_I was perhaps afraid to displease others, afraid of enmities; it is true I cared too much to love, above all to be loved. I feared to lose the good-will of those around me, however feeble and insipid such a feeling may be. It is a sort of play acted by ourselves and others. No one is deceived by it, since both sides shrink from the word which might crack the plaster and bring the house about our ears. There is an inward equivocation which fears to see clearly in itself, wants to make the best of everything, to reconcile old instincts and new beliefs, mutually destructive forces, like the ideas of Country and Humanity, War and Peace.... We are not sure which side to take; we lean first one way and then the other, like a see-saw; afraid of the effort needed to come to a decision and choose. What slothful cowardice is here! All whitewashed over with a comfortable faith in the goodness of things, which will, we think, settle themselves. And we continue to look on, and glorify the impeccable course of Destiny, paying court to blind Force_. _Failing us, other things--and other men--have chosen; and not till then did we understand our mistake, but it was so dreadful to admit it, and we were so unaccustomed to be honest, that we acted as if we were in sympathy with the crime. In proof of this sympathy we have given up our own sons whom we love with all our hearts, more than life--if we could but give our lives for theirs!--but not more than our pride, with which we try to veil the moral confusion, the empty darkness of mind and heart_. _We will say nothing of those who still believe in the old idol; grim, envious, blood be-spattered as she is--the barbarous Country. These kill, sacrificing themselves and others, but at least they know what they do. But what of those who have ceased to believe (like me, alas! and you)? Their sons are sacrificed to a lie, for if you assert what you doubt, it is a falsehood, and they offer up their own children to prove this lie to themselves; and now that our beloved have died for it, far from confessing it, we hide our heads still deeper not to see what we have done. After our sons will come others, all the others, offered up for our untruth_.