old. That
is why his press is so untypical; it gives the impression that he does
waste breath. And, while he has hold, he gets in more mischief in a
shorter time than any other dog because of his capacity for
concentrating on the present, without speculating on the past or future.

For the particular situation which the Englishman has now to face he is
terribly well adapted. Because he has so little imagination, so little
power of expression, he is saving nerve all the time. Because he never
goes to extremes, he is saving energy of body and spirit. That the men
of all nations are about equally endowed with courage and self-sacrifice
has been proved in these last six months; it is to other qualities that
one must look for final victory in a war of exhaustion. The Englishman
does not look into himself; he does not brood; he sees no further
forward than is necessary, and he must have his joke. These are fearful
and wonderful advantages. Examine the letters and diaries of the various
combatants and you will see how far less imaginative and reflecting,
(though shrewd, practical, and humorous,) the English are than any
others; you will gain, too, a profound, a deadly conviction that behind
them is a fibre like rubber, that may be frayed, and bent a little this
way and that, but can neither be permeated nor broken.

When this war began the Englishman rubbed his eyes steeped in peace; he
is still rubbing them just a little, but less and less every day. A
profound lover of peace by habit and tradition, he has actually realized
by now that he is in for it up to the neck. To any one who really knows
him--_c'est quelque chose_!

It shall be freely confessed that, from an aesthetic point of view, the
Englishman, devoid of high lights and shadows, coated with drab, and
super-humanly steady on his feet, is not too attractive. But for the
wearing, tearing, slow, and dreadful business of this war, the
Englishman--fighting of his own free will, unimaginative, humorous,
competitive, practical, never in extremes, a dumb, inveterate optimist,
and terribly tenacious--is undoubtedly equipped with Victory.

Bernard Shaw's Terms of Peace

_A letter written by G. Bernard Shaw to a friend in Vienna is published
in the Muenchener Neueste Nachrichten and in the Frankfurter Zeitung of
April 21, 1915. Mr. Shaw says:_

We are already on the way out of the first and worst phase. When reason
began to bestir itself, I appeared each week in