am, the Swadeshi
movement, the rising toward freedom in India; all these are largely
directed from Westminster. The Jingo sentiment toward Germany, a really
progressive nation, full of natural and healthy ambitions, is being
swept away by our own statesmen; by their courteous and friendly
attitude toward the Kaiser, who delights to honour our present Minister
of War. Also, the work of disarmament has begun. The naval estimates are
being steadily pruned, and whole regiments have been finally disbanded.
And all this comes from within. So you see we have some grounds for
hopefulness. It is a great step forward, for our own elected leaders to
show the enthusiastic and determined opposition they are showing to the
old brutal pretensions of England to sway the world by brute strength.
But, forgive me! Perhaps I tire you with all this--Sylvia."

"No, no, indeed you don't--Dick, I--I think it is beautiful. It--it
seems to make everything bigger, more kind and good. It interests me,
immensely."

And I knew perfectly well that I had not tired her--wearisome though the
recital of it all may be now. For I knew instinctively how the personal
note told in the whole matter. I had been really heated, and perfectly
sincere, but a kind of subconscious cunning had led me to utilize the
heat of the moment in introducing between us, for example, the use of
first names. Well I knew that I was not wearying Sylvia. But coldly
recited now, I admit the rhodomontade to be exceedingly tiresome. My
excuse for it is that it serves to indicate the sort of ideas that were
abroad at the time, the sort of sentiments which were shaping our
destiny.

After all, I was an educated youth. Many of my hot statements, too, were
of fact, and not merely of opinion and feeling. It is a fact that the
sentiment called anti-British had come to be served more slavishly in
England than in any foreign land. The duration of our disastrous war in
South Africa was positively doubled, as the result of British influence,
by Boer hopes pinned upon the deliberate utterances of British
politicians. In Egypt, South Africa, India, and other parts of the
Empire, all opposition to British rule, all risings, attacks upon our
prestige, and the like, were aided, and in many cases fomented, steered,
and brought to a successful issue--not by Germans or other foreigners,
but by Englishmen, and by Englishmen who had sworn allegiance at St.
Stephens. It is no more than a bare statement