ut I'd like to
bet they are having it drilled into them that war is a glorious and
noble sacrifice.

"The people who write poems about the divine frenzy of going over the
top are usually those who dipped their pens a long, long way from the
slimy duckboards of the trenches. It's funny how we hate to face
realities. I knew a commuter once who rode in town every day on the
8.13. But he used to call it the 7.73. He said it made him feel more
virtuous."

There was a pause, while Roger watched some belated urchins hurrying
toward school.

"I think any man would be a traitor to humanity who didn't pledge every
effort of his waking life to an attempt to make war impossible in
future."

"Surely no one would deny that," said Titania. "But I do think the war
was very glorious as well as very terrible. I've known lots of men who
went over, knowing well what they were to face, and yet went gladly and
humbly in the thought they were going for a true cause."

"A cause which is so true shouldn't need the sacrifice of millions of
fine lives," said Roger gravely. "Don't imagine I don't see the
dreadful nobility of it. But poor humanity shouldn't be asked to be
noble at such a cost. That's the most pitiful tragedy of it all.
Don't you suppose the Germans thought they too were marching off for a
noble cause when they began it and forced this misery on the world?
They had been educated to believe so, for a generation. That's the
terrible hypnotism of war, the brute mass-impulse, the pride and
national spirit, the instinctive simplicity of men that makes them
worship what is their own above everything else. I've thrilled and
shouted with patriotic pride, like everyone. Music and flags and men
marching in step have bewitched me, as they do all of us. And then
I've gone home and sworn to root this evil instinct out of my soul.
God help us--let's love the world, love humanity--not just our own
country! That's why I'm so keen about the part we're going to play at
the Peace Conference. Our motto over there will be America Last!
Hurrah for us, I say, for we shall be the only nation over there with
absolutely no axe to grind. Nothing but a pax to grind!"

It argued well for Titania's breadth of mind that she was not dismayed
nor alarmed at the poor bookseller's anguished harangue. She surmised
sagely that he was cleansing his bosom of much perilous stuff. In some
mysterious way she had learned the greatest and rarest of t