“Want to talk it out, Davy?”
“Some day, perhaps. Not now.”
“You’re too young yet,” he said, nodding. “You think in terms of yourself. Most of us do, and philosophy isn’t going to help that.”
“Right, there.”
“Know what strikes me? We human beings have so damned little charity towards ourselves. All the institutions we’ve ever created—the Church, the State, Society; for we have created them—make us despise ourselves,—look down upon ourselves. For two thousand years we’ve got the conception that we are weak, crawling worms, originally sinful, predestined to evil. We’ve been thundered at, frightened, cursed, and every agency has united to belittle us in our own eyes. And yet, Davy, look at the wonder of it; it’s only a few thousand years since we were among the beasts of the field, groping in the darkness. And now, we have illuminated the night, ridden the air, sowed the earth, bridged the sea, abolished every impossibility, except the one thing—time. And it’s not simply brain force, science, but the instinct towards a beautiful ideal, that’s amazing in us; we’ve evolved a Parthenon out of placing one stone on top of another; we’ve blown into a seashell and imagined a modern orchestra; created literature, painting, the forms of government, and all in a few thousand years, despite this strange conception of our impotence and frailty. By Jove, sometimes I almost want to go and just lift my hat in reverence to my race!”
“What’s going to happen after this war is over?” I said, interested in this revelation of Alan.
“Here?”
“Well, I was thinking of America. Been thinking a lot about it lately. You’ve had the chance to knock about as I haven’t. What do you think is coming?”
“I’ll answer you like this,” he said, reaching for a pipe which he held a moment nervously in his teeth, champing on it as a horse does on its bit. “It’s all complex till you look at it in just one way. Look at it as you would the forces of nature. Forces of human nature act just the same way. That is, if you can see them in the proper perspective.
“There’s only one genuine aristocracy in the world to-day: that’s Germany. It is a genuine force, because it does lead, is educated to lead. England is an aristocracy that is more or less artificial, struggling to hold the leadership it has inherited. And, Davy, I’m not so sure that Germany is going to be beaten.”