From the standpoint of individuals, even of those few who have lost nothing personally, who are alive and safe, who have never been near the trenches, never watched an air-raid, or so much as seen the inside of a hospital, the War is a monstrous and irreparable tragedy.
But from the epic standpoint, it would not have mattered if all the civilians in Great Britain had been starved to death by submarines, or burned alive in our beds, so long as the freedom of one country, even a small country like Greece, was secured forever, let alone the freedom of a great country like Russia—and let alone the saving of America's soul.
For that is what it comes to.
Somewhere about the sad middle of the War, an American woman, who is one of the finest American poets, discussed the War with me. She deplored America's attitude in not coming in with us.
I said, politely and arrogantly, "Why should she? It isn't HER
War. She'll do us more good by keeping out of it."
The poet—who would not have called herself a patriot—answered,
"I am not thinking of YOUR good. I am thinking of the good of
America's soul."
Since August 4th, 1914, England has been energetically engaged in saving her own soul. Heaven knows we needed salvation! But, commendable as our action was and is, the fact remains that it was our own soul that we were saving. We thought, and we cared, nothing about America's soul.
In the beginning of the War, when it seemed certain that America would not come in, we were glad to think that America's body was untouched, that, while all Europe rolled in blood, so vast a territory was still at peace, and that the gulf of the Atlantic kept American men, American women and children, safe from the horror and agony of war. This was a comparatively righteous attitude.
Then we found that it was precisely the Atlantic that gave Americans a taste of our agony and horror. The Atlantic was no safe place for the American men and women and children who traveled so ingenuously over it.
And when for a long time we wondered whether America would or would not come in, we were still glad; but it was another gladness. We said to ourselves that we did not want America to come in. We wanted to win the War without her, even if it took us a little longer. For by that time we had begun to look on the War as our and our Allies' unique possession. to fight in it was a privilege and a glory that we were not inclined to share.