One human brain cannot hold, one memory retain, one pen portray the limitless Cant, Delusion and Delirium let loose on the world during those four years. It surpasses the most fantastic imagination. It was incredible—and I suppose that was why it was believed. It was the supreme and tragic climax of Victorian Cant, for after all the Victorians were still in full blast in 1914, and had pretty much the control of everything. Did they appeal to us honestly, and say: “We have made a colossal and tragic error, we have involved you and all of us in a huge War; it’s too late to stop it; you must come and help us, and we promise to take the first opportunity of making peace and making it thoroughly?” They did not. They said they didn’t want to lose us but they thought _WE_ ought to go; they said our King and Country needed us; they said they’d kiss us when we came home (merci! effect of the Entente Cordiale?); they said one of the most civilized races in the world were “Huns”; they invented Cadaver factories; they asserted that a race of men notorious during generations for their kindliness were habitual baby-butchers, rapers of women, crucifiers of prisoners; they said the “Huns” were sneaks and cowards and skedadellers, but failed to explain why it took fifty-one months to beat their hopelessly outnumbered armies; they said they were fighting for the Liberty of the World, and everywhere there is less liberty; they said they would Never sheathe the Sword until et cetera, and this sort of criminal rant was called Pisgah-Heights of Patriotism.... They said... But why continue? Why go on? It is desolating, desolating. And then they dare wonder why the young are cynical and despairing and angry and chaotic! And they still have adherents, who still dare to go on preaching to _us!_ Quick! A shrine to the goddesses Cant and Impudence.... * * * * * I don’t know if George was aware of all this, because we never discussed it. There were numbers of things you prudently didn’t discuss in those days; you never knew who might be listening and “report.” I myself was twice arrested as a civilian, for wearing a cloak and looking foreign, and for laughing in the street; I was under acute suspicion for weeks in one battalion because I had a copy of Heine’s poems and admitted that I had been abroad; in another I was suspected of not being myself, God knows why. That was nothing compared with the persecution endured by D. H. Lawrence, probably the greatest living English novelist, and a man of whom—in spite of his failings—England should be proud.