into two channels.

Firstly, in the political world—for reasons which cannot here be considered—the past decade has seen a predominance of idealist activity and ratiocination scarcely known before.

Hence the State has exhibited, to some extent, a Utopiste attitude likely to mislead foreign nations—it may be said with mild brevity—alike as to our real views of their conduct, and as to our[Pg viii] national belief in the right or duty of self-assertion.

[Pg viii]

If, in 1871, we were represented as the helpless dupes of foreign diplomacy, in 1914 we rather appear to have deceived the enemy to our own hurt. A humane aversion to War—though, for that matter, it is only by a philanthropic “illusion” that the extreme stage of self-assertion can be morally differentiated from those that precede it, may tempt politicians by a too sedulous avoidance of the unpleasing phrase to invite the dreadful reality. But, again, in the private life of the nation, other traits (some noted in the pamphlet of ’71) have given cause for critical reflection. Besides Luxury—remarkable enough in its novel and fantastic forms, though a commonplace complaint of tractarians in all ages—a generally increased relaxation of all old-established ties of religion, convention or tradition, a tendency noticeable in general conduct, art and letters alike, a sort of orgy of intellectual and literary Erastianism, a blasé craving for sensational novelty (encouraged perhaps if not sated by the startling novelties of the age) have given scope for anxiety as to the conservation in the English nature of that solid morale, that “gesundes und sicheres Gefühl” defined by an eminent thinker as the source of all worthy activity.

These words can but very crudely sketch a complex sense of uneasiness and dissatisfaction familiar to most of us.

Mr. Kipling has sung long since of athletic[Pg ix] excesses and indolence. More recent critics have dwelt on the extravagant time and expense devoted to golf. General Chesney would have branded the sensationalist effeminacy of our football-gloating crowds of thousands who might be recruits. Reviewers laugh wearily over the horrors or absurdities of the latest poetic monstrosity or “futurist” nightmare. But in one phase or another the consciousness is present to all, and not unnoticed by our enemies.

[Pg ix]

And it adds a sting to our inevitable anxiety if we cannot yet feel sure how far we can 

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