imental orders, issued to protect a certain ark across a
certain desert. Anarchy was evil because it endangered the sanctity. And
only when they made a holy day for God did they find they had made a
holiday for men.

If it be granted that this primary devotion to a place or thing is a
source of creative energy, we can pass on to a very peculiar fact. Let
us reiterate for an instant that the only right optimism is a sort of
universal patriotism. What is the matter with the pessimist? I think it
can be stated by saying that he is the cosmic anti-patriot. And what is
the matter with the anti-patriot? I think it can be stated, without
undue bitterness, by saying that he is the candid friend. And what is
the matter with the candid friend? There we strike the rock of real life
and immutable human nature.

I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that he
is not candid. He is keeping something back--his own gloomy pleasure in
saying unpleasant things. He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to
help. This is certainly, I think, what makes a certain sort of
anti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens. I do not speak (of course)
of the anti-patriotism which only irritates feverish stockbrokers and
gushing actresses; that is only patriotism speaking plainly. A man who
says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not
worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn
his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it. But there is an
anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men, and the explanation of him
is, I think, what I have suggested: he is the uncandid candid friend;
the man who says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at
all. And he may be said, without rhetoric, to be a traitor; for he is
using that ugly knowledge which was allowed him to strengthen the army,
to discourage people from joining it. Because he is allowed to be
pessimistic as a military adviser he is being pessimistic as a
recruiting sergeant. Just in the same way the pessimist (who is the
cosmic anti-patriot) uses the freedom that life allows to her
counsellors to lure away the people from her flag. Granted that he
states only facts, it is still essential to know what are his emotions,
what is his motive. It may be that twelve hundred men in Tottenham are
down with smallpox; but we want to know whether this is stated by some
great philosopher who wants to curse the gods,