This is the grand defeat of all Utopians, dreamers, poets, philosophers, idealists, humanitarians, lovers of peace and the arts; bag and baggage they are thrown out of a world that has for a time no use for them. To the despot, the bureaucrat, the militarist, the man of affairs, they have always been hateful. They are soft, yet dangerous, because they venture to hold up another flag in the face of the big flag of force; venture to distract men’s attention from dwelling on the beauty of its size. I believe solemnly that we English have had to join this carnival of force to guard democracy, honour, and the sanctity of treaty rights. It was a sacred necessity; let us keep it sacred, without the loathsome reek of a satisfaction that peace, humanism, and the arts are down, and the country once more showing the stuff of which it is made, a tusky lover of a fight, as jealous and afraid of a rival as ever.

The idealist said in his heart: The god of force is dead, or dying. He has been proven the fool that the man of affairs and the militarist always said he was. But the fools of this world—generally after they are gone—have a way of moving men which the wise and practical believers in force have not. If they had not this power man would still be, year in year out, the savage that the believers in force have for the moment once more made him. The battle between the god of love and the god of force endures for ever. Fools of the former camp, drummed out and beaten to their knees, in due time will get up again and plant their poor flag a little farther on. “All men shall be brothers,” said the German fool, Schiller; so shall the fools say again when the time comes; and again, and again, after every beating!