"Come now, I can recall the names of three great men, all living," suggested Creagh good-humouredly.
"Oh—well—you are indulgent," said Beadon dryly. "Two of them are bitter enemies, and the third celebrated his seventieth birthday lately."
"I suppose there are some younger men somewhere," Dora Beadon put in gaily. "Father won't let them come to our parties because he's so afraid they will all want to marry me! But surely they exist."
"Take our young politicians," Hare continued, ignoring Miss Beadon's interruption, and warming to his subject as the babble of talk died down. "Not an ounce of stamina in the lot. One particularly young gentleman in the Ministry happens to have pushed himself to the fore, but he won't stay there. The party, as a whole, is hypnotized by those of its members who have a few sparks of magnetic force. On our own side it's as bad. We've got men of average intelligence, and average intelligence is a most stultifying quality. Two-thirds of sublime folly and a fraction of wisdom produce a better leader than any amount of average intelligence can compass. And as for the sacred fount, immortal fire, food of the gods, call it what you will, that undefined quality that leads men on to dare forlorn hopes and brave martyrdom—the House of Commons would not recognize it if it were there. And yet without it, men are impotent. They themselves move and have their being, but cannot produce life in others."
"Isn't your vital element patriotism?" asked Evelyn. "I always think a man should love his country like his wife, with knowledge and tenderness and passion and forbearance. In nine cases out of ten, nations fail just as women do, for trivial causes. Both may slur common duties, but the big crisis finds them ready. If her husband's love is waning a woman will strain every nerve to keep it, just as a nation will appeal to her sons when the enemy has issued his ultimatum."
"Very soon the nation's appeal will be vain," said Meavy. "We forget as no other nation does."
"Is that because, as every Englishman is an embryo hero, we count upon him in our hour of need?"
Meavy laughed.
"Tactfully turned, Mrs. Brand. It sounds very nice, but I'm afraid it's not really the case. As for patriotism, it's a lost art. Love is not love at all without an element of passion, and passion is a fire which must have fuel to be kept alive. Most modern men and women are incapable of loving anything with ardour, except themselves. If they swear by a special county it's merely because they happen to be landowners, not from tradition nor history. Men back the merits of a manufacturing town, because it gives them daily bread. There is a man on the St. Pancras Board of Guardians now who boasts, 'I made my money 'ere, and 'ere I'll spend it.' The fact of being British does not stir a man; one doubts if he remembers it unless he is on the Continent."
"There are those who say England is doomed," said Beadon. "Since we left Gordon to his fate the old fighting spirit waxes more and more frail. For heaven's sake don't quote the South African War as a proof to the contrary. Quite half of that wild enthusiasm was a phase of social hysteria. We are all mad on excitement now; we prostitute our very ardour. If we can't get recreation by one means we get it by another. Drink, drugs, lovers—all come under the same category. At times these fail to allay us. We see red then, like other nations, but we have no national outlet like Southerners, with their bull-fights and the like. So war—in countries to which we can be transported with all the latest comforts of civilization—breaks the monotony."