There was then beginning the great industrial and commercial rivalry between England and Germany that before war came led to so much talk of it; and this rivalry was paralleled by an antipathy between the Kaiser and King Edward that was as frank as the enmity between the nations. Neither sovereign made any disguise of it even when they were together, and I always felt that it did them both good--for a strong hostility is often as potent as a strong affection to make character. But let me leave the sovereigns for a moment and turn to the people. The English impressed and baffled me in many ways. To the foreigner of Latin blood and temperament, the English character indeed presents an almost insoluble enigma. Often just when we feel that we are really beginning to understand it, we are faced with some contradictory trait that completely baffles us. Certainly when we saw the country, apparently seething with internal dissensions, lay aside its family quarrels and present a united front to the enemy, we realised more than ever what a complex thing the English mentality is. I must confess I thought that it would be hard for England to rise to any great national emergency, not so much because things seemed to have reached the breaking point in Ireland or because her colonies seemed bound to her more by self-interest than by real loyalty, but on account of the devastating habits of ease and luxury that had spread like a disease among her aristocracy. But now we know that these corrupting influences had not vitally affected the upper classes. Unlike the extravagances of ancient Rome that had eaten to the heart of the nation’s energies, England’s hurt was only skin-deep. We can have no doubt of this when we see great ladies facing unfamiliar hardships and risks at the battle front, others dismantling their huge country houses and transforming them into hospitals and others freely giving their whole time and activities to the great relief organisations for the war’s sufferers. The English aristocracy’s ingrained sense of responsibility to the nation remains untouched by all its latterly acquired taste for luxury and over-indulgence in sports. I say “latterly acquired,” because it is undoubtedly true that this love of extravagance has grown enormously during the last decade or so. From the pomp and lavishness displayed nowadays in certain smart establishments, I should never realise that I was in the same circle whose courtesy and simplicity used to delight me so in the England I learned to love years ago.