“You’ll own, though, that there must be butchers,” said Oldmeadow, after a little meditation. He felt himself in the presence of something delicate, distorted and beautiful. “And you’ll own, won’t you, when it comes to a war like this, when not only our national honour but our national existence is at stake, that some men must kill others. Isn’t it then, baldly, that you profit, personally, by other people doing what you won’t do? You’ll eat spring lamb as long as there are butchers to kill the lamb for you, and you’ll be an Englishman and take from England all that she has to give you—including Oxford and Coldbrooks—and let other men do the nasty work that makes the survival of England and Oxford and Coldbrooks possible. That’s what it comes to, you know. That’s all I ask you to look at squarely.”
“I know, I know,” Palgrave repeated. He had looked at little else, poor boy. Oldmeadow saw that. “But that’s where the delicate discrimination between ideals comes in, Roger. That’s where I have to leave intuition, which says ‘No,’ and turn to reason. And the trouble is that for me reason says ‘No,’ too. Because humanity—all of it that counts—has outgrown war. That’s what it comes to. It’s a conflict between a national and an humanitarian ideal. There are enough of us in the world to stop war, if we all act together; and why, because others don’t, should I not do what I feel right? Others may follow if only a few of us stand out. If no one stands out, no one will ever follow. And you can’t kill England like that. England is more than men and institutions,” Palgrave still gazed at the sky. “It’s an idea that will survive; perhaps the more truly in the spirit for perishing in the flesh, if it really came to that. Look at Greece. She’s dead, if you like; yet what existing nation lives as truly? It is Grecian minds we think with and Grecian eyes we see with. It’s Plato’s conception of the just man being the truly happy man—even if the whole world’s against him—that is the very meaning of our refusal to go with the world.”
“You’ll never stop war by refusal so long as the majority of men still believe in it,” said Oldmeadow. “There are not enough of you to stop it now. The time to stop it is before it comes; not while it’s on. It’s before it begins that you must bring the rest of humanity not to behave in ways that make it inevitable. I’m inclined to think that ideas can perish,” he went on, as Palgrave, to this, made no reply, “as far as their earthly manifestation goes, that is, if enough men and institutions are destroyed. If Germany could conquer and administer England, I’m inclined to think the English idea would perish. And war need not be unspiritual. Killing our fellow-men need not mean hating them. There’s less hatred in war, I imagine, than in some of the contests of peaceful civilian life. Put it fairly on the ground of humanitarianism, then, Palgrave; not of nationality. It’s the whole world that is threatened by a hateful idea, by the triumph of all you most fear and detest, and unless we strive against it with all we are and have it seems to me that we fall short of our duty not only as Englishmen, but as humanitarians. Put it at that, Palgrave: would you really have had England stand by and not lift a finger when Belgium was invaded and France menaced?”
Palgrave was not ready with his reply and he turned away while he looked for it and shuffled the papers on his desk with a nervous hand. “Yes, I would,” he said at last. “Hateful as it is to have to say it—I would have stood by.” He came back to his place at the mantelpiece and looked down at Oldmeadow as he spoke. “The choice, of course, is hateful; but I think we should have stood by and helped the sufferers and let France and Germany fight it out. It always comes back to them, doesn’t it? They’re always fighting it out; they always will, till they find it’s no good and that they can’t annihilate each other; which is what they both want to do. Oh, I’ve read too many of the young French neo-Catholics to be able to believe that the hateful idea was all on one side. Their ideals don’t differ much, once you strip them of their theological tinsel, from those of the Germans. Germany happens to be the aggressor now; but if the militarist party in France had had the chance, they’d have struck as quickly.”
“The difference—and it’s an immense one—is that the militarist party in France wouldn’t have had the chance. The difference is that it doesn’t govern and mould public opinion. It’s not a menace to the world. It’s only a sort of splendid pet, kept in a Zoo, for the delectation of a certain class and party. Whereas Germany’s the bona fide hungry tigress at large. What you really ask of England, Palgrave, is that she should be a Buddha and lie down and let the tigress, after finishing France, devour her, too. It really comes to that. Buddhism is the only logical basis for your position, and I don’t believe, however sorry one may be for hungry tigresses, that the right way to deal with them is to let them eat you. The Christian philosophy of the incarnation is the true one. Matter does make a spiritual difference. It does make a difference, a real difference, that the ideal should be made flesh. It’s important to the world, spiritually, that the man rather than the tigress should survive.”
“Christ gave his life,” said Palgrave, after a moment.
“I’m not speaking of historical personages; but of eternal truths,” said Oldmeadow.
But he knew already that he spoke in vain. Palgrave had turned away his eyes again and on his sad young face he read the fixity of a fanatic idealism. He had not moved him, though he had troubled him. No one would move Palgrave. He doubted, now, whether Adrienne herself had had much influence over him. It was with the sense of pleading a lost cause that he said, presently, “Adrienne hopes you’ll feel it right to go.”
Palgrave at this turned a profound gaze upon him. “I know it,” he said. “Though she’s never told me so. It’s the weakness of her love, its yearning and tenderness, not its strength, that makes her want it. Because she knows it would be so much easier. But she can’t go back on what she’s meant to me. It’s because of that, in part at all events, that I’ve been able to see steadily what I mean to myself. That’s what she helps one to do, you know. Hold to yourself; your true, deep self. It’s owing to her that I can only choose in one way—even if I can’t defend it properly. It seems to come back to metaphysics, doesn’t it?”