“No offence. Most men I know have had their pre-conceived ideas pretty badly shaken up. That’s my own experience. Well—time enough to discuss all that. Only—I’ll say this. Whatever you may think of war, and I was a good deal of a pacifist, myself, to have been over here, to see what this old world is capable of in a crisis, gives me a better liking for my fellow man. I haven’t always had a very affectionate regard for him. But, by Jove, what I’ve seen of this people over here makes me respect myself a little more just as a plain human being!”
“You’re plumb right there, Mister, whoever you may be!” said a voice back of us, a voice with the nasal Yankee twang.
“It is glorious, I grant you,” said Magnus quietly.
“But useless?”
“Quite useless, because it accomplishes nothing toward a final solution; but, of course, where we differ, and, I suppose, in all arguments will come back to it, is that I don’t admit the necessity of nationality.”
“That’s frank, and glad you mentioned it,” said Brinsmade, with a certain joy. “For that is the one big thing that has come out of the war, and it’s bigger than creed or politics, Magnus. See what happened to your German Socialists! It’s the rock on which you’ve split!”
“For the present, quite true,” said Magnus, “but it’s the backbone of Socialism and, if we are not internationalists, we are not Socialists.”
“Why?”
“Well—put it this way. You’ll agree that war is savagery, and contrary to the spirit of civilization; in other words, that what we are all seeking is a final and enduring peace?”