established ties of religion, convention or tradition, a tendency noticeable in general conduct, art and letters alike, a sort of orgy of intellectual and literary Erastianism, a blasé craving for sensational novelty (encouraged perhaps if not sated by the startling novelties of the age) have given scope for anxiety as to the conservation in the English nature of that solid morale, that "gesundes und sicheres Gefühl" defined by an eminent thinker as the source of all worthy activity.

These words can but very crudely sketch a complex sense of uneasiness and dissatisfaction familiar to most of us.

Mr. Kipling has sung long since of athletic