IV
These, then, were the men who guided in greater or less degree the opinions of the young men and women of the Early Twentieth Century in the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. "A. E." greatly influenced young Irishmen who remained curiously unimpressed either by Mr. Moore or Mr. Yeats. Rumours of his doctrine came to the ears of young Englishman, but they had no personal contact with him as they had with Mr. Shaw and Mr. Wells and Mr. Belloc and Mr. Chesterton. It is not possible to calculate the extent to which these men moulded the minds of my generation, but indisputably it was large. No one who grew from youth to manhood between 1900 and 1914 could escape from their influence, even if he were unconscious of it. The greater part of that generation died in the War. The young men who drew their ideas chiefly from Mr. Wells and Mr. Shaw, directly or indirectly, did not live to make their world, and so we can never tell what good or ill would have resulted to mankind had they succeeded to authority. Their bones are buried in France and Italy, in Palestine and Turkey, in Russia and East Africa, on the shores of Gallipoli and in the marshes of Salonica, in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean and the North Sea; and there is nothing to remember them by but broken lands in France and the broken vows of politicians the world over. These young men went out to die in a mood of selflessness that has never, perhaps, been equalled or excelled in the history of mankind; and when their backs were turned, they were betrayed. We cannot look on them again, but we may find comfort in our loss by remembering and considering the men who formed the faith they held.