een done in German
literature for which we have not a counterpart, done as well or
better--except the work of Heine, and Heine was a Jew. His opinion of
the Prussians was that they are a compost of beer, deceit, and sand.
French literature and English literature can be compared, throughout
their long course, sometimes to the great advantage of the French.
German literature cannot seriously be compared with either.

It may be objected that literature and art are ornamental affairs, which
count for little in the deadly strife of nations. But that is not so.
Our language cannot go anywhere without taking our ideas and our creed
with it, not to mention our institutions and our games. If the Germans
could understand what Chaucer means when he says of his Knight that

he loved chivalry,
Truth and honour, freedom and courtesy,

then indeed we might be near to an understanding. I asked a good German
scholar the other day what is the German word for 'fair play'. He
replied, as they do in Parliament, that he must ask for notice of that
question. I fear there is no German word for 'fair play'.

The little countries, the pawns and victims of German policy, understand
our ideas better. The peoples who have suffered from tyranny and
oppression look to England for help, and it is a generous weakness in us
that we sometimes deceive them by our sympathy, for our power is
limited, and we cannot help them all. But it will not count against us
at the final reckoning that in most places where humanity has suffered
cruelty and indignity the name of England has been invoked: not always
in vain.

And now, for I have kept to the last what I believe to be the greatest
gain of all, the entry of America into the War assures the triumph of
our common language. America is peopled by many races; only a minority
of the inhabitants--an influential and governing minority--are of the
English stock. But here, again, the language carries it; and the ideas
that inspire America are ideas which had their origin in the long
English struggle for freedom. Our sufferings in this War are great, but
they are not so great that we cannot recognize virtue in a new recruit
to the cause. No nation, in the whole course of human history, has ever
made a more splendid decision, or performed a more magnanimous act, than
America, when she decided to enter this War. She had nothing to gain,
for, to say the bare truth, she had little to lose. If